Thinking Through Improvisation

As part of a larger research study investigating humour in music therapy with persons with dementia, this article details how music therapists perceive, embody and experience humour in their practice. Three focus groups with music therapists ( N = 9) were organised and resulting data analysed through arts-based reflexive methods. Building on Schenstead’s (2012) articulation of arts-based reflexivity, two distinct and overlapping forms of thinking through improvisation are highlighted; self-reflexivity and collaborative-reflexivity. Finlay’s (2011) phenomenological lifeworld-oriented questions are used to explicate dimensions of experiences of humour and frame broad thematic reflections. Particular correspondence between improvisation as a way of being and humour in music therapy are explored performatively through a group improvisation involving the first author. The findings from this synthesis offer insight into how music therapists conceive of humour in their work as supportive of relational bonding, and also experience humour as distancing and defensive behaviour. Along with the perceived risks of humour in relational therapeutic work, an intricate balance between playfulness and professionalism surfaced as part of a music therapy identity. Improvisation, while seemingly taken for granted as a part of spontaneous humour, is also problematised through the perceived seriousness of learning how to improvise as a music therapist aligning with a psychodynamic approach. The consequences of these findings are discussed in relation to music therapy pedagogy and practice along with methodological implications of thinking through improvisation.

Psychology of pandemics and fear of epidemic

Infectious outbreaks have stirred the psychological health and mental wellbeing of individuals on a global basis. It is evident from the 1918 influenza in addition to the current COVID-19. Psychological factors are significant for comprehension and overseeing cultural issues related with pandemics, like the spreading of extreme dread, anxiety, and xenophobia that happen when individuals are compromised with infection. The research aims to identify how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected individual’s psychological wellbeing and how the psychodynamic approach can resolve such an issue. Developing a sense of detachment from oneself and the growing fear of being infected significantly affects an individual psychological wellbeing. This analysis concentrates predominantly on applying the psychodynamic approach to ascertain individual’s psychological threats during the COVID-19 crisis. This research focuses on revealing the variations generated from the psyche of individuals due to the COVID-19. It also aims to highlight the impact that COVID-19 have created on the mental health of individual beings. Moreover, the pandemic consequence on the individual’s overall lifestyle has discussed in the study.