Abstract

This research aimed to develop and prove the effect of a positive psychology-based music therapy program for the emotional adaptation of gambling addicts' families. The research subjects were selected gambling addicts' families who were visiting a counselling center for gambling related problems as well as members of a GA family support group. The experimental group(n=9) received a 90- minute weekly session of positive psychology-based music therapy 8 times, while the control group(n=10) received 8 sessions of personal counselling at a counselling center for gambling-related problems. The measurement tools included PANAS(Positive Affect Negative Affect Scale), CES-D(Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale), PSS(Perceived Stress Scale), and PTS(Positive Thinking Scale). To analyze the maintenance of the therapy's effect in the experimental group, a repeated measure ANOVA and a paired samples t-test were performed with the pre-post, pre-maintenance, and post-maintenance variables of psychological adaptation. The experimental group demonstrated significantly decreased negative emotion, depression and perceived stress levels compared to the control condition. And the experimental group demonstrated significantly high positive emotion and thinking compared to the control group. This result suggests that positive psychology-based music therapy may have clinical utility in the emotional adaptation of gambling addicts' families.