Jaakko Erkkilä

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Jyväskylä

This chapter considers music therapy in a psychiatric context, focusing on improvisational psychodynamic music therapy (IPMT). The main influences of IPMT come from the theory and concepts of psychoanalysis, although the numerous reforms to the original theory, as well as the many unique qualities of IPMT, have shaped it in many ways over the decad...

In my clinical experience as a music therapist, I have observed that the ambiguous character of music makes it necessary to have a wide and flexible view as to the psychological frame of reference in the background of music therapy. With the help of the three-dimensional model that I have formulated, it is possible to take into account the differen...

Music therapy has previously been found to be effective in the treatment of depression but the studies have been methodologically insufficient and lacking in clarity about the clinical model employed. Aims To determine the efficacy of music therapy added to standard care compared with standard care only in the treatment of depression among working-...

Music therapy is efficacious for the treatment of depression. Compared to other psychotherapeutic forms, it allows for the emergence of various modes of mutual interaction, thus enabling multiple channels for emotional expression and fostering therapeutic alliance. Although musical interaction patterns between client and therapist have been regarde...

Introduction This article explores the use of music and multisensory stimuli in the construction of compensatory neural networks for motoric functioning in a patient recovering from cerebellar strokes (CS). This study aimed to address the real-world clinical concern of patients having a passive role in therapy, by arousing the client’s interest and...

Introduction: There is evidence from earlier trials for the efficacy of music therapy in the treatment of depression among working-age people. Starting therapy sessions with relaxation and revisiting therapeutic themes outside therapy have been deemed promising for outcome enhancement. However, previous music therapy trials have not investigated th...

Introduction Preterm birth may disturb the typical development of the mother–infant relationship, when physical separation and emotional distress in the neonatal intensive care unit may increase maternal anxiety and create challenges for early interaction. This cluster-randomized controlled trial examined the effects of maternal singing during kang...

Background Depression is among the leading causes of disability worldwide. Not all people with depression respond adequately to standard treatments. An innovative therapy that has shown promising results in controlled trials is music therapy. Based on a previous trial that suggested beneficial effects of integrative improvisational music therapy (...

Although music is the fundamental element of music therapy, music analysis methods are a particularly under-researched area. This study investigates how and when psychodynamically orientated music therapists employ the analysis of musical material in both clinical work and research. Constructivist grounded theory was employed in the collection and...

One core characteristic of active music therapy is the facilitation of emotional expression through the creation of music improvisations. In an attempt to further develop this approach, we created an enhanced form of integrative improvisational music therapy by including 10 minutes of resonance frequency breathing (RFB) at the beginning of the sess...

This study aimed at evaluating the possible benefits of starting Integrative Improvisational Music Therapy (IIMT) sessions with 10 min of Resonance Frequency Breathing (RFB), a type of slow breathing known to be beneficial for stress reduction and emotional regulation. A client diagnosed with anxiety disorder and social phobia attended 12 IIMT sess...

In this chapter we discuss the issues of musical identities from the perspective of music therapy and social pharmacology. Social pharmacology focusses on the use of drugs as asocial and cultural behavior. The aim of this approach is to understand and describe patterns of drug use and associated risk behaviors (Montagne 2004). However, in this chap...

Resonance frequency breathing (RFB) is a form of slow breathing at around six breaths/min, whose immediate effects are to substantially increase heart rate variability (HRV) and to reduce stress levels. Since RFB has already been successfully used on its own to treat various emotional disorders, we wanted to evaluate its effect on emotional process...

Clinical improvisation is widely used in music therapeutic settings. This roundtable will reflect the use and innovated research of clinical improvisation in music therapy practice from an international, multi-theoretical perspective.Six music therapists from three different countries will provide a comprehensive presentation about innovated theore...

Background: Microanalysis has grown from 2007 to 2015; first steps of automatization are done and first multi-cases-microanalyses are done.Objective: Workshop will present the state of the art. Afterwards, three groups will be focused in three microanalysis methods. Finally, perspectives will be discussed.Methods: Methods are a phenomenological-ins...

Background: There is a body of literature that recognises the importance of accurate assessment in music therapy, but no consensus regarding the meaning and importance of the musical processes is taking place.Objective: This presentation aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and common clinical practice by exploring how music therapist...

Das finnische Forschungsmodell einer musiktherapeutischen Behandlungspraxis von Depressionen The Finnish research model of a music therapy practice treating depression Summary Music therapy practice within a RCT research setting may benefit from a model that, in a self-learning and reflective manner, is cooperatively constructed and reflected by th...

