Music Therapy Conversations: Recent Episodes
Luke Annesley
The podcast of the British Association for Music Therapy. Luke Annesley talks to music therapists and other people about music therapy and related topics.
In this episode, Crystal Luk-Worrall talks to Sally Bouwman. This is the first time that a senior member of staff from a school has been on the podcast, so this episode will be of special interest to any music therapists working in schools.
Sally is an assistant head and SENCO with over 30 years' experience as a teacher working in primary and secondary settings. She has always had an interest in children who may find the classroom and playground experience and school based learning challenging at times.
In Episode 110, following a discussion on social media, Luke talks to Ben Richardson about the language around music therapy, Relational Frame Theory, commissioning, and whether music therapy is actually 'functional all the way down'. You'll be hearing more from Ben at the BAMT conference in November 2026, and no doubt in future publications, but Music Therapy Conversations got here first!
Ben Richardson is a music therapist and the Therapy Lead at the National Online School, a large multi-disciplinary team of speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, creative arts therapists, and therapy assistants. His clinical and academic work focuses heavily on the intersection of music therapy and contextual behavioural science. By integrating Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Relational Frame Theory (RFT), Ben wants to build a framework of Process-Based Music Therapy, exploring clinical musical interactions as a rich, complex form of verbal behaviour, whilst honouring the importance of the aesthetic and "felt" aspects of the work music therapists do. Ben is particularly driven by the changing commissioning environment for education, health, and social care, and what music therapists could do to strengthen their position within it. He will be presenting his research on this at the BAMT conference in November.
References
Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., Roche, B. 2001. Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition. Springer.
Pavlicevic, M. 1997. Music Therapy in Context: Music, Meaning and Relationship. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Törneke, N. 2010. Learning RFT: An Introduction to Relational Frame Theory. New Harbinger Publications.
Links
LinkedIn TMTC: The Music Therapy Charity
Not referenced in the recording, but Chan et al. (2022) a good example (and open access article) of application of RFT principles to music (not music therapy): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37397135/
Mary-Clare Fearn is a HCPC registered music therapist, neurologic music therapist, supervisor, trainer and consultant with many years of experience working with children, young people and adults across education, healthcare and community settings. She is recognised for her integrative and collaborative approach, combining relational, trauma-informed and neurologic frameworks to optimise therapeutic outcomes for clients and the wider systems supporting them.
She is currently working with children with SEMH needs, autism, and learning disabilities, as well as providing music therapy on a paediatric hospital ward.
Alongside her therapy work Mary-Clare has worked extensively with staff teams. Her work incorporates attachment-informed approaches, including the principles of PACE from Daniel Hughes' Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy.
Mary-Clare is a BAMT registered supervisor and provides supervision, consultation and reflective support for therapists and multidisciplinary professionals, with an inclusive approach at the heart of her practice.
Early in her career, Mary-Clare established the music therapy outpatient service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital's Cheyne Child Development Service, supporting children with cerebral palsy, autism, learning disabilities and mental health needs. She has held specialist music therapy roles within SEN schools across Dorset and Somerset. For many years she has been a visiting lecturer at University of Roehampton delivering teaching, workshops and introductory training courses.
Mary-Clare has presented nationally and internationally on music therapy, neurologic music therapy, collaborative practice and attachment-informed approaches. Publications include:
Fearn, M-C., Bailey, E., Mitchell, E. (2026) 'Neurologic Music TherapyⓇ with neurodiversity and autism' Presentation at University of Westminster, Neurodiversity in Action during Brain Awareness Week
Fearn, M-C (2024) 'Neurologic Music TherapyⓇ with autistic clients' Paper Presentation to BAMT South West Music Therapy
Fearn, M-C. & Bailey, E. (2024). International impression. [podcast] Baselines in music therapy. Available at:https://goodpods.com/podcasts/baselines-in-music-therapy-297498/emma-bailey-and-mary-clare-fearn-international-impressions-42878458
Hepper, F., Bartlett, K. and Fearn, M-C. (2021) 'Attachment theory and attachment difficulties: supporting autistic children and young people in residential school settings', Good Autism Practice , 22(2), pp. 51–58 (8).
