Creating a COVID-19 Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) self-help resource for those with mild to moderate symptoms of the disease — Lawes

Special feature | Reports on online music therapy

Volume 14 (1) 2022 – Report (first published on 13 November 2020)

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Creating a COVID-19 Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) self-help resource for those with mild to moderate symptoms of the disease

Martin Lawes

ABSTRACT

This report discusses the creation of a COVID-19 Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) self-help resource available on YouTube in nine different languages. GIM, which is a specialist area of practice in music therapy, is best understood as a spectrum of methods. The COVID self-help resource is an example of ‘directed music imaging’, which is an outcome-specific GIM method where a talk-over or imagery script is spoken aloud whilst the music is playing. The resource is intended both to support the body’s own healing process in patients with mild to moderate disease and to provide psychological and emotional support. The suitability of the music used, Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, is discussed, as is the talk-over and its relationship with the music. Special concerns that needed to be addressed in creating a generic online GIM resource for COVID patients are also discussed.

KEYWORDS

Guided Imagery and Music (GIM), COVID-19, self-help resource, directed music imaging, talk-over, Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, music breathing

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Martin Lawes is a UK based music therapist additionally trained in Guided Imagery and Music (GIM). He is a Fellow of the Association for Music and Imagery (AMI), an AMI endorsed GIM Primary Trainer and founder of the London-based Integrative GIM Training Programme (www.integrativegim.org). Martin is a former chair of both the Board and Education Committee of the European Association of Music and Imagery (EAMI), a founder member of its Ethics Committee and a former member of the AMI Standards Committee. Martin has several publications about GIM included in peer reviewed journals. [martinlawesmt@gmail.com]