Integrating Music into Couple Therapy Theory and Practice

Abstract

Over the past three decades, the theory and practice of couple therapy has moved towards integrative approaches. Typically, two or more couple therapy theories and their associated practices are blended into a more comprehensive, flexible approach to conceptualizing and intervening with couples’ problems. Emerging findings from social and affective neuroscience are also increasingly incorporated. This article argues for broadening integrative efforts to include the perspectives and products of the arts and humanities into couple therapy, with a focus on music. The article presents the rationale for this broadened scope of integration by discussing E. O. Wilson’s consilience theory and its bearing on the distinctions and convergence among the science, craft, and art of therapy. The research on the neuroscience of music and the role of music in affective experience, expression, and intimate relationships strongly supports use of music in transformative work with couples. Music theory and arts provide a useful framework for creating novel theories about couple relationships, for observing and understanding distressed couples’ problematic patterns, and for formulating interventions. Sensitivity to the musical aspects of therapists’ communicative behavior can increase the impact of interventions. The article provides a practical framework for utilizing music in couple therapy, and includes several illustrative case examples.