THE EFFECTS OF GESTALT GROUP COUNSELING WITH MUSIC THERAPY ON THE ANXIETY OF PRISONERS

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the effects of Gestalt group counseling with music therapy on the anxiety of prisoners. A quasi-experimental research, one experimental group was assigned. THe samples were male prisoners who were first sentenced to prison for one year or more, during January 19-29, 2015 at Chonburi Central Prison. Speilberger's (1983) Strate-trait anxiety inventory for adults (Form Y-1) was employed for selecting the sample. Ten prisoners who had an anxiety score of above 50 and who volunteered to participate in this study were the experimental group. A counseling program based on the Gestalt group counseling with music therapy was intervened for 12 sessions. Each session lasted 90 minutes, twice a week, and for duration of six consecutive weeks.

The data colection was in three phases: Pre-test, post-test and follow-up. Statistic tools for data analysis were mean, standard deviation, repeated measuers analysis of variance and the Bonferroni procedure.

The results revealed that the anxiety of the prisoners who participated in the Gestalt group counseling with music therapy in the post-test and folow-up phases was lower than during the pre-test phase at .05 statistical difference.