See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233133502 RAP Therapy: A Group Work Intervention Method for Urban Adolescents Article in Social Work With Groups · January 2003 DOI: 10.1300/J009v26n03_06 CITATIONS READS 66 3,520 authors, including: Alonzo Decarlo Benedictine University PUBLICATIONS 103 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by Alonzo Decarlo on 04 August 2015 The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file 483086 2013 GAQ0010.1177/0533316413483086Group Analysis DeCarlo: The Rise and Fall of GRT Article group analysis The Rise and Call of Group Rap Therapy: A Critical Analysis from its Creator Alonzo DeCarlo Since its inception nearly a decade ago, Group Rap Therapy (GRT) as an intervention practice continues to be viewed in the United States with wariness due to its controversial alliance with a music genre that is unpalatable to some practitioners Yet, its burgeoning global appeal as a creative mental health treatment protocol to researchers and practitioners suggests that this group therapeutic technique is likely to continue to grow In this article, a historical account of GRT’s beginning and its purpose are highlighted Critical reflections and analysis about the impact that GRT can have on prospective clients and practitioners are examined Finally, considerations about refining and advancing the course of GRT are underscored to preserve the veracity of this innovative intervention practice for youth Key words: culture, psychological, ethnic minority youth, music therapy, forensic, clinicians Introduction Although the scope of music therapy intervention and research covers three principal areas of medical framework, psychotherapeutic models, and musical education approaches (Darrow, 2008), there is great methodological diversity within each area The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) places an emphasis on the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish © The Author(s), 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Vol 0(0): 1–14; DOI: 10.1177/0533316413483086 2 Group Analysis 0(0) individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship (2007) The AMTA does not delimit the genre of music that must be used to achieve those goals This critique focuses on the use of rap music as a creative, mental health, evidence-based intervention with urban adolescents While rap music has been one of the most controversial forms of music, research regarding its relationship to maladaptive aggressive dispositions has not been substantiated (Gardstorm, 1999; Scheel and Westefeld, 1999) In a study by Gardstrom (1999) examining the relationship between exposure to music and criminal behaviour, she found that lyrics of rap music have some influence on an individual’s feelings, but did not provoke problematic behaviours In their groundbreaking text on the therapeutic uses of Rap and Hip-Hop, Hadley and Yancy argued that: Rap music functioned as an important vehicle through which a sense of sanity was maintained Rap became a medium through which these youth described and interpreted the existential density of lived urban spaces and thereby were able to achieve an important level of transcendence, though without denial (Hadley and Yancy, 2011: 25) In this article, the status of Group Rap Therapy (GRT) is assessed as a group psychotherapy technique a decade after its inception This analysis includes: (a) the impetus for this novel approach as a group psychotherapeutic technique for African American male adolescents who have committed homicide; (b) how other clinicians could use this technique; (c) the forward trajectory and direction of the work; (d) threats to the integrity of GRT; and (e) the benefits of GRT as a form of musical psychotherapy with youth Impetus for GRT GRT originally grew out of a need for a way to negotiate a growing problem in adolescent psychotherapy with urban youth residing in at-risk environments In the 1990s, American cities experienced an unprecedented rise in violence, particularly among African American youth 60% of deaths for 15-year-old African American adolescents were due to homicides Moreover, the largest growth in state inmates between 1990 and 1998 was among violent offenders (DeCarlo, 2012) African American youth, especially boys, were killing each other in record numbers Additionally, more than one in four juvenile homicide offenders resided in eight of 3,139 counties in the United DeCarlo: The Rise and Fall of GRT 3 States, including the nation’s largest urban areas of Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Dallas (Sickmund et al., 1996) During this same time period, a new genre of music emerged— gangsta rap Created predominantly by African American youth, this music deified various forms of sexual exploitation of females and the use of violence as a method of settling disputes (Fernando, 