Gold, C., Fachner, J. & Erkkilä, J. (2012). Validity and reliability of electroencephalographic frontal alpha asymmetry and frontal midline theta as biomarkers for depression. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. Electroencephalographic (EEG) frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) and frontal midline (FM) theta have been suggested as biomarkers for depressio...

Fronto-temporal areas process shared elements of speech and music. Improvisational psychodynamic music therapy (MT) utilizes verbal and musical reflection on emotions and images arising from clinical improvisation. Music listening is shifting frontal alpha asymmetries (FAA) in depression, and increases frontal midline theta (FMT). In a two-armed ra...

Gold C, Erkkilä J, Crawford MJ. Shifting effects in randomised controlled trials of complex interventions: a new kind of performance bias? Objective: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) aim to provide unbiased estimates of treatment effects. However, the process of implementing trial procedures may have an impact on the performance of complex inter...

No abstract available.

Our surrounding auditory environment has a dramatic influence on the development of basic auditory and cognitive skills, but little is known about how it influences the recovery of these skills after neural damage. Here, we studied the long-term effects of daily music and speech listening on auditory sensory memory after middle cerebral artery (MCA...

Depression is a highly prevalent mood disorder, that impairs a person's social skills and also their quality of life. Populations affected with depression also suffer from a higher mortality rate. Depression affects person's ability to recognize emotions. We designed a novel experiment to test the hypothesis that depressed patients show a judgment...

Improvisation is one of the most important concepts of music therapy. At the same time it is very complex and qualitative by nature. For this reason, it is somewhat difficult to teach, especially if the audience is expecting the traditional lectures on the topic. During many years of teaching introductory courses of music therapy, the author has de...

Background. Previous work has shown that improvisations produced by clients during clinical music therapy sessions are amenable to computational analysis. For example, it has been shown that the perception of emotion in such improvisations is related to certain musical features, such as note density, tonal clarity, and note velocity. Other work has...

One part of the Tuning the Brain for Music research project deals with music therapy. Our basic task is to conduct a randomized controlled study on the effect of improvisational music therapy in the treatment of depression. The study follows the evidence based medicine guidelines and there are several outcome measures, some of which are standardize...

We know from animal studies that a stimulating and enriched environment can enhance recovery after stroke, but little is known about the effects of an enriched sound environment on recovery from neural damage in humans. In humans, music listening activates a wide-spread bilateral network of brain regions related to attention, semantic processing, m...

Music therapy is frequently offered to individuals suffering from depression. Despite the lack of research into the effects of music therapy on this population, anecdotal evidence suggests that the results are rather promising. The aim of this study is to examine whether improvisational, psychodynamically orientated music therapy in an individual s...

This article reports a study in which listeners were asked to provide continuous ratings of perceived emotional content of clinical music therapy improvisations. Participants were presented with 20 short excerpts of music therapy improvisations, and had to rate perceived activity, pleasantness and strength using a computer-based slider interface. A...

Without Abstract

A B S T R AC T The aim of this study was the exploration and theoretical clarification of the role of music in adolescents' mood regulation. The phenomenon was approached through an inductive theory construction. The data were gathered from eight adolescents by means of group interviews and follow-up forms, and were then analysed using constructive...

A B S T R AC T The aim of this study was the exploration and theoretical clarification of the role of music in adolescents' mood regulation. The phenomenon was approached through an inductive theory construction. The data were gathered from eight adolescents by means of group interviews and follow-up forms, and were then analysed using constructive...

This paper describes an ongoing research project, of which the purpose is to develop an automatic (computer-based) music analysis system that could be used in the analysis of improvisations produced in clinical music therapy. The paper begins by putting the project in context, and outlining the overall method employed. Following this is a descripti...

The present study sought to identify relationships between musical features of music therapy improvisations and clients' level of mental retardation, using a computationally-based method of analysis. 216 improvisations, contributed by 50 clients, were collected in MIDI format. Clients were divided into four groups according to their level of diagno...

In this article the relationship between music and language is first considered theoretically. Here the ideas and concepts are mainly derived from psychoanalytical theory as well as from its reformulations. A theory on the (early) forms of thinking is presented in which the author grounds the different types of meaning included both in music and la...

This paper describes an ongoing research project, the purpose of which is to develop an automatic (computer-based) music analysis system that could be used in the analysis of improvisations produced in clinical music therapy. The paper begins by putting the project in context, and outlining the overall method employed. Following this is a descripti...

Music Therapy and Group WorkDavies, Alison. & Richards, Eleanor (2002), Music Therapy and Group Work: Sound Company, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.Contemporary Voices in Music TherapyCarolyn Kenny and Brynjulf Stige (Ed.) (2002), Contemporary Voices in Music Therapy – Communication, Culture, and Community, Oslo: Unipub forlag.Pediatric Music...