Group music therapy in the Aalborg University training programme
At Aalborg University in Denmark, the Department of Communication and Psychology requires all music therapy students to complete self-experience and personal therapy as part of their five-year degree. This emphasis on personal therapeutic processes originates in the analytical music therapy tradition developed by Priestley and Pedersen. What makes Aalborg distinctive is that students engage in therapeutic activities from the very first semester. Their personal development proceeds alongside theoretical instruction and musical learning. Wigram and colleagues have noted that integrating self-experience into an academic setting allows students to use insights from their own growth when studying and discussing psychological theories, music therapy concepts, and clinical methods.
The core aim is helping future music therapists shape and continually refine their own personality as their primary therapeutic instrument. By becoming more aware of their own subjectivity, they can approach clients with greater openness, empathy, and capacity for containment. In the Aalborg model, it matters greatly that the therapy students themselves experience is primarily music therapy. Ken Bruscia, the American music therapist, argued that every music therapist ought to become a client in music therapy to genuinely grasp the medium they are using. He expressed this by paraphrasing the old adage: a music therapist should not only heal him- or herself but also take his or her own medicine.
Throughout their training, students discover the power of music to explore their inner world and to reflect on emotions, communication styles, relational habits, personal limits, and hidden potentials. Through musical engagement they come to know both their strengths and vulnerabilities. They learn that using music therapeutically can bring them into contact with difficult personal material while also unlocking resources and creativity.
This discussion focuses specifically on group music therapy, the first clinical subject students attend within the therapeutic track of the programme. Music therapy students begin with group work in the first three semesters, amounting to roughly 120 hours of group music therapy spread over one and a half years.
One purpose of these groups is building a strong group identity so students can directly experience the power and cohesion that emerges from belonging to a group. Participants learn to share authentic material, examine their own role within the group, and heighten their awareness of themselves and others. In a group music therapy setting, students have an unusually rich environment for self-discovery. They receive mirroring, resonance, and support from peers, and in turn they witness and respond to their classmates’ processes.
The group therapy room is arranged with enough chairs placed in a circle for the number of members. The key difference between this setup and typical psychodynamic group work is the presence of music as a non-verbal medium alongside spoken conversation. Consequently the room contains many instruments: melodic, rhythmic, and string instruments made of varied materials and sizes. These instruments offer a wide range of expressive possibilities and stir different sensations and emotions in each participant. An important goal in the group’s learning process is for students to understand how to work with improvisation in music therapy.
The remainder of this text examines the use of improvisation in detail, supported by illustrative vignettes. An improvisation is music that is not composed ahead of time; it is essentially a sound-picture of the present moment. In other words, a space for playing is created, a place for action where feelings and needs can be expressed and exchanged through spontaneous interaction. Unlike verbal discussion, in a musical improvisation many people can 'talk' by making sounds simultaneously without causing harm. That multiplicity actually clarifies how each individual contributes and belongs to the whole group.
An improvisation can be completely unstructured, giving freedom of expression without any specific playing rule — similar to a free discussion in a verbal therapy group. Or it can be shaped with a musical rule as a shared starting point. For instance a rule might ask participants to begin by playing only one note at a time, then gradually add more notes. Another possible guide is a common theme the group wishes to explore or is invited to explore by the therapist, such as 'being visible or invisible in the group'.
In a student music therapy group, the verbal and non-verbal parts of the process interweave. Improvisation serves many functions during the course of the group work, the first being as a meeting place. The group might open a session with an improvisation, trying to ground themselves in the music and then exploring possible musical contact with one another. Afterward they might spend a few minutes making a spontaneous drawing to hold on to some aspect of their experience in the music. This non-verbal component is then followed by a verbal discussion where members can put words to how they felt in the music.
For example, a group met again after a long break. After initial greetings, they were invited to improvise to explore the 'temperature of the group'. The sounds they produced were chaotic and at times fragmented. When they discussed what happened, very different experiences and feelings surfaced — ranging from happiness to frustration to feeling lost. This discussion helped the group realise that they were not yet truly reunited because many members had not arrived with their full attention. Acknowledging that fact became an important step toward genuinely being together.
Improvisation as a form of spontaneous interaction and non-verbal communication encourages participants to play and access both their own inner creativity and the creativity that arises from the interactive space between them. It is a creative method that frames time and space for shared inquiry, typically generating moments of surprise. The whole group creates something new together in the here and now.