Fearn, M-C. (2019) 'Edges, Safeguarding and Endings' Paper Presentation at Key Changes Annual Conference, Hampshire
Strange, J., Fearn, M-C., & O'Connor, R., (2016) 'Music and Attuned Movement Therapy; How the Facilitator Mediates Between Client and Therapist', Collaboration and Assistance in Music Therapy Practice; Roles, Relationships, Challenges. Ed: Strange, Odell-Miller & Richards, Jessica Kingsley Publications, , Chap 11, pp 200-226,
Fearn, M-C (2015) 'Flute, Accordion or Clarinet? Using the Characteristics of Our Instruments in Music Therapy' Ed: Oldfield, Tomlinson & Loombe, Jessica Kingsley Publications, Chap 3, pp 76-77
Fearn, M-C. & O'Connor R., (2008) 'Collaborative working at the Cheyne Day Centre, London,' Integrated Team Working; Music Therapy as part of Transdisciplinary and Collaborative Approaches. Ed: Twyford & Waston, Jessica Kingsley Publications, Part 1 pp -55-61
Fearn M-C., & O'Connor R., (2005) 'Music and Attuned Movement Therapy' Paper Presentation at the World Congress on Music Therapy, Brisban, Australia,
Fearn M-C., & O'Connor R., (2004) Music and Attuned Movement Therapy'. Paper presentation at the British Society of Music Therapy, London
Fearn M-C., & O'Connor R., (2003) 'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts', BJMT, Vol 17(2) pp 67-75
Fearn M-C., & O'Connor R., (2002) 'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts', Paper Presentation at World Congress of Music Therapy, Oxford
Dr Sami Alanne, DMus, music therapist, training psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, is an Adjunct/Associate Professor of music therapy and a researcher at the University of the Arts Helsinki. His studies include traumas, refugeeism, mental health, psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy relating to music, culture, philosophy, and society. He is the author of the books The Theory and Practice of Psychodynamic Music Psychotherapy (Barcelona Publishers) and Music, Music Therapy and Refugees: Aspects of Trauma (Palgrave Macmillan).
Dr Alanne graduated as a music therapist at the Sibelius Academy in 1999 and the Master of Philosophy in music therapy at the University of Jyväskylä in 2001. He has worked in music therapy and mental health fields for over 30 years. As a music therapist and a psychotherapist, he has worked with children, adolescents, their families, and adult clients providing individual and group therapy at his private practice and health care company Apollo Terapiapalvelut (Apollo Therapy Services) in Helsinki. Besides his clinical work, during his career Alanne has been actively teaching, supervising, doing research, project work, and media appearances relating to music therapy, psychotherapy, health care, social welfare, and mental health services.
In 2010, Alanne was awarded the title of Doctor of Music at the Sibelius Academy. His published dissertation was Music Psychotherapy with Refugee Survivors of Torture. In 2011, Alanne graduated as a psychodynamic music psychotherapist at the University of Oulu, and in 2013, as a trainer psychotherapist in music psychotherapy at the University of Oulu, Faculty of Medicine. After his special advanced level training of music psychotherapy at the University of Oulu in Finland, Alanne published another monograph Musiikkipsykoterapia (2014) in Finnish that was a study of psychodynamic music therapy theory, methods, and research.
Since then, Dr Alanne continued his research and teaching of music therapy and psychotherapy: He has published several peer-reviewed scientific articles and books and presented them at multiple international conferences. During 2017–2019, he was a member of specialist group and project PALOMA (Developing National Mental Health Policies for Refugees at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Finland. In 2021, Alanne was awarded with a Title of Docent in music therapy (Adjunct/Associate Professor) indicating high level research and teaching competence at the University of the Arts Helsinki (Uniarts Helsinki), and Uniarts Helsinkis Sibelius Academy, and CERADA (The Center for Educational Research and Academic Development in the Arts). After that he has also worked as a visiting researcher at the Uniarts Helsinkis Research Institute. In 2022, Dr Alanne graduated as a psychoanalyst and a trainer psychotherapist at the Therapeia Institute and the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Medicine.
References
Alanne, S. (2010). Music Psychotherapy with Refugee Survivors of Torture. Interpretations of Three Clinical Case Studies. Sibelius Academy, Music Education Department, Studia Musica 44.
Alanne, S. (2014). Musiikkipsykoterapia. Teoria ja käytäntö. [Music Psychotherapy. Theory and Practice.] Acta Universitatis Ouluensis D Medica 1248.
Alanne, S. (2023). The Theory and Practice of Psychodynamic Music Psychotherapy. Dallas, TX: Barcelona Publishers.
Alanne, S. (2025). Music, Music Therapy, and Refugees: Aspects of Trauma. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
This is the second instalment of Anita Connell's recorded interviews from the Australian Music Therapy Conference, following on from episode 104.
Dr Grace Thompson is a registered music therapist and Associate Professor in Music Therapy at the University of Melbourne. Grace has lived experience of disability, and has worked with disabled children, young people and their families for over 20 years within the early childhood and special education sectors. As part of her PhD research, Grace developed and evaluated a collaborative approach to music therapy practice with families guided by ecological theories and family-centred philosophy. Her research continues to explore the ways music therapists can foster relationships and social connection through participating in engaging and accessible music making. Grace is past president of the Australian Music Therapy Association, author of "Goal Processes in Music Therapy Practice", and co-editor of the book "Music Therapy with Families: Therapeutic Approaches and Theoretical Perspectives". She is currently Editor of the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy. The song "Make Your Own Kind of Music" (performed by Cass Elliot, written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil) captures the sentiment of Grace's music therapy practice and research.
