A case study about intensive music therapy process with a depressed client in late adulthood

Abstract

Depression is a common illness with over 350 million people suffering from it worldwide. Transitional periods in life, such as the retirement process, can make people especially vulnerable to developing depressive illnesses.

This master's thesis aims at describing the intensive music therapy process with a depressed 65-year old female client concentrating on themes that arise in the process, and which music therapy methods are suitable for processing these themes in the therapy.

Results show a corresponding result with previous studies about music therapy in treatment of depression giving support to the notion that music creates emotional associations and memories helping to get in contact with problems and processing them. Music therapy seems to serve as an effective alternative for standard care helping clients to improve with their level of depression. The client of this study was able to improve her perceived quality of life and reported being satisfied with the therapy process.