An Exploratory Study of Supportive Music and Imagery for Depression

Supportive Music and Imagery (SMI) is a psychotherapeutic method that uses music and imagery as the pathway to help patients focus on their internal positive resources. The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of SMI therapy in the treatment of depression. A total of 29 outpatient volunteers who met the diagnostic criteria for depression based on the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) received the SMI intervention in addition to conventional antidepressant medication once a week for 3 months, for a total of 12 SMI sessions. Changes in clinical symptoms were evaluated at baseline and at weekly follow-ups for 12 weeks. Patients’ depression, anxiety, and fatigue symptoms improved continuously over 12 weeks. The results of the repeated measure ANOVA showed that there was a significant difference in the total score of HAMD-17, FAI and QIDS-SR16 at different follow-up times (p ＜ 0.001). The difference in MUNSH score between the baseline and the 12th week reached statistical significance (p ＜ 0.001). At the end of the 12th week, the response rate was 87.5%, and the remission rate was 75.0% among participants. These results suggest that SMI could be an effective intervention for patients with depression and potentially highlight the need for combining SMI with standard treatment for these individuals. Future randomized controlled studies are needed to further validate demonstrate the effect of SMI in depression.