Brodie Henry (she/they) is a d/Deaf Registered Music Therapist working in Special Education for many years. She embeds Key Word Sign in her clinical practice and is often called on for her skills in Auslan to support students. Brodie embeds advocacy and principles of disability justice in her daily work to ensure children are appropriately supported in their emotional, developmental, and therapeutic needs in order to thrive.
Zoë Kalenderidis (she/her) is a disabled and Hard of Hearing Registered Music Therapist based in Narrm/Melbourne. Her work centres on promoting wellbeing and equitable access to music-making. She holds a Bachelor of Contemporary Music (Voice) from Southern Cross University and a Master of Music Therapy from the University of Melbourne. Since the inception of the Melbourne Youth Orchestra's Adaptive Music Bridging Program, Zoë has served as musical director of the Foundation Groups, supporting disabled children who experience significant barriers to music education. The program fosters accessible ensemble playing using adaptive or standard instruments tailored to each child's interests and needs. Zoë is interested in d/Deaf and disabled aesthetics in music, exploring how musical experiences and creative expression are shaped by diverse modes of listening, embodiment, and sensory perception. She seeks to challenge conventional notions of music-making while celebrating and valuing the artistry of disabled musicians. She is also a published author and co-author, with research that amplifies the visibility and contributions of disabled musicians and Registered Music Therapists.
Rob Devlin is a Registered Music Therapist with over 18 years' experience and is also a Director of Sound Expression. He was previously Senior Music Therapist and Head of Business Development for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Australia. He completed his Masters in Creative Music Therapy through Western Sydney University. He values the use of interactive, improvisational music therapy, as embodied by the Nordoff-Robbins philosophy and approach to clinical music therapy.
Rob has extensive experience as a music therapist with many clinical populations, including children and adults with a wide range of disabilities, neuro-divergent children, adolescents and adults with mental health diagnoses, rehabilitation work with clients who have had strokes, acquired brain injuries and spinal cord injuries. He also has extensive experience providing music therapy in aged care settings including clients with dementia. Before coming to music therapy, Rob had many years' experience in the corporate world in various senior sales and marketing roles. He left that world behind to focus on his passion, which is using music to help others live a more fulfilled and rewarding life.
Tamar Hadar, PhD, is co-head of the Music Therapy Program at the School of Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, where she leads the program together with Dr. Maayan Salomon-Gimmon. She completed her M.A. and PhD in Music Therapy at Bar-Ilan University. Her doctoral research - supervised by Prof. Dorit Amir - compared clinical improvisation and jazz improvisation. Tamar's first postdoctoral fellowship was at NYU under the mentorship of Prof. Kenneth Aigen, where her work centered on analyzing Nordoff and Robbins's clinical improvisations and developing a theory of time around them. Her second postdoctoral fellowship, under Dr. Tal-Chen Rabinowitch, focused on applying a sociological theory, tight-loose (T-L) in music therapy, alongside a musicological, multicultural perspective.
Tamar is a music therapist, supervisor, and lecturer, working with children and families in an early intervention unit and in private practice. She specializes in child - parent interventions, particularly in the context of trauma and displacement. Her research focuses on clinical improvisation (theory and assessment), music therapy in trauma & displacement, child-parent music therapy, and culturally sensitive music therapy. She also originated a time-model for analyzing clinical improvisations.
References
Benjamin, J. (2004). Beyond doer and done to: Recognition and the intersubjective third. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 73(1), 5-46.
Hadar, T. (2025). Moments of thirdness in music therapy: A qualitative meta-analysis embedded in Jessica Benjamin's intersubjectivity. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 17(3).
Hadar, T., & Aigen, K. (2025). A Theory of Time in Music Therapy: A Model for Analyzing Nordoff–Robbins Clinical Improvisation. Journal of Music Therapy, 62(2), thaf014.
Hadar, T., & Rabinowitch, T. C. (2025). Tight or Loose? Reframing Musical Relationships Between Client and Therapist in Music Therapy. Music Therapy Perspectives, 43(2), miaf018.
Hadar, T. (2024). Parenting in the Face of Trauma: Music Therapy to Support Parent–Child Dyads Affected by War and Displacement. Children, 11(10), 1269.
Roginsky, E., Hadar, T., Midhat-Najami, N., Saada, B., Khoury, R., & Hebi, M. (2025). Breathing war, dreaming connection: Dialogue as an ethical foundation for collaborative work of Palestinian and Jewish music therapists in Israel. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 17(1).
