Micro-Analysis of Processes in a Group Music Therapy for People Living With Mental Health Conditions in the Community: a Quantitative Single-Cases Study

People with mental health conditions (MHC) often face significant barriers in obtaining personal valued social roles and feeling a sense of belonging to their community. With the growing emphasis on community integration, and the fact that the vast majority of people with MHC live in the community, there is an effort to develop interventions and services which focus on recovery, wellbeing, and community integration, to reclaim "right to a safe, dignified, and personal and gratifying life in the community despite his or her psychiatric condition" (Davidson, Tondora, Lawless, O'Connell, & Rowe, 2009, p.11).Music therapy (MT) has been practiced for many decades with growing evidence for its effectiveness in different populations, including people with MHC. Music has pivotal influences on socialization and in building inter-personal skills and has the potential to be effective as a community-based therapeutic approach in bringing people together in a shared experience, an important step towards integration back to the community. MT encourages verbal and non-verbal interactions and offers opportunity to practice interpersonal skills, build relationships and peruse common goals.

The proposed study has a potential to shed additional light on the processes of recovery in people living in the community with MHC who are participating in group CoMT. Although the study will pinpoint to the domains where MT was mostly studied before (social skills, group cohesion and emotional expression), it is unique in two main aspects:

1. Majority of previous MT studies on people with MHC were testing short-term MT interventions in in-patient brief settings. This has limited significance in understanding the generalization of MT into everyday life and promoting wellbeing. In the proposed study, on the other hand, I will try to evaluate the significance of recovery-oriented long-term group CoMT in the community, where most people live, focusing on behavioral domains where MT is expected to benefit most: The client's social skills development, group cohesion and emotional expression (affect improvement).
2. This study, to my knowledge, is the first that is based on longitudinal quantitative micro-analysis of filmed video sessions. This approach bypasses the participants subjective reaction to a qualitative interview (which by itself is important) allowing an additional un-biased angle of observation on the interaction process (assuming that the participants may ignore the presence of the video camera over time).