The (randomly) selected focus publication for May 2020 is:
Honeycutt, J., & Harwood, J. (2019). Using music therapy and imagined interaction to cope with stress. In J. Honeycutt (Ed.), Promoting mental health through imagery and imagined interactions (pp. 73-92). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
ABSTRACT
Music affects moods and emotion and can help people in dealing with stress. Music therapy has been shown to reduce pain and cope with depression. In fact, the ISO (Incremental Sound Organizer) principle of music therapy reveals how people’s emotions can change while listening to a medley of music. Research is reviewed in which people have imagined interactions while listening to music as memories are recalled. Music is used to maintain relationships as couples often have their own song. Music fulfills the catharsis function of imagined interactions as people release anxiety or tension. Music serves numerous functions, which can be subsumed into 1) achieving self-awareness, 2) expressing social relatedness, and 3) regulating, arousal and mood. Respectively, these functions are similar to the II features of valence, self-understanding, and relational maintenance. Music could have emerged as a form of coalition signaling by using music in groups, we signal to others that our group is organized, resource-rich, synchronized, and “in tune” (both literally and metaphorically) with one another.