Hadar, T., & Amir, D. (2018). Discovering the flute's voice: On the relation of flutist music therapists to their primary instrument. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 27(5), 381-398.
Episode 105 is another interview from Crystal Luk-Worrall. In this episode, Crystal talks to music therapist Hugh Anderson.
Hugh is a freelance Music Therapist and currently runs his own private practice, Thame Music Therapy, in South Oxfordshire. He trained at The Guildhall from 2014-2016 and has had a wide range of experiences working in mainstream and specialist schools and nurseries, as well as in different charity and community settings. The latter included eight years at the charity Resources for Autism in north London, where he was Head of Therapies from 2020-2023. Before training as a Music Therapist, Hugh worked for the charity Kids Company for six years, was a peripatetic piano teacher and was a songwriter and performer within a number of different bands.
Two years ago, Hugh discovered a different kind of improvisation in the form of improvised theatre and comedy, aka Improv. He is exploring the overlaps between Improv and Music Therapy and is currently collaborating with Dramatherapist Tim Goldman to set up an adult community group which combines music, movement, drama and free play to support mental health and group connection.
Hugh is a mentor on the BAMT NQMT mentoring scheme, a clinical supervisor and an active member of the BAMT Freelance and BAMT Oxfordshire network groups.
Improv Blog: https://thamemusictherapy.co.uk/improv-theatre-freeze-tag-discovery-and-saying-yes/
Working with parents in MT Blog: https://thamemusictherapy.co.uk/being-a-parent-of-a-child-in-music-therapy/
In this episode, first Luke talks to Anita, then we hear Anita's interviews with Professors Denise Grocke and Alison Short. Sandwiched between these two longer interviews there are some shorter conversations with Pip Reid, Lucy Bolger, Wendy Magee, Helen Cameron, Catherine Threlfall and Emma O'Brien. This all took place at the AMTA conference in October 2025, in Melbourne.
Emeritus Professor Denise Grocke PhD, RMT, RGIMT, FAMI, L. Mus.
Emeritus Professor Denise Grocke completed her music therapy qualifications at Michigan State University, USA, and holds a Masters degree in Music Therapy, and a PhD in Guided Imagery and Music (GIM), both from the University of Melbourne. She has worked as a music therapist with people living with mental illness, neurological disorders and dementia. She is trained in the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music, and is a Fellow of the Association for Music and Imagery in the U.S. She established the music therapy course at the University of Melbourne in 1978, and for 33 years was Head of Music Therapy. From 1998-2012 she was Director of the National Music Therapy Research Unit (NaMTRU), which she established to promote research in music therapy at a national level. She co-founded the International Consortium of Music Therapy Research Universities in 2002, which enabled large international multi-site trials to advance the Profession. She was President of the World Federation of Music Therapy (WFMT) from 1999-2002, having served three terms as Chair of the Commission of Education, Training and Registration. She co-founded the Australian Music Therapy Association in 1975 and served two terms as its President. Professor Grocke has written extensively on music therapy and Guided Imagery and Music. She is co-author of Receptive Music Therapy (2024, with Dr Katrina McFerran); editor of Guided Imagery and Music: The Bonny Method and Beyond 2nd edition (2019); Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) and Music Imagery Methods for Individual and Group Therapy (2015; co-edited with Torben Moe); co-author of Receptive Methods in Music Therapy (2007) with Tony Wigram, and co-editor of Music Medicine 3 (1999) with Rosalie Rebollo Pratt. In addition she has published 30 book chapters, 50+ refereed journals articles, Cochrane reviews, and online publications. In 2012 she was presented with an Award of Merit, by the American Music
Therapy Association, in recognition of service to the field of music therapy. In 2013 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Australian Music Therapy Association and Honorary Life Membership of the World Federation of Music Therapy, the Australian Music Therapy Association, and the Music and Imagery Association of Australia. In 2016 she was made an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) for services as a pioneering practitioner, researcher, author and teacher in music therapy, and services to professional Organisations.
Assoc. Prof. Alison Short
Alison Short, PhD, MA (MT), BMus (MThy), GCULT, DipTh, CertIV, RMT, MT-BC, RGIMT, FAMI, is Associate Professor of Music Therapy/Music and Health at Western Sydney University, Australia. Alison trained in the very first music therapy course in Australia at the University of Melbourne, then completed her Masters in music therapy at New York University and her PhD at the University of Technology, Sydney. With over 43 years of practice as an Australian Registered Music Therapist, and 34 years holding Board Certification, Alison's clinical experience encompasses aged and palliative care, mental health and more, in the context of both medical and community settings. In addition, Alison worked for 10 years as a health services researcher on a range of projects and health applications, mostly within the Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). Alison is an internationally recognised music therapy academic demonstrating innovative evidence-based and music-focussed expertise with an extensive publication record and frequent international invitations. Alison's work has been recognised with Honorary Life Membership of both the Australian Music Therapy Association and the Music and Imagery Association of Australia, and she is currently appointed as Regional Representative to the Council of the World Federation of Music Therapy.