1994) Simultaneously, like other urban youth detention facilities, the Wayne County Juvenile Court (WCJC) detention facilities was inundated with children exhibiting unparalleled exposure to and experiential undercurrents of violence It was brought to my attention by the medical administration of WCJC, that the mental health professionals within these detention facilities urgently needed interventions that were sensitive to the new dynamics of violence among adolescents, particularly African American boys, who were unresponsive to conventional group or individual psychotherapy techniques In 1998, I was approached by juvenile justice officials in Detroit Michigan to develop an innovative technique that would clinically and intellectually reach many of the urban ethnic minority adolescents who were detained for murder, but who were unmoved by the available interventions Rap music gives a developmental texture to an otherwise undifferentiated though related mass of experiences, thoughts, attitudes and activities of young black men Thus, the conceptual licences of GRT were constructed on grounded clinical practice (GCP), which has two fundamental conditions: (a) its basic ontological genesis is steeped in understanding the future clients phenomenology of everydayness, (Heidegger, 1962 ), which suggest that an individual embraces the essence of real-time, day-to-day challenges, often exhibited through Rap music; and (b) the emergent practice protocols emanate from the inside out and in a bottom-up fashion directly from the aforementioned, thus authenticating the integrity of the prospective intervention (i.e., GRT) measure for the population it serves I was asked by the mental health administration at the Wayne County Juvenile Detention facility to assist with these conditions because I was a product of the same environment from where the youth came I was also a former juvenile probation officer at the Wayne County Juvenile Court and later became a federal agent As an African American male reared in a fatherless, single-parent home in a poverty-stricken environment that was ravished by a culture of violence on the lower east side of Detroit, I was expected to have 4 Group Analysis 0(0) insight into the developmental vulnerability of those from similar backgrounds My law enforcement experience, coupled with expert psychotherapy and developmental psychology training, was expected to have given me ample tools to deal with the clinical and psychosocial upheavals that the juvenile court was encountering with their youth At the time, I did not have a proven, evidenced-based, actionable response to their request No theory or model, academic or otherwise, existed that could provide me with guidance on the issues that these young African American children were combating Pursuant to introspection, I realized that when facing adversity, my anxiety was eased while listening to jazz and rap music After perusing the professional literature on music and emotion, I learned that that there was robust evidence of a strong connection between music and emotion Neurobiological research has shown that music can effectively stimulate highly gratifying emotional responses (Menon and Levitin, 2005; Mitterschiffthaler et al., 2007; Sloboda and Juslin, 2001) While listening to jazz and rap music, I noticed the emotional potency of the melodies helped me recalibrate my energies and gain perspective on the personal challenges I was confronting at the moment I considered the potential affects of using music in a similar fashion with the young men in the Wayne County Detention facility Rap music was part of the zeitgeist and had a greater likelihood of appealing to the sensibilities of the youth in the detention facility Thus, I began developing a technique by which I could incorporate rap music into a group psychotherapeutic medium (DeCarlo, 2000; 2001; DeCarlo and Hockman, 2003) These efforts culminated in a psychotherapeutic group technique called Group Rap Therapy (GRT) that used music as a cultural conduit to develop prosocial behaviours This premise builds on the psychoanalytic notion that art forms, including music, reflect the triumph of the ego over the superego Rap music expresses coping mechanisms used by African American adolescents, to come to terms with the overwhelming stresses of their worlds first, and to consider the virtue of those mechanisms thereafter Indeed, music is one of the most effective readily available palliatives used to dull the pain enforced by a living environment that is ruthlessly demanding such as those experienced by African American Adolescents in urban ghettos The central purpose of GRT was to employ music as a psychologically transformative instrument by taking advantage of its anxiolytic and tensiolytic potentials; that is, releasing oneself from fear and mental pain respectively (Aluede and Ekewenu, 2009) DeCarlo: