Association for Music & Imagery

The Association for Music and Imagery (AMI) is an organization of facilitators, trainers, students, and supporters of The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music. AMI’s purpose is to advance the application and understanding of The Bonny Method and its adaptations. AMI promotes ethical training and practice, supports research and publication, guides professional development, facilitates networking for its members, and provides public education and outreach.

The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music

The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music is a music-oriented exploration of consciousness. It offers persons the opportunity to integrate mental, emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of well-being, as well as awaken to a greater transcendent identification. It is practiced primarily in psychotherapy and counseling settings. Specifically sequenced classical music programs are used to stimulate and sustain a dynamic unfolding of inner experiences. Facilitators who conduct sessions in this one-to-one modality have backgrounds in the helping professions and are formally trained in The Bonny Method.

The Bonny Method has been used successfully with adults, adolescents, children, persons in recovery, psychiatric inpatients, terminally ill patients and others.

Inspired by a mystical experience while playing the violin, Helen L. Bonny, Ph.D., felt called to bring other persons to the healing power of music. She used her unique understanding of music at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in the early 1970s where she combined relaxation techniques and classical music selections to elicit responses from patients. She went on to research her findings and develop The Bonny Method.

Since that time, many medical professionals, psychotherapists and persons from secular and religious helping professions have been trained in The Bonny Method and are actively working with it in their chosen fields.