References
Gracida, Maclean and Coombes 2025 Music Therapy with Displaced Persons: Trauma, Transformations and Cultural Connections. Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Scrub choir video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1YtT0qLjDA
In episode 103, Crystal Luk-Worrall interviews Carine Ries. Crystal is a new addition to the Music Therapy Conversations team of interviewers - more interviews from her coming soon! (You can also listen to Davina's interview with Crystal, if you haven't already, as this is episode 91.)
Carine completed her undergraduate degree in Music & Psychology at the University of Leeds before moving to London to complete her MA in Music Therapy at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2010. Carine has since also qualified as a Music and Imagery therapist and GIM fellow. Carine completed her 200hrs yoga teacher training in 2017 and has presented internationally on the benefits of using a combined approach in therapy. She has experience working with children and adults in a variety of settings and with a range of needs, including mental health, emotional and behavioural difficulties, sensory processing difficulties, and profound and multiple learning disabilities. In her private practice Carine works with children and adults offering music therapy, GIM, yoga, and animal assisted therapy.
They discuss numerous topics, including: developing a diverse practice, supporting a team of music therapists, combining modalities, the importance of supervision, making music therapy accessible in the community, and leading from the heart.
In this episode, Martin Lawes talks with Tim Honig, PhD, MT-BC
This podcast conversation about Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) includes discussion about how the cultural context may affect practice, about the music's role as co-therapist, and about the use of different types of music. The ongoing development of GIM worldwide is also considered where Music and Imagery (MI) methods are becoming increasingly important in Europe.
Tim Honig, PhD, MT-BC is a board-certified music therapist and a Fellow of the Association for Music and Imagery. He is Assistant Professor and Director of Music Therapy at Westfield State University in Massachusetts, USA. A practitioner of the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM), he provides depth-oriented music therapy in private practice and provides supervision for therapists in GIM training with the Appalachian GIM Institute. Tim's music therapy research and clinical practice have focused on music therapy in mental healthcare in acute settings and private practice.
Reference
Yoshihara, N., Acebes de Pablo, A., & Honig, T. J. (2024). Relationships between cultural factors and engaging in Guided Imagery and Music: An exploratory qualitative study. Journal of Music Therapy, 61(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/thad022
Episode 101 is Luke's interview with Tina Warnock. This took place online in April 2025. Their conversation had a strong focus on vocal psychotherapy, including Tina's personal process of discovering this powerful therapeutic practice, and her current roles in developing training and research in this area.
Tina Warnock is originally from Hertfordshire in England and has been based in Brighton, East Sussex since her undergraduate studies in Social Psychology in the late 1980s. She grew up playing the piano and in her late teens began singing and songwriting. The personal growth she experienced through singing with others and later vocal training led to a life-long interest in the connection between the voice and the self.
Since qualifying as a music therapist in 2000, Tina gained extensive experience in a wide range of clinical settings including child and adolescent mental health, child development, special education, elderly mental health and learning disabilities. Her current practice includes vocal psychotherapy with people in cancer care, women with a history of trauma and abuse, and private practice with adults.
In 2009 Tina established Belltree Music Therapy in Brighton (www.belltree.org.uk) which is now a thriving music therapy service. Between 2009 and 2013 she served on the BAMT board of trustees and was joint PR officer. Since 2016 she has focussed on developing the Austin Vocal Psychotherapy (AVPT) Distance Training Programme with Dr Diane Austin.
In 2016 Tina invited Diane Austin to the UK to give some introductory workshops in vocal psychotherapy. The interest shown, combined with Tina’s passion for the work led to her working intensively with Dr Austin over three 2-year programmes and in 2026 she will take on the role of lead trainer for this programme.
Tina has been affiliated with Roehampton as a visiting lecturer and lecturer on the MA Music Therapy course. She regularly presents at music therapy conferences and has published several articles and book chapters on the voice and the self in music therapy. She is currently undertaking doctoral research at the Cambridge Institute of Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, investigating the impact of Austin Vocal Psychotherapy training on a music therapist’s voice, sense of self and therapeutic practice.
(3) Tina Warnock | LinkedIn
https://www.aru.ac.uk/people/tina-warnock
www.belltree.org.uk
www.austinvocalpsychotherapy.com
The 100th episode is here!
