Professional Organizations Related to Arts and Healing
General Guidelines and Principles of Music Therapy Re-print permission granted by the author, Byung-Chuel Choi, Ph.D. (RiverBendds.org)
THEORETICAL PRINCIPLES OF MUSIC THERAPY
The principle of ISO
ISO means equal and characterises the musical sound identity of each individual. It is a dynamic element made up of the strength of all past and present perception.
- American Music Therapy Association - MusicTherapy.org
- American Dance Therapy Association - adta.org
- American Art Therapy Association - ArtTherapy.org
- North American Drama Therapy Association - nadta.org
- National Association for Poetry Therapy - PoetryTherapy.org
- International Expressive Arts Therapy Association - ieata.org
- National Coalition of Arts Therapies Associations - nccata.org
General Guidelines and Principles of Music Therapy Re-print permission granted by the author, Byung-Chuel Choi, Ph.D. (RiverBendds.org)
- Pervasiveness of Music. Music exists in all cultures.
- Music is the essence of humanness. Music is a form of human behavior, not only man creates it but also he creates his relationship to it.
- Successful experiences with music lead to feelings of accomplishment and gratification which contribute to self-concept.
- Behavior in other contexts is reflected in the music participation.
- Music is a facilitator for bringing physical responses.
- Music is a source of gratification. Music provides opportunities for achievement in noncompetitive situations.
- Music has an entertainment nature. People enjoy listening to music, dancing to music, playing game with music, etc.
- Music makes an environmental contact. Favorable and familiar music establishes a comfortable and safe environment at once. This leads to the ISO-Principle of music.
- Music is an emotional expression. Man uses music to express his emotions that are sometimes difficult to express through language.
- Music is a form of communication. Although music is not a universal language, this enables man to communicate with others.
- Music is structured and time ordered and its predictability provides a basis for anxiety control, cooperation, and purposeful engagement.
- Music triggers memory. Music associates with one's past experience instantly. Cooperation possible through structured, predictable experiences leads to opportunities for conjoint activity and interaction with others/music provides for self-directed and other directed processing.
- Group participation that is facilitated easily with music leads to feeling needed by others and provides opportunities for peer approval and acceptance, as well as negative peer sanction for inappropriate behaviors.
THEORETICAL PRINCIPLES OF MUSIC THERAPY
The principle of ISO
ISO means equal and characterises the musical sound identity of each individual. It is a dynamic element made up of the strength of all past and present perception.
- UNIVERSAL ISO This is musical sound identity which characterises or identifies all human beings independently from their social, cultural, historical and psycho-physical context. Certain characteristics, like the heart beat and breathing in and out for example, make up the universal ISO, as well as the voice of one’s mother when born and during the first few days of life.
- GESTALT ISO This is a phenomenon concerning sound and internal movement which sums up our sound archetypes, our intra-uterine sound experiences and the sounds we heard at birth, during childhood and currently. It is a sound structure within a sound mosaic and which, fundamentally, is in perpetual motion.
- COMPLEMENTARY ISO This is a collection of small modifications which are made every day or in each music therapy session under the influence of environmental and dynamic circumstances.
- GROUP ISO This is closely related to the society in which a person grows up. Group ISO is fundamental for uniting a therapeutic group. It is a dynamic which pervades the group as a combination of all the members’ sound identities. Within it there is a collection of psycho-physiological factors of sound and movement which depends on the last Gestalt ISO feature mentioned above of each individual.