An Introduction to MER, a New Music Psychotherapy Approach for PTSD: Part 2—The Outcomes and Case Examples

Abstract

From 2005 to 2010, I used music entrainment and reprocessing (MER) for 56 clients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and worked with 93 traumatic events or disturbed experiences. Among these 56 clients, 46 experienced a single trauma and 10 of them experienced 2 or more traumas. The treatment to these clients varied in the number of sessions taken: 43 (46.7%) of them in 1 session; 17 (18.5%) in 2 sessions; 10 (10.9%) in 3 sessions; 4 (4.3%) in 4 sessions; 3 (2.2%) in 5 sessions; 13 (14.9%) did not complete the treatment had markedly low scores in the Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD) scale. The criterion for ‘‘treatment completed’’ is that the SUD score reaches between 0 and 2, and the client state that they have recovered and do not need any more treatment. A small percentage of the clients decided that they would like to stop at an SUD score of 1 or 2 instead of 0, and continued to carry some degree of sorrow for mourning their deceased love ones. These were also considered successful treatment experiences.