How Music Matters

Open Music Listening Groups in Mental Health Settings This presentation will outline a multidisciplinary, multisite, innovative project based across a variety of mental health settings within the NHS, including P.I.C.U.,... [ view full abstract ]

Open Music Listening Groups in Mental Health Settings

This presentation will outline a multidisciplinary, multisite, innovative project based across a variety of mental health settings within the NHS, including P.I.C.U., acute admissions, supported living and secure units.

After two initial training sessions, facilitated by a qualified Music Psychotherapist, music listening open groups have been offered by Occupational Therapy staff once weekly. Due to the positive impact of two groups run since 2010, further groups were set up to include different service user populations.

While not clinical music therapy sessions, these listening groups are therapeutic, based on underlying principles from research in the areas of: music therapy, psycho-neurology, music psychology, the Model Of Human Occupation (MOHO) and attachment theory.

Due to the significant effect on both service users and staff, the listening groups are currently being evaluated with data from staff, service users, facilitator observations and formal assessment tools (e.g. MOHOST, Volitional Questionnaire (VQ) and Assessment of Communication and Interaction Skills (ACIS)). A grounded theory methodology is also part of our evaluation method.