After an improvisation, the music can be left to speak for itself, or group members can be asked to reflect verbally on what took place and why. An improvisation can be described concretely in terms of what was heard. What often interests the group work is hearing how each individual experienced the improvisation: what they were concerned with, what inner images emerged, and what feelings or memories were stirred. The creativity continues in the verbal discussion that follows, because the shared sound-picture can be interpreted in numerous ways. Sometimes commonalities are articulated; at other times experiences diverge completely, and the group finds itself momentarily split into subgroups. Through such experiences, the aim is for the group to recognise that multiple perspectives reveal how complex and diverse a collection of people can be.
Improvisation gives each group member a potential space to investigate themselves and each other, to listen to others deeply without losing their own perspective. In this way they develop the ability to contain differences — both inside the music and outside of it.
As group leader I strive to balance following the specific group’s process while also offering a structured framework for the work.
I may invite the group to concentrate on a particular theme. One such theme is 'the inner child', and a possible focus within that framework is guiding the group to engage with their senses. Students are asked to approach the instruments as if seeing them for the very first time. They each hold an instrument, feel its material, and perhaps smell it. Next they investigate it the way a child might, trying out the sounds it can make.
When the group members began this exploration, the sounds were initially very soft and cautious: one student touched a guitar string with a fingernail, another gently stroked a drum skin, a third murmured her voice inside the piano. Gradually the group started experimenting with many funny and unexpected sounds that set off laughter. Afterwards several members noted how liberating and redeeming this improvisation felt, allowing them to give in to an open inquiry and let impulses sound. But the theme of safety also surfaced in the discussion — some discovered they did not yet feel secure enough to let go and be playful; the fear of 'doing something wrong' emerged.
My role as the group music therapist — what the curriculum calls an 'educational therapist' — is to guide the group through the learning areas described in the syllabus. Part of that involves facilitating a space for improvisation and interaction. I generally do not take part in the improvisations. Instead I focus on listening, holding whatever they express in my awareness, and safeguarding the boundaries around the group work. In some ways the metaphor used by Foulkes, describing the therapist as a conductor, fits my function as group music therapist. Like a conductor I facilitate a therapeutic space for the whole group and for each individual. I encourage participation, communication, engagement, and reflection. However, because this is group therapy offered as part of an educational programme, I sometimes take a more prominent role — securing structure, summing up, clarifying what the group is working on, and highlighting themes that have come to light. I also begin each session by briefly reviewing what the group addressed in the previous meeting. This creates a shared starting point and shows the members that I hold the group in my thoughts during the long breaks between sessions. In terms of therapeutic approach, my work draws on mentalisation-based group therapy (MBT-G).
The improvisation frequently exposes underlying dynamic themes in the group. For instance, it will reveal who plays loudly and takes charge musically, who is softer or barely audible, who is at the front and who at the back. It shows who is playing with whom, who follows, who leads, and so on. The goal of improvisation is authenticity — not harmony or correctness. The aim is to build a safe space enabling a here-and-now experience, thereby generating group material for reflection that stimulates each student’s development of self-awareness and relational sensitivity. Improvisation clarifies relational patterns and opens the possibility of changing them into more suitable ones.
One woman shared a nightmare with the group, describing that she was trapped in a prison and needed help but none was available. A fellow group member drew attention to elements in the dream that showed her ability to reach out for help. I invited this woman to express that resource — her capacity to ask for assistance — through an improvisation with the group’s support. After playing, she reported that her energy had completely transformed and she felt an entirely different relationship to the dream. She realised how accustomed she was to being alone and handling everything by herself, and how strongly she needed others and needed to turn outward more.
The improvisation functions as a potential space: once the group has built a shared sense of safety, members can experiment and explore new ways of being and acting within the music.
Overall, improvisation gives each group participant an opportunity to explore and expand themselves, creatively discovering new forms of expression and connection. Sometimes an improvisation captures something the group is not yet consciously aware of or not ready to examine verbally; in that case, the theme enters the non-verbal space of the group and is shared through sound.
To conclude these reflections on music and therapy groups, a few overarching observations. The therapeutic process — or perhaps the learning process — in a group always takes place on multiple levels, both verbal and non-verbal, regardless of the group type. Every therapy group can be seen as a musical group, possessing its own sound, its own pulse, and a unique mode of expression. Group dynamics are sensed, felt, and heard — not just in the content of what is said but in the way things are said: in the voice’s timbre, the melody of language, the manner in which members perform a 'communicational dance' together. We glean huge amounts of information from pauses, pacing, and rhythm of speech. Each group member plays their own instrument, so to speak, and has their own voice. Like an orchestra, the group works with the interplay among instruments and voices. It can be deeply joyful and empowering when harmony and synchronicity emerge and the group moves together polyphonically with a unified pulse. Yet the diversity of expression always presents a challenge. Every group undergoes a process of learning to listen, to attune to one another, and to sound together.