Date of Award

Summer 9-15-2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

PHD - Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Expressive Therapies

First Advisor

Michele Forinash

Second Advisor

Robyn Faum Cruz

Third Advisor

Seung-A Kim

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to understand how Korean professional therapists who practice the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) understand their clients’ resistance through the imagery experience.

Participants in this study were six Korean GIM therapists living and working in South Korea. Two more Korean GIM therapists were recruited to take charge of guiding a total of six participants to examine this inquiry. Each GIM guide helped three participants. All six participants and two GIM therapists were regular members of the Association for Music and Imagery and the Korean Association for Music and Imagery. The researcher used the regular member list of the Korean Association for Music and Imagery to contact participants. Two GIM therapists were recruited to take the role of GIM therapist in GIM reimaging sessions. Each of them guided three GIM reimaging sessions.

Participants took part in the GIM reimaging sessions, which were modified to fit the research inquiry. The research data were transcripts of the GIM reimaging sessions and the reflection note that participants sent via email after the reimaging session.

The findings revealed seven themes: (1) the rupture of therapeutic relationships as a form of their clients’ resistance; (2) reasons why clients had been showing resistant behaviors; (3) participants’ interventions to their clients’ resistance (e.g., giving time and space to their clients); (4) negative feelings about client resistance; (5) how participants’ imagery unfolded; (6) change in participants’ perception about their clients’ resistance, from a negative evaluation to the acceptance of clients’ resistance as natural in the therapy process; and (7) participants’ insight into their imagery experience in music, including caring for themselves and their clients.

Ultimately, the GIM reimaging sessions enabled participants to reconsider and change their perceptions about their clients’ resistance. Based on the imagery experience in a GIM reimaging session, participants began to consider the mental roadblocks in their perceptions to understand their clients’ resistance. Through this imagery experience, participants expanded their perceptions of clients’ resistance and could evaluate how their clients’ resistance had affected them as GIM therapists. The benefits of the GIM reimaging session as a self-care tool and GIM supervision tool are discussed.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Language

English

Number of Pages

125

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