12 research outputs found
An empirical study of normative dissociation in musical and non-musical everyday life experiences
Dissociative experiences involving music have received little research attention outside the field of
ethnomusicology. This paper examines the psychological characteristics of normative dissociation
(detachment) across musical and non-musical experiences in ‘real world’, everyday settings. It draws
upon a subset of data arising from an empirical project designed to compare transformative shifts of
consciousness, with and without music in daily life, and the ways in which use of music may facilitate
the processes of dissociation and absorption. Twenty participants kept unstructured diaries for two weeks,
recording free descriptions of involving experiences of any kind as soon as possible after their occurrence.
All descriptions were subsequently subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).
Results suggest that dissociative experiences are a familiar occurrence in everyday life. Diary
entries highlight an established practice of actively sought detachment from self, surroundings or
activity, suggesting that, together with absorption, the processes of derealization (altered perception
of surroundings) and depersonalization (detachment from self) constitute common means of selfregulation
in daily life. Music emerges as a particularly versatile facilitator of dissociative experience
because of its semantic ambiguity, portability, and the variety of ways in which it may mediate
perception, so facilitating an altered relationship to self and environmen
The metaphor of therapy and its use in the learning of a workplace identity
The idea that learning involves a kind of therapy goes back to ancient times: Socrates was, at least in part, concerned with a kind of care of the self, and Plato in his early dialogues presents learning as a cure for bad intellectual and moral habits. Our metaphoric use of therapy supposes that worthwhile learning might be considered as a treatment for moral or physical non-well-being in that learning, like illness, might most easily be identified with a desire for good