Yu-Ying Chen

Each participant engaged with a single-session group musical improvisation and verbal discussion in a pre-designed protocol. The data analysis was conducted in three stages. In the first analysis stage, participants’ verbal feedback and discussion were analyzed using Moustakas’s method, yielding keywords with quotations. In the second stage, Moustakas’s method of analysis was also adapted for an analysis of the music, yielding keywords with music excerpts of significant moments. In the third stage, the researcher conducted a composite review of keywords and significant quotations as well as significant musical moments. The data were comprehensively reviewed, reflected on, clustered, and thematized, yielding the following five themes: (a) the therapist’s experience of work in inpatient psychiatric care, (b) the patient’s experience of hospitalization in inpatient psychiatry, (c) the participants’ experiences of group musical improvisation in single session, (d) the participants’ challenges in single-session improvisation, and (e) therapeutic components in single-session group improvisational music therapy. This study demonstrated how, through this single-session group musical improvisation, participants in this setting were able to find the sense of safety and structure they needed to amplify and process their emotions, thoughts, and issues. Nonetheless, this study also noted the difficulties and challenges that participants experienced with this treatment modality, meaning that a range of creative arts therapies or conventional verbal interventions ought to be integrally and comprehensively considered.