The Rise and Fall of GRT 5 Clinical Use The clinical use of GRT was designed on the same foundation as other major treatment modalities—to benefit the client, the treatment team, and the psychotherapy profession overall I designed the original GRT as a supplemental treatment for use in a prison setting for lethally violent offenders All potential clients of GRT are expected to have comprehensive assessment and diagnostic evaluations before participating in sessions This step is required to provide a thorough analytical understanding of the clients There are two critical skills required for those using GRT: (a) the group therapist should recognize how the variables of race, ethnicity, language, attitudes, beliefs, behaviours, and related power status might operate in his or her own life as well as in the lives of the urban ethnic minority adolescent group members; and (b) the group therapist must sustain a level of interaction that is responsive to the needs of the adolescents To this end, GRT places a premium on cultural competence Prospective practitioners of GRT who have not been trained on issues of cultural competence urban ethnic minority populations, should engage in cultural competence clinical training From a cognitive behavioural perspective, GRT assists clients in becoming aware of maladaptive cognitions in an attempt to monitor and interrupt the cognitive-affective-behavioural chains and produce more adaptive coping responses (Meichenbaum, 1995) Through intense lyrical analysis of rap music, and in the context of several therapeutic treatment issues such as female gender abuse, anger management, impulse control, reasoning, morality, responsibility, identity, crime/punishment, and empathy, GRT clients can develop or refine their prosocial skills (DeCarlo and Hockman, 2003) This notion is fundamental to the efficaciousness of GRT, which is used to help urban youth analyse and change irrational thoughts and beliefs that lead to inappropriate behaviours This is achieved in part by the use of clinical dialogue, which helps clients to critically and freely reflect and to feel self-assured in their abilities to reason about particular issues (Saran and Neisser, 2004) Through the use of complex lyrical analysis, a primary objective of GRT is to support the client to understand the overwhelming demands of the immediate environment In the original study, the outcome of a generic group technique was compared with GRT to promote prosocial skills (DeCarlo and Hockman, 2003) The participants of the study were eighth through tenth grade African American males, aged 13 to 15, split into violent offenders incarcerated for homicide, probationers without violent 6 Group Analysis 0(0) Table 1. Effects Index Assessment of GRT (Rap) and Generic Group Therapy (Group) Items (Effects) % Rap % Group Felt relaxed in sessions 81.0 – Felt excited about next 81.0 4.8 sessions Felt enjoyment during 100 – sessions % Neither χ2 Goodness of Fit Sig (p) 19.0 14.3 8.048 21.714 005 001 – – – crimes, and students with no criminal history In GRT sessions, the participants were instructed to list five of their favourite rap artists Selected CDs from those artists’ work were available during the sessions Each member had an opportunity to select four songs No restrictions were placed on the selections of the artists Each participant in the group was given a different composition item (e.g., female gender abuse, anger management, impulse control, reasoning, morality, responsibility, identity, crime/punishment, and empathy) on an x 11 sheet of paper Prior to each GRT session, the composition items were defined and illustrated Each group member was given an oral quiz to ensure that the concept items (e.g., impulse control) were clearly understood At the beginning of the GRT session, the participants were instructed to listen to a particular song, uninterrupted, with the group leader Afterwards, each member was called on to identify and explain the composition on his particular card in the context of the song’s lyrics A synopsis of findings from the original study by DeCarlo and Hockman (2003) that support the relevancy, pragmatics, and efficaciousness of GRT are presented in Table The effects index (see Table 1) displays significant differences among the participants preferring GRT over the generic group technique, in levels of relaxation (χ2 =8.048, P < 005) and enjoyment (100%) during sessions, as well excitement (χ2 =21.714, P < 001) about forthcoming meetings In the prosocial skills information index (see Table 2), GRT was vastly favoured by the participants as a technique for understanding anger management (χ2 =3.857, P < 050), impulse control (χ2 =8.048, P < 005), delinquent behaviour avoidance (χ2 =26,000 P < 001), morality development (χ2 =21.429, P < 001), female gender abuse (χ2 =3.857, P < 050), social relations (100%), relation to