Forty Years of Case Studies: A History of Clinical Case Studies in the Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy, and Music Therapy Perspectives

ABSTRACT: Clinical case studies have played an invaluable role in the history of music therapy and its literature. These single-participant studies focus on individual treatment and personalized objectives and have appeared frequently in the Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy, and Music Therapy Perspectives. The purpose of this article was to identify and catalogue all the case studies published in the Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy, and Music Therapy Perspectives from 1964-2003. The researcher identified and analyzed 123 studies. Results indicate that the published case studies within the literature base evince that music therapy interventions have been successful with a wide variety of populations using a diversity of clinical techniques to address client deficit areas. The majority of these studies contained only qualitative data. Additionally, 50% of the reviewed articles examined more than one participant. This catalogue of published clinical case studies may help music therapists who are dealing with a particular age, diagnosis/population, music therapy treatment method, or clinical objective by serving as a database or collection of studies. Case studies are a type of qualitative or quantitative research that recognize the unique qualities of a particular client, setting, and approach when dealing with a single participant. case studies have appeared frequently within the music therapy literature of the Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy, and Music Therapy Perspectives. These are characteristically single-participant qualitative descriptions of successful music therapy interventions with a variety of client populations. Typically, these case studies impart a descriptive and rich characteristic (Aigen, 1995). This method is used extensively in music therapy literature due to its ability to isolate situations and behaviors (Madsen & Madsen, 1997). During the first half of the 20th century, the case study was largely clinical research's sole methodology (Barlow & Hersen, 1984). The development of currently practiced case study research can be traced to the work of B. F. Skinner. Behavioral analysis relied upon single case designs to evaluate the effects of individualized variables (Kazdin, 1982). In music education and music therapy settings, many of these behaviorally based approaches have been effective with an extensive range of maladaptive behaviors (Standley, 1996). Today, case studies are still important to modern applied research (Barlow & Hersen, 1984). Many prolific researchers have noted the value and importance of case studies. Hanser (1999) wrote "the results of these studies are enlightening because they offer objective evidence of client change or lack thereof" (pp. 179-180). Heiman (2002) noted that case studies appear frequently in clinical research due to their in-depth descriptions of patients' symptoms and reactions to therapy. Nickles (2001) suggests that case-based scientific techniques can be appealing because they are a problem-solving versus a directly truth-seeking enterprise, do not leave theory of validation to epistemic evaluation, are forward-looking rather than backward-looking, and thrive on single case-based consideration and practice, over rule-based examination. Barlow and Hersen (1984) proposed that case studies merge the roles of practitioner and researcher and can lead to further empirical inquiry. As a result, measures have been developed and further experimental analyses of treatment have been performed (Mills, Agras, Barlow, & Mills, 1973); Thus, resulting data can increase one's understanding of the problem while the client receives and benefits from treatment (Barlow & Hersen, 1984). Chambless and Hollon (1998) noted that efficacy can be best established in vigilantly controlled case studies and their group analogues and suggested case studies are only limited by the creativity of the researcher. Thus, because of the creativity and flexibility of these single-case designs, they can provide an ideal format for music therapy literature. …