Music Therapy with Patients with Personality Disorder

Advantages and Challenges

Autores

  • Niels Hannibal Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
  • Gitta Strehlow Institute of Music Therapy, Hamburg University of Music and Drama, Hamburg, Germany

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v24i2.4018

Palavras-chave:

music therapy, psychotherapy, rupture, repair, personality disorder, alliance

Resumo

This clinically oriented article reflects on music therapy with patients with a personality disorder diagnosis, focusing on music improvisation and the advantages and challenges it may provide for both patient and therapist. The method used is reflexive and based on a combination of many years of clinical experience and theoretical reflection. The article has four parts. The first part describes our approach to music therapy. The second part presents our view on challenges in music therapy with patients with a personality disorder (PD) and specifically borderline personality disorder (BPD) issues. The third part presents our view on the advantages of music therapy with this client group and the fourth part is a discussion. The discussion has three topics: 1. Does this article present a more nuanced picture of music therapy with a more diverse understanding of challenges and advantages? 2. What is the relationship between challenges/advantages and rupture/repair? 3. How does music therapy relate to common factor theory?

Biografia do Autor

Niels Hannibal, Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Niels Hannibal, PhD, is an associate professor in the music therapy programme, Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark. He has been part of the music therapy research unit at University Hospital Psychiatry since 1995, where he has done research and clinical music therapy. He was trained in mentalizationbased treatment in 2014. He is training to become a Guided Imagery and Music therapist. Niels has done research in music therapy with patients with different psychiatric conditions such as personality disorder, depression, PTSD, and schizophrenia. The main topics of interest are alliance building in therapy, theoretical descriptions of therapy, and including a more user-based perspective in research in clinical practice.

Gitta Strehlow, Institute of Music Therapy, Hamburg University of Music and Drama, Hamburg, Germany

Prof. Dr. sc.mus. Gitta Strehlow has been working for over 20 years with adults in the Bethesda Hospital Hamburg-Bergedorf, Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and parallel to this with sexually abused children. Since 2019, she has been Professor of Music Therapy at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama (Germany). She was trained in mentalization-based treatment in 2007 and since then she has regularly provided further training for music therapists in mentalization-based treatment. Gitta has done research in music therapy on patients with borderline personality disorder and PTSD. Her main interests are theory building in music therapy, psychodynamic thinking, and the concept of alliance rupture and repair.

Author photo, Hannibal & Strehlow

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Publicado

2024-07-05

Como Citar

Hannibal, N., & Strehlow, G. (2024). Music Therapy with Patients with Personality Disorder: Advantages and Challenges. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v24i2.4018

Edição

v. 24 n. 2 (2024)

Seção

Reflections on Practice

Licença

Copyright (c) 2024 Niels Hannibal, Gitta Strehlow

Creative Commons License
Este trabalho está licenciado sob uma licença Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Articles published prior to 2019 are subject to the following license, see: https://voices.no/index.php/voices/copyright