daily life situations (χ2 =17.190, P < 001), and DeCarlo: The Rise and Fall of GRT 7 Table 2. Prosocial Skills Information Index Assessment of GRT (Rap) and Generic Group Therapy (Group) Items (Prosocial Skills) Anger Management Impulse Control Delinquent Behavior Avoidance Morality Development Female Gender Abuse Social Relations Drug Misuse Relation to Daily Life Situations Decision Making Learned More Overall % Neither χ2 Goodness of Fit Sig (p) 28.6 19.0 4.8 3.857 8.048 26.000 050 005 001 9.5 – – – – 9.5 28.6 – 33.3 4.8 21.429 3.857 – 2.333 17.190 001 050 – 127 001 85.7 9.5 66.7 – 4.8 33.3 26.0 2.333 001 127 % Rap % Group 71.4 – 81.0 – 85.7 9.5 81.0 71.4 100 66.7 95.2 decision making (χ2 =26.0, P < 001) Since the model of equal preference was poor, we concluded that GRT was by far was the most preferred Case Illustration The following session is based on a small segment of a recent GRT session with a group of youth convicted of homicide A fictional name is given below for a group member holding the anger management card along with a summarized excerpt The following is a verse from the rap album titled Before I Self Destruct (2009) by Curtis Jackson: You see I’m a psycho, a sicko, I’m crazy I said I got my knife, boy, I’ll kill you if you make me They wanna see me shot up, locked up then cage me I come back bigger, stronger and angry Group Leader: Mike, you have the anger management card Can you tell us about your thoughts on how anger management was used, if at all, based on this verse [The verse was replayed.] Mike: Well, really, he telling you that he angry I mean, he said I got my knife and I’ll kill you if you make me You got to be already angry to even say something like that To me, when he said ‘I 8 Group Analysis 0(0) come back bigger, stronger, and angry,’ it’s like a challenge, right? What he saying is, it don’t phaze me if you lock me up So putting him on lockdown is just gonna make him more pissed off Group Leader: Okay, Mike; how is he managing his anger? Mike: He’s not, man But I know how he feels, though It’s like there is so much stuff going on around you man that you can’t control Even if you want to try to the right thang, it’s like people stuff to you or you get put in situations that force you to hurt somebody, but you really just trying to protect yourself and your family You know what I’m saying? [Other group members nod in affirmation of understanding.] Group Leader: Alright, Mike; you were saying, ‘You know how he feels.’ How were you able to manage your anger? Mike: You just got to slow down, man, before somebody pop you [meaning to get shot] It’s like I knew I was angry but I didn’t know just how angry I was until I got locked up and I had time to think about it I know it sounds crazy man, but I was lucky to get locked up in a way, because I probably would end up dead or killing somebody Seriously, man; this group is helping me a lot because I get to listen to music and chill for a minute When you calm, you can talk about stuff Oh, when he said, ‘I’m a psycho, a sicko, I’m crazy,’ what he really was trying to say is that he gave up on himself Group Leader: Okay, I would like to hear more about that point a bit later This case illustration demonstrates how group members use the social artefacts of their own culture symbolically represented in rap music to facilitate self-disclosure about the composition item on their assigned card The GRT protocol is not only designed to generate self-reflection through lyrical analysis, but also to stimulate genuine, long-term involvement in the prosocial skills development process From a clinical angle, Mike’s Socratic dialogue demonstrates how the verse can be affectingly insightful Mike’s comments about ‘listening to the music and chill for a minute’ suggest that the cognitive processes of absorbing music enable the physiological condition of calmness, which in turn increases receptivity to GRT The previously described condition of calmness echoes Schneck and Berger’s (2006) research which shows that rhythmic sound entrainment through the nervous system enables information from the auditory and cortical systems to interact with autonomic system pathways, thus producing a relaxed sense of calmness The engagement of the aforementioned DeCarlo: The Rise and Fall of GRT 9 systems have been shown to positively affect heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and oxygen consumption (Bernardi et al., 2006; Chafin et al., 2004; Crowe, 2004; Kemper and Danhauer, 2005), which may explain Mike’s easeful disposition during GRT Mike’s comment, ‘When you calm, you can talk about stuff,’ is a perfect illustration of GRT’s key goal of promoting prosocial skills development primarily through discussion and feedback loops in a group therapeutic setting A major hurdle in prison treatment programmes is gathering enough focus, confidence, or minimal suspicion