Helen Lindquist Bonny (1921 – May 25, 2010) was a music therapist who developed "Guided Imagery and Music" often referred to as "GIM". Music therapist Kenneth Bruscia uses the following definition to describe Guided Imagery and Music: "(GIM) refers to all forms of music-imaging in an expanded state of consciousness, including not only the specific individual and group forms that Bonny developed, but also all variations and modifications in those forms created by her followers." Helen Bonny studied with E. Thayer Gaston at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

in the early 1960s, where she received her bachelor's degree in music education, with a major in

music therapy Music therapy, an allied health profession, "is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music th ...

. She continued on to receive a master's degree in music education with an emphasis in research. After completing her PhD in the late 1960s, she began researching the effects of music on imagination, and in 1973 authored a book, co-written with Louis Savary, entitled "Music and Your Mind: Listening with a New Consciousness" Although Guided Imagery and Music draws from various schools of psychology, Helen Bonny has cited as its main influences the humanistic and the transpersonal psychology of

Carl Rogers Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach (and client-centered approach) in psychology. Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of ps ...

, and

Abraham Maslow Abraham Harold Maslow (; April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, cul ...

. Bonny was also profoundly influenced by the work of

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

.''Music Consciousness: The Evolution of Guided Imagery'' (2002), p. 12 Helen Bonny's grandson, Miles Bonny, is an active recording musician in Kansas City, Mo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonny, Helen 2010 deaths University of Kansas alumni Music therapists 1921 births