Storycomposing in music therapy. A collaborative experiment with a young co-researcher

Abstract

This text describes how a young person interprets his own musical creations created in a meaning reconstruction process after a traumatic loss. He investigates his own music therapy process as a co-researcher with a therapist-researcher. The source of this study is a two-year music therapy process with a 7-to-9-year-old boy after the accidental death of his sibling. The music therapy method used is Storycomposing, which is based on personal musical inventions and interaction. The research process takes place five years later with the same boy. Now 14 years old, the boy was invited to be a co-researcher. This text also introduces the Storycomposing method, which was created together with children under school age in 1999-2002 in a day-care centre. During this period, Storycomposing showed its practical efficiency both as a music therapy method and in other musical contexts. The method is also used as a research tool in this research experiment. The text describes the communication between mind and music within the Storycomposing method in a meaning making process from a child’s perspective. As the creator of Storycomposing, I want to discover more about how Storycomposing functions and facilitates a child to recover mentally. First, the background and the principles of the Storycomposing method is presented. Then the episodes from the collaborative research project with a young co-researcher is described. These episodes are elements of research narratives in my forthcoming doctoral thesis.