about the objectives of group therapy to stay engaged in the process GRT is designed to be an efficient and inexpensive supplemental treatment algorithm for youth that can be easily integrated as a component of a general psychotherapeutic treatment modality The Integrity of GRT To maintain the integrity of GRT, it is critical that its aims as a psychotherapeutic tool are not viewed as a promoter or denouncer of rap music or other cultural entities associated with the music industry The politics of the artist and the music industry itself are not in question The focus is on the manipulation of the lyrical content for the purpose of inducing critical thinking that will eventually culminate in behavioural modification which is supported by the cutting-edge work of Elligan (2000; 2004), and Tyson (2002; 2003) Keen (2004) suggests that adolescents generally relate to the music of their peers, and when used in a therapeutic setting, it produces a non-threatening environment where the therapist–client relationship is significantly enhanced Due to its success, music therapy has become significantly more prominent Accordingly, several versions of GRT have emerged in the last decade This is likely due to the direct appeal to the children and adolescents who listen to rap music and the simplicity with which practitioners are able to implement it as a supplement to their intervention GRT is viewed as a pleasurable exercise by youth more often than psychotherapeutic techniques However, the goals of GRT as a cathartic outlet also require serious outcome measures There should always be a valid appraisal of the efficaciousness of any version of GRT Evidencebased outcomes are critical to the integrity of the framework Ideally, such an evaluation should provide qualitative and quantitative evidence about the experiences of both the participants and the facilitators Unfortunately, the ease with which GRT can be used as an intervention for urban youth makes it vulnerable to exploitation and 10 Group Analysis 0(0) commercialization For example, many middle schools and high schools in urban areas are bereft of resources, overburdened by delinquency, and desperate for assistance GRT is on the cutting edge of intervention strategies, and although it is still somewhat controversial, it has mass appeal to many professionals in education, mental health, and juvenile justice However, the probability of professionals commissioning unqualified individuals is heightened by their urgency to address the psychosocial needs of youth in at-risk conditions This is problematic for GRT as an emerging intervention framework because of the potential damage to its reputability GRT Trajectory A version of GRT can be found in Africa (Evans, 2010), Europe (Uhlig, 2011), Asia (Wu and Wu, 2009), and North America (DeCarlo, 2001; 2003) where it has gained prominence among researchers and practitioners Still, GRT standardization supported by cross-cultural empirical research is necessary to assist global practitioners in reaching similar outcomes through standardized assessment and evaluation protocols Moreover, benchmarks for GRT that operationalize clients’ improvements would enhance uniformity and accountability required by health organizations and accreditation bodies This may be achieved initially by narrowing the scope of GRT to specified disorders, such as conduct disorder, following subsequent comparison to other treatment modalities The depth and scope of GRT could be deepened by neurological evidence that links GRT to specific treatment issues in specified disorders For example, investigations into the extent to which variations in violent lyrics produce psychophysiological responses conducive to maladaptive aggressive behaviour would prove both informative and instructive If strong empirical evidence were produced, the next step would be to examine how altering the interpretation of violent rap music produces a corresponding neurochemical change Research examining blood flow oxygenation levels and differential neurotransmitter releases could be useful in demonstrating how altering violent lyric meanings might mediate neurochemical changes and subsequent emotions and behaviour Conclusion The benefits of psychiatric and psychological treatments for urban ethnic minority children in at-risk environments are unremarkable DeCarlo: The Rise and Fall of GRT 11 Thus, GRT was constructed to engage the experiential, cultural, and developmental conduct in the daily lives of urban ethnic minority youth In this way, GRT was established to help urban ethnic minority youth understand and overcome their existential anxieties Unfortunately, urban ethnic minority adolescents and young adults are most in need of mental health assistance, but are far less likely to have access to appropriate mental health professionals (Anderson et al., 2003) There are several reasons for