Luke and Davina look back on the podcast - how it started out, where it has come to, what they have learned so far. They also go on conversational detours, considering their own perspectives on this profession, including current discussions about diversity, inclusion and race, along with the nature of music in music therapy, and how individual, as well as multi-faceted, this work is. What were the original intentions for the podcast? Who helped get it started? What's Luke's favourite episode? All will be revealed!
Thanks are also given to all those people who have helped with the podcast, including all the interviewees to date.
More podcasts to come, but this was a moment to look back and reflect.
For those people who have been asking Luke, 'When will you be interviewed?', this is (sort of) an answer to that question.
For anyone interested in getting involved as an interviewer, please contact Luke via email: luke.annesley@uwe.ac.uk
References and links
Annesley, L. (2014). The music therapist in school as outsider. British Journal of Music Therapy, 28(2), 36-43.
Vencatasamy, D. (2023). The importance of being diverse: Exploring the journey from Brexit to Belonging. British Journal of Music Therapy, 37(1), 28-35.
Ethan Hein's podcast episode about 'Stormy Monday', referred to in the conversation:
https://ethanhein.substack.com/p/they-call-it-stormy-monday
Davina talks to Michele Forinash DA, MT-BC, LMHC about her experiences working with AIDS patients in hospice in the 1980s, topics around white supremacy and colonialism in music therapy, Michele's experiences as a queer music therapist, and the decolonisation of research and practice. This is a rich and inspiring interview with a music therapist with deep insights from a long and varied career to date.
Michele is Professor & Director of the PhD program in the Expressive Therapies Department at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. Michele, a white, cis, Queer woman, has been involved in music therapy since 1981. Michele's research and publications have focused on supervision, doctoral education, LGBTQIA+ topics, arts-based research, and music therapy history. Michele is a former President of the American Music Therapy Association and former Chair of the National Coalition of Creative Arts Therapy.
Tessa Watson is a music therapist and trainer. She is Associate Professor and Programme Leader for the MA Music Therapy at University of Roehampton and works in that setting with colleagues across the Arts and Play Therapies and other HCPC registered professions. She has extensive clinical experience in mental health and learning disability work and her current music therapy work is with the children and families who use Alexander Devine Hospice. Tessa has an interest in co-production and is one of the founders of HENCoP (The Health Education Network for Co-Production).
Tessa has published and spoken widely about her music therapy work to support adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities, the experience of women in secure psychiatric settings, multi-disciplinary work and learning and teaching music therapy. She has contributed to the development of the profession in the UK (BAMT) and internationally (EMTC) and in 2020 led the BAMT online conference which attracted over 570 delegates. Tessa is an HCPC partner, working on CPD and FTP schemes. She plays cello and sings in local amateur musical groups.
Tessa’s most recent book, written with Cathy Warner is Contemporary Issues in Music Therapy Training, A Resource for Trainees, Trainers and Practitioners (Routledge 2024).
Some other notable publications are ‘Music Therapy with Adults with Learning Disabilities - a view from the United Kingdom’ in The Handbook of Music Therapy (2024), ‘Supporting the Unplanned Journey’ in Collaboration and Assistance in Music Therapy Practice (2017), ‘The World is Alive! Music Therapy with Adults with Learning Disabilities’ in the Oxford Handbook of Music Therapy, OUP (2016), Integrated Team Working: Music Therapy as Part of Transdisciplinary and Collaborative Approaches, London; Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2008) with Karen Twyford, and Music Therapy with Adults with Learning Disabilities, London; Routledge (2007).
Links:
https://www.routledge.com/Contemporary-Issues-in-Music-Therapy-Training-A-Resource-for-Trainees-Trainers-and-Practitioners/Watson-Warner/p/book/9781032853963?srsltid=AfmBOoqv92gfeHbBxe_zmiemr1pyCC769xqTMPqxlu1E7Hfqo-imlCXw
https://alexanderdevine.org/
https://www.roehampton.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-taught-courses/music-therapy/
In episode 97, Davina Vencatasamy talks to her friend and distinguished colleague Jasmine Edwards.
Jasmine Edwards, MA, LCAT, MT-BC (she/her) is a doctoral candidate and fellow within Steinhardt Music Education with a focus in music therapy at New York University. Jasmine holds a BM and MA in music therapy from Florida State University and NYU, respectively. Her clinical experiences include private practice, outpatient, school-based, community, and medical pediatric settings, and she is trained in NICU-MT, First Sounds: RBL, and Austin Vocal Psychotherapy. Jasmine has a vested interest in elevating dialogues about cultural humility within music therapy education and clinical practice within both her teaching and academic writing. She has served as an adjunct faculty member in the music therapy departments at Howard University, New York University, Montclair State University, Nazareth College, Duquesne University, and Molly University.
