Lullament: lullaby and lament therapeutic qualities actualized through music therapy.
Lullabies and laments promote new awareness, enculturation, adaptation, and grief expression. These concepts' relevance to palliative care, however, has not been examined. In this study, a music therapist used a grounded theory-informed design to reflexively analyze lullaby and lament qualities, evident in more than 20 years of personal palliative care practice. Thus, the construct "lullament" emerged, which signified helpful moments when patients' and families' personal and sociohistorical relationship with lullabies and laments were actualized. Specific music could be both a lullaby and a lament. A music therapist can enable the lullament through providing opportunities for music-contextualized "restorative resounding," expressed psychobiologically, verbally, musically, and metaphorically.
O'Callaghan
Clare
C
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Caritas Christi Hospice, St Vincent's Health, Victoria, Australia. clare.ocallaghan@petermac.org
D000069:Acculturation; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001601:Bereavement; D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005239:Fear; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007602:Jungian Theory; D008016:Life Change Events; D008149:Love; D019365:Metaphor; D016472:Motor Neuron Disease / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D009147:Music Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D033262:Narration; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology; D036301:Qualitative Research