this condition including iatrogenic conceptions of mental health clinicians, and a paucity of culturally competent interventionists Another major obstacle encountered by many urban ethnic minority adolescents is the lack of adequate health insurance to accommodate their mental health needs When administered in a group setting, the material fee for GRT is less than the co-pay of most health insurance plans Although it is conceivable that the general principals of GRT can be utilized in individual psychotherapy, an esprit de corps or group climate it is likely to yield better results for several reasons Group settings may be particularly more beneficial for African American young men, because they have historically viewed individual psychotherapy with pronounced wariness This is due in part to the fact that the clinical professional providing the psychotherapeutic treatment for them is most often a non-African American psychotherapist In this case, the psychotherapist may be perceived as too far removed from the daily hardships of the African American patients life circumstances and consequently unable to provide adequate therapeutic respite The psychotherapeutic relationships between African American young men and non African American psychotherapist are numerous, complex, beyond the scope of this paper and cannot be elaborated on justly here However, GRT was designed to overcome some of those issues in the aforementioned relationship Next, group psychotherapy empowers adolescents to experience a positive peer culture and provides them with problem-solving strategies, knowledge, and immediate practice at initiating and sustaining prosocial relations (DeCarlo and Hockman, 2003) This type of give-and-take exchange of opinions and feelings permits self-disclosure in the group often not possible in individual psychotherapy In addition, for adolescents, learning that the troubles they are facing are not unique but mutually experienced by their peers can stimulate faster sharing of information in a group psychotherapeutic setting GRT is still in an early development phase as a group intervention technique The following suggestions can advance GRT: 12 Group Analysis 0(0) • Developing methodological sound studies in clinical neurophysiology that examine the behavioural-neural correlations of listening to rap music in GRT settings These investigations would be useful in modifying GRT techniques in correlation with uncovered, event-related potentials to produce more consistent results, thus elevating the applicability of GRT • Establishing cross-cultural, evidence-based outcomes for GRT with different age and ethnic groups Since GRT is largely predicated on language and lyrical analysis, its successful crosscultural use could also have profound implications on our understanding of linguistic relativity • Broadening the utility of GRT framework to adolescent educational, mental health, and corrections settings Clinicians and researchers throughout the world are beginning to realize the innovative potential of this approach as a prevention and intervention mechanism with adolescents in various settings This intervention technique embraces the urbanity of adolescence through understanding the culture of their music Thus, Elliot’s suggestion that ‘culture’, is not something that people have, it is something that people do, (1990: 149) is given paramount consideration in GRT Indeed, if we not understand the culture of adolescence, what we think we know about them will likely confuse us Finally, with the constant economic downsizing of public educational, mental health, and juvenile justice resources, it is anticipated that GRT and similar creative mental health treatment modalities will gain prominence as a sufficient and necessary consideration as an effective evidenced based group intervention technique for youth Acknowledgements This research is based in part from data from a previously published study by this author References American Music Therapy Association (2007) The AMTA Member Sourcebook United States: American Music Therapy Association, Inc Aluede, C.O and Ekewenu, D.B (2009) ‘Healing Through Music and Dance in the Bible: Scope Competence and Implications for the Nigerian Music Healers’, Ethno-medicine 3(2): 159–63 Anderson, T., DeCarlo, A.C, Voisin, D and Bell, C (2003) ‘Trauma and Violence with Children: A U.S Perspective’, Journal of Psychiatric times 20(10): 10–17 DeCarlo: The Rise and Fall of GRT 13 Bernardi, L., Porta, C and Sleight, P (2006) ‘Cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory changes induced by different types of music in musicians and nonmusicians: The importance of silence’, Heart 92(4): 445–52 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An Innovative Approach to Groupwork with Urban Adolescents’, Journal of Intergroup Relations 27: 41–9 DeCarlo, A.C and Hockman, E (2003) ‘Rap