Tamsin is a multi-instrumentalist and composer with roots in the traditional dance tunes of the British Isles. Her debut solo album FREY (2022) established her as a rising star on the folk scene, with The Guardian praising her "beautiful, filmic compositions for accordion, harp, whistle and voice”. In this work Tamsin explores themes of limbo, pain, healing and acceptance, reflecting on the microcosm of her personal experience of chronic illness alongside wider themes of societal disconnection and environmental grief. Her forthcoming record The Meeting Tree celebrates connection, nature and the joy of sharing tunes with friends.
Tamsin’s critically-acclaimed collaboration with Egyptian oud player Tarek Elazhary explores the parallels and celebrates the idiosyncrasies of Egyptian Maqam music and English folk traditions. Their friendship and resulting duo album So Far We Have Come is a testament to the unifying power of music, and won them a place in The Guardian’s Top Ten Folk Albums of 2023, as well as a nomination for Best Group at the Songlines Music Awards.
A versatile composer-performer, Tamsin also contributes to chamber-folk quintet Hedera and festival-favourite Mediterranean fusion band Solana. As a Musician in Residence at UHBW NHS Trust, she channels her musical passion into healing and connection, writing new music on lever harp and playing for patients on wards including the ICU.
This episode was recorded in Tamsin's studio in Bristol and it includes performances recorded especially for the podcast. Luke and Tamsin also discuss her work as a musician in residence and her cross-cultural musical collaborations.
Tamsin's website, which includes details of recodings and forthcoming live dates, is here.
In this episode, Davina Vencatasamy talks to Dr Chamari Wedamulla.
Chamari is an independent researcher specialising in music education, with expertise in integrating music therapy approaches to enhance student mental health and well-being. Previously affiliated with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Birmingham City University, Chamari contributed to the Fair & Inclusive Music Midlands (FIMM) project commissioned by Arts Council England, exploring the perceptions of the Midlands music education landscape and current learning barriers faced by young people, while coordinating with a range of key stakeholders and organisations within the field. Chamari's PhD in Music Education and Music Therapy (Kingston University, London) focused on employing music therapy techniques in education to support adolescents’ mental health. She was a steering group member of EDI MS, which is a cross-organisational network which aims to promote, support and share good practice in relation to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Music Higher Education in the UK. Chamari has co-authored reports for Arts Council England and contributed to publications such as The Routledge Companion to Women and Musical Leadership (2024).
Luke speaks to Jonathan 'Jaytee' Tang about his PhD research, which makes links between music therapy, music psychology and cultural psychology. They discuss the concepts of independent vs interdependent self-construal, and the relevance of this to musical interactions. This has some fascinating implications for music therapy practice.
Jonathan (Jaytee) Tang has over nine years of international clinical experience as a music therapist, having worked in medical, special education, and mental health settings. His work with individuals and families from diverse cultural backgrounds fueled his passion for exploring the interconnections between culture, music, and well-being. Currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Sheffield, Jonathan’s research focuses on how culture shapes emotional responses to music. His doctoral project specifically investigates the influence of cultural models of selfhood on affective experiences with music.
Reference
Taylor, S. E., Welch, W. T., Kim, H. S., & Sherman, D. K. (2007). Cultural differences in the impact of social support on psychological and biological stress responses. Psychological Science, 18(9), 831–837. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01987.x
Colin Lee talks to Martin Lawes about his musicology-oriented approach as a Nordoff-Robbins trained music therapist, and about the newly published Oxford Handbook of Queer and Trans Music Therapy which he edited. The podcast begins and ends with music. To start with, a composition by a music therapist commissioned to begin the handbook. To conclude, an improvisation from a music therapy session where Colin explains his musical decision-making as a therapist. Colin Andrew Lee studied piano at the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie and subsequently earned his postgraduate diploma in music therapy from the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre, London, UK. Colin was awarded the Music Therapy Charity research fellowship completing his doctoral thesis on the analysis of improvisations with people living with HIV/AIDS at London Lighthouse, a center for people facing the challenge of AIDS. He continued his clinical work at Sir Michael Sobell House Hospice, Oxford, UK. After immigrating to North America, Colin taught at Berklee College of Music, Boston, USA, and later at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada. Following the publication of Music at the Edge: The music therapy experiences of a musician with AIDS (1996, 2016), he subsequently created the theory of aesthetic music therapy that was the subject of Colin's monograph, The Architecture of Aesthetic Music Therapy (2003). Colin recently edited The Oxford Handbook of Queer and Trans Music Therapy (2024), and is currently editing The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Music Therapy. His research interests also include the analysis of postminimalist composers and their influence on the study of applied health musicology.
