Mindfulness in music therapy clinical improvisation: When the music flows

This dissertation is a qualitative study of the experiences of music therapists in clinical improvisation at those moments when the music flows. Ten experienced music therapists who use clinical improvisation participated in interviews with the researcher to listen to excerpts of clinical improvisations from individual music therapy sessions with children, adolescents, and adults with a range of developmental and psychological issues. The participants were asked to choose excerpts from their clinical work based on their notion of musical flow. The data suggested that the therapists' experiences involved a continual process of bringing their attention to the present musical moment, in essence, cultivating mindfulness.;The opening chapters of the study reflect the temporal aspect of the therapists' experiences: Starting Where You Are, Getting to the Point, and The Point. Themes were developed from the therapists' descriptions of a continual process of letting go, of becoming aware of and relinquishing patterns of playing and tendencies in thinking and feeling that distracted them from being fully involved in the present musical moment, leading to their deep engagement in the creative process: The Art of Showing Up, At the Limits of Thinking, Listening and Playing in the Present Musical Moment, Relating and Being in the Third Space, Breaching Beyond, The Middle Way with Thoughts and Feelings, The Unfolding Path from a Bird's Eye View. Metathemes were developed that illustrated the Unfolding Path of Present Musical Moments, the Path of Self, the Path of Emotions, the Relational Path of the Improvising Therapist, and the Nature of the Third Space in Clinical Improvisation.;A model of clinical improvisation was developed to graphically represent the integration of concepts derived from the findings. Literature on Buddhism in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and creative arts therapies, as well as music therapy writings suggesting spiritual tenets were related to the study's findings. Clinical implications of the study's model of clinical improvisation address the ideas of an impermanent, fluid, and transactional Self, affective flow, nonattachment to thoughts and feelings, and the inter-being nature of musical interaction. Implications for the education of the clinical improviser are also discussed.