Improvisational Music Therapy and the Rehabilitation of Persons Suffering from Chronic Schizophrenia

Persons suffering from chronic schizophrenia characteristi cally show signs of social withdrawal and emotional flatten ing. Music therapy, which makes use of spontaneous musical improvisation to establish a nonverbal interaction between therapist and person, encourages persons to develop their interactive capacities. This study shows that patients suffer ing from schizophrenia who attended a series of individual music therapy sessions improved in their clinical status and in their level of musical interaction with the therapist. The results suggest that music therapy can play a role in the rehabilitation of chronic schizophrenics. Persons suffering from chronic schizophrenia, besides exhib iting the more florid symptoms of the illness, characteristically show signs of apathy, emotional flattening, poor concentration, impaired tolerance of stimulation, and difficulty with nonverbal and verbal communication (Creer & Wing, 1974; Cutting, 1985; Morgan & Cheadle, 1981; Psychiatric Working Report, 1980; Schwartz, 1982). These disabling symptoms predispose to social withdrawal and inactivity, allowing the patient to create the type of low stimulation environment most likely to lead to further deterioration (Wing & Brown, 1970). This cycle of events is just as likely to occur in patients who are living in the com munity as in patients in the back wards of a bad mental hospital (Brown, Bone, Dalinson, & Wing, 1966). A major aim of re-Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. M. Pavlicevic, Nordoff-Robbin