Music for Affect Regulation: Music Listening in Group Receptive Music Therapy in the Treatment of Depression.

Laansma, MMJ (Meertine)¹, Haffmans, P.M. (Judith)²
¹PsyQ, psycho-medical programs, The Hague, Nederland
²PsyQ, psycho- medical programs, The Hague, Nederland

Submission type

Oral only

Scheduled

Poster, Beurs van Berlage , Grote Zaal

Kernwoorden

affectregulation, depression, music therapy

Onderzoeksgebied

Anxiety and depression

Introductie

In this paper an experimental multiple case design (N=8) study will be presented on the effect of music listening to preferred music in receptive music therapy in the treatment of chronic depression with outpatients. Depression causes problems in the recognition and experience of emotions. Music listening seems to be effective in experiencing emotions and regulate mood and is linked to emotional processing, which helps patients to recognize, tolerate and regulate emotions (Koelsch, 2011, Punkanen, 2011). Receptive music therapy in the treatment of depression provides real-time experiences for exploring, sharing and controlling emotions and feelings. (Saarikallio & Erkkilä, 2007)

Materiaal en methodes

An exploratory study was performed with outpatients in a part-time group in a day treatment programme. Mood, experienced emotions and strategies were measured after listening by 3 self-report questionaires and underlying mechanisms were queried in the sessions.

Resultaten

The results suggest that music listening is an effective intervention for identifying and intensifying experienced emotions and regulation strategies. Significant correlations between strategies and regulated emotions gave insight into the components of affect regulation strategies.

Conclusie

Our findings suggest that music listening might serve a regulatory function by targeting low positive emotionality, poor mood regulation and maintenance of depressive symptoms.