Music-assisted reframing : a comparison of treatments for anxiety
Date
1997
Authors
Kerr, Thomas Hudson
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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of music-facilitated affective modification on anxiety. A growing body of literature indicates that affective stimulation, expression, and modification are integral to the process of promoting lasting therapeutic change. Researchers of this area typically_argue that affective modification methods can be used to enhance existing cognitive interventions - because such approaches serve to treat "more of the individual".
Researchers investigating affective change frequently cite the need for alternative media that enter the affective system more efficiently than verbal-based methods. Research examining music-based mood induction and music-assisted therapeutic interventions has shown that music can be used to facilitate affective change. However, recent efforts have focused primarily on using music for distraction and/or relaxation, rather than using music as a means of promoting positive mood states in the service of affective modification.
Using a sample of 40 anxious adults, taken primarily from a university population, this study examined the use of music as a means of enhancing an existing cognitive intervention, reducing anxiety, and promoting affective modification and imagery vividness. Subjects were led through either a typical cognitive reframing intervention, or a music-assisted reframing intervention. Groups were compared on the basis of anxiety reduction (using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Subjective Units of Distress Scale). In order to assess whether or not affective modification had occurred, the Depression Adjective Checklist was administered at pretest, midway through the treatment, and at posttest. This measure revealed subtle state-oriented changes in mood state. Finally, a Think-Aloud measure was utilized to determine if subjects in the music based treatment reported affective changes in their perceived anxiety, and imagery vividness with greater frequency. Together these measures revealed that affective modification, facilitated through the music-based treatment, did reduce anxiety, and increase affective modification, imagery vividness, and consequently, ellhanced the purely cognitive intervention.
In the closing chapter of the thesis, explanations for the findings are presented in light of past research. The limitations of the investigation are also discussed, and recommendations for clinical practice and future research on affective modification are provided.