References Lee, C. A. (2024) The Oxford Handbook of Queer and Trans Music Therapy. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192898364.001.0001 Lee, C. A. & Dromey, C. (2023). Towards an applied health musicology: Aesthetic music therapy and beyond. In C. Dromey (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Applied Musicology (pp. 184-191). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003042983
Tilly Mütter has repeated her roving reporter trick from EMTC 2022. This time she talks to various conference attendees at the BAMT conference in Leicester in May 2024, providing a variety of interesting perspectives on the weekend. the theme of the conference was 'About All of Us, For All of Us, By All of Us', with the primary aims of highlighting and promoting the development of Music Therapy. There are some familiar voices here (to Music Therapy Conversations listeners) along with some new ones. In order of appearance, Tilly spoke to: Naviella Dowds, Anthony Voelcker, Kelly Fraser, Duncan Campbell, Marianne Rizkallah, Helen Odell-Miller, Hakeem Leonard, Kirsty Jane, Kendra Bodden and Karen Diamond. A big thanks to all of these contributors! Before that, Tilly and Luke also share their own (somewhat hazy) recollections in the introduction. You can find another view from Marianne Rizkallah on her blog here, and no doubt there are more conference reports incoming. There were some fresh faces at this conference, new formats, and many inspiring moments, in a different sort of venue - plenty to reflect on and learn from!
In episode 91, Davina speaks to Crystal Luk-Worrall about EMDR and music therapy. Crystal Luk-Worrall is a music therapist and EMDR therapist working with the adoption community in London through her private practice Clap and Toot, as well as working with bereaved families through her work at Shooting Star Children’s Hospices. She enjoys exploring multi-modality practice and systemic practice. Crystal also supports fellow freelance therapists and newly qualified therapists through her role as BAMT’s freelance network coordinator.
Clap and Toot | Music Therapy
In this podcast, Martin Lawes talks to Helen Wallace-Bell about SMI and RMI which are part of the contemporary spectrum of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) and Music and Imagery (MI) methods
Helen explains what these approaches are and how the recorded music used is chosen collaboratively to help the client develop their inner resources or work on issues. Helen is involved in MI training which also gets discussed. In addition, Helen talks about her work with clients who have PTSD and about online groupwork with carers. She discusses various music used in this work including Breezin’ (George Benson, https://open.spotify.com/track/1m3BAsNsQAaSNMD2M6vlKY?si=af7875cabc884295), Angels Nest (Peter Kater, https://open.spotify.com/track/3ijj6aeXCKMZWsD0EdzneJ?si=ce6f4f6551184195), and Darkest Hour (Sevdaliza, https://open.spotify.com/track/0ZbHjO6HyoGMLq5dCQIYWm?si=f41ece3b7bf64b45).
The podcast begins with Martin explaining how GIM in contemporary practice is a spectrum of different methods and approaches including MI. He outlines what the Bonny Method of GIM is, as the original GIM method, and how MI has been developed in part to meet the needs of clients where GIM is contra-indicated or is in other ways unsuitable. For music therapists wishing to use GIM with their existing clients, the MI methods are especially important.
Helen Wallace-Bell, MA, BA (Hons), FAMI, MIT(Dip.), IMBP(Dip.) trained as a Music Therapist at the University of Roehampton, qualifying in 2007. She then worked for many years with adults with a learning disability. During this time, Helen began training in GIM, an experience she found transformative and enlightening both professionally and personally. She is now a GIM Fellow and MI Therapist (MIT) working in mental health, trauma, personal development, and group work (https://www.routesforchange.uk/). She is also an Independent Music Breathing Practitioner, Assistant Trainer and Supervisor at The Integrative GIM Training Programme (www.integrativegim.org), and a BAMT registered supervisor.
Helen’s GIM training cohort were the first to be trained in SMI and RMI in the UK and she is passionate about the efficacy and value of MI as a therapy process. She has presented case studies at a number of conferences, including sharing the results of an SMI groupwork pilot project undertaken with music therapy organisation Whole Step CIC during Covid-19 lockdowns, and her own experience as a trainee using MI to process transference/counter-transference.
In her spare time, Helen enjoys living by the sea, and is a singer, songwriter, and percussionist in a folk trio.
References
Wallace, H. (2010) 'An Inquiry into an Integrated Approach to Music Therapy for Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder & Sensory Integration Dysfunction'. MA research project, Roehampton University (unpublished).
Margetts, L., Wallace, H. & Young, E. (2013) 'A Potential Space: Approaching "Outsider Research" with Classroom Practitioners working with Children with Complex Needs in Belarus', British Journal of Music Therapy, Vol.27, 2 p.6-23 (Co-Author)
Wallace, H. (2018) 'A