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The authors of this study aimed to reduce post-meal related anxiety for people with eating disorders through participation in group music therapy in an outpatient day program. A purposively-inclusive pilot study design was adopted which utilized the self-report Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS) to measure anxiety pre and post a single session. A total of 13 female participants attended a one-hour music therapy group session following a lunchtime social eating challenge and contributed to 50 occasions of data collection. A paired two-tailed t-test indicated a highly statistically significant difference (p = < 0.0001) between the pre and post session scores, suggesting that music therapy significantly decreased anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music therapy has previously been identified as a way to foster processes of mental health recovery. However, little is known about the specific factors apparent in group singing which can promote recovery. The current project aimed to address this gap by exploring the conditional and contextual factors involved in group singing which may promote recovery for people with mental illness. Adults who were in mental health recovery were recruited from a number of different singing groups in inpatient and community mental health contexts around Melbourne, Australia. Twenty-three people participated in interviews, and a grounded theory approach was adopted for analysis. The findings of this study are presented as a grounded theory of group singing which describes how participants experienced triggering encounters with music, and used the supportive conditions of the group singing context to regain a sense of health. A new term, musical recovery, was developed which depicts a process of regaining healthy relationships with music to promote mental health recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Using music therapy as a resource for restoring healthy relationships with music during mental health recovery," by Jennifer Bibb is presented.