A Portfolio of Academic, Therapeutic Practice and Research Work Including an Investigation of the Therapeutic Relationship in Music Therapy: An Interpretative Phenomenological Study of Music Therapists' Perspectives.

This portfolio comprises of three dossiers: academic, therapeutic practice and research. These have been compiled in partial fulfilment of the Practitioner Doctorate in Psychotherapeutic and Counselling Psychology, University of Surrey. The aim of this portfolio is to portray the author’s professional and personal development in her journey in becoming a counselling psychologist, reflecting her interests, competencies and skills developed over this time. The academic dossier contains three theoretical essays. The first essay explores the use of the body in psychoanalysis. The second essay explores a theoretical approach of person-based cognitive therapy for psychosis in the context of assertive outreach. The third essay considers the implications of ‘transference’ within the therapeutic relationship as a concept used in cognitive behavioural therapy. The therapeutic dossier aims to share the author’s developmental process in becoming a counselling psychologist, contains information about placements undertaken as part of the course and a clinical paper reflect this experience. The research dossier contains three pieces of research and copies of conference presentations. The focus of the research has been on the therapeutic use of music therapy. The first piece is a literature review exploring the relational and meaning-making aspects of the therapeutic use of music. The second piece of research explores psychotherapeutic practitioners’ perspectives of the therapeutic use of music using a qualitative method. Template analysis was employed to analyse interviews of 13 psychotherapeutic practitioners’ therapeutic experiences and perceptions of the use of music. Developing further from this study, the third piece of research explores music therapists’ perspectives of the therapeutic relationship in music therapy. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse interviews of 8 music therapists