LAUSR

The relationship between music and well-being is well-documented in the literature. “Musical Auto-Biography Interview (MABI) as Promoting Self-Identity and Well-Being in the Elderly thorough Music and Reminiscence” (Dassa, 2018) is an inspiring article for music therapists as well as other health-related professionals who work with older people. The tool described and investigated has shown promising results to create an elderly person’s musical autobiography. It uses a one-on-one interview format, which involves actively engaging the interviewee which may result in an improvement in well-being and self-identity. “Musicking”, the sharing of interactive music experiences between interviewer and interviewee is a very creative technique in itself with great potential for assessment as well as therapeutic purposes. Another beautiful aspect of the MABI is that it can be used with older people with a wide spectrum of conditions: healthy older adults as well as people with different levels of cognitive impairments. Music has the power to transport people to other periods of their lives and to bring up aspects of a person, sometimes unknown by others. Because of the emotional component of music and its capacity to evoke memories and associations, this tool can certainly be powerful to help clients remember and bring back events from their past while strengthening a sense of self. However, the author cautions about the fact that MABI can also evoke difficult and painful memories and includes good practical suggestions for its use. MABI is a flexible and easy-to-use tool for music therapists as well as other professionals to create a music autobiography with older people with a variety of conditions in a variety of settings. This tool could become part of the intake interview and evaluations of people who enter a home or institution for the elderly. Because of its characteristics, it could certainly facilitate a better understanding of people’s past, and personal and intimate facets which otherwise may remain hidden. This information, collected through the MABI, can be very valuable in the assessment phase of the therapeutic process. It can also be used as an intervention to address therapeutic objectives in the cognitive, social and emotional areas, as reported in the article. The possibilities of MABI should be further explored in future research. For instance, it would be interesting and advisable to evaluate its potential in different therapeutic formats: individual vs. group. Including family members and their