Therapy: A groupwork intervention technique for urban adolescents’, Social Work with Groups 26(3): 45–59 DeCarlo, A (2012) A Developmental Explanatory Model of Maladaptive Aggressive Dispositions in Urban African American Adolescents SAGE Social Sciences Journal Open, 2(3) Elligan, D (2000) ‘Rap therapy: A culturally sensitive approach to psychotherapy with young African American men’, Journal of African American Studies 5(2): 327–36 Elligan, D (2004) Rap Therapy: A practical guide for communication with youth and young adults through rap music New York: Kensington Elliott, D J (1990) ‘Music as culture: toward a multicultural concept of arts education’, Journal of Aesthetic Education 24(1): 147–66 Evans, D J (2010) ‘The challenge of treating conduct disorder in resourced settings: rap music to the rescue’, Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health 22(2): 145–52 Fernando, S.H (1994) The New Beats—Exploring Music, Culture, and Attitude of Hip–Hop New York: Anchor Books Gardstorm, S.C (1999) ‘Music exposure and criminal behavior: Perceptions of juvenile offenders’, Journal of Music Therapy 36: 207–21 Hadley, S and Yancy, G (eds) (2011) Therapeutic Uses of Rap and Hip Hop New York, NY: Routledge Heidegger, M (1962) Being and Time Blackwell, Oxford, UK, and Cambridge, USA Jackson, C (2009) Before I Self Destruct Distributed by Interscope Records, USA Keen, A.W (2004) Using music as a therapy tool to help troubled adolescents Social Work Visions from Around the Globe: Citizens, Methods, and Approaches (ed Anna Metteri et al) The Haworth Social Work Practice Press, pp 361–73 Kemper, K.J and Danhauer, S.C (2005) ‘Music as Therapy’, Southern Medical Journal 98(3): 282–8 Meichenbaum, D.H (1995) Cognitive-behavioral therapy in historical perspective, in Comprehensive Textbook of Psychotherapy: Theory and practice, B.M Bongar and L Beutler (eds) New York, Oxford University Press Menon, V and Levitin, D.J (2005) ‘The rewards of music listening: response and physiological connectivity of the mesolimbic system’, Neuroimage 28: 175–84 Mitterschiffthaler, M.T., Fu, C.H.Y., Dalton, J., Andrew, C.M and Williams, S.A (2007) ‘Functional MRI study of happy and sad affective states induced by classical music’, Human Brain Mappin 28: 1150–62 14 Group Analysis 0(0) Saran, N and Neisser, B (2004) Enquiring Minds London, UK: Trentham Books Scheel, K.R and Westefeld, J.S (1999) ‘Heavy metal music and adolescent suicidality: an empirical investigation’, Adolescence 34(134): 253–73 Schneck, D.J and Berger, D.S (2006) The music effect: Music physiology and clinical applications London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Sickmund, M., Snyder, H and Poe-Yamagata, E (1996) Juvenile offenders and victims: update on violence Washington, DC: Department of Justice, Office of juvenile justice and Delinquency Prevention Sloboda, J and Juslin, P.N (2001) Psychological perspectives on music and emotion in Music and Emotion: Theory and Research (ed J Sloboda), pp 71–104 Oxford University Tyson, E.H (2002) ‘Hip Hop therapy: An exploratory study of rap music intervention with at-risk and delinquent youth’, Journal of Poetry Therapy 15(4): 131–44 Tyson, E.H (2003) ‘Rap music in social work practice with African American and Latino youth: A conceptual model with practical applications’, Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 8(4): 1–21 Uhlig, S (2011) ‘Rap and singing for emotional and cognitive development of atrisk-children’, in Baker and Uhlig (eds) Voicework in Music Therapy Jessica Kingsley Publishers Wu, S and Wu, Z (2009) ‘How to Use Hip-Hop Therapy on High-Risk Youth’, China Social Work 22: 55–7 Reprinted by the Social Work Issue, Reduplication of Published Materials of Renmin University of China Author biography Alonzo DeCarlo is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Seton Hill University He was formally an Associate Professor of Psychology at Chicago State University Dr DeCarlo’s areas of research interest include examining the psychological underpinnings of maladaptive aggressive dispositions with black adolescents and young adults and issues of mental health and juvenile justice DeCarlo has an extensive law enforcement background and clinical training as a psychotherapist, which he uses during his consultations nationally and abroad as a mental health and juvenile justice expert He is a capital punishment mitigating expert in the United States DeCarlo’s pioneering empirical work utilizing Rap music in clinical forensic setting had groundbreaking implications for mental health professionals and researchers He is an international visiting scholar and teaches in graduate psychology programmes at various universities in Africa and the West Indies Address: Seton Hill University, Department of Psychology, Seton Hill Dr., Greensburg PA 15601, USA Email: decarlo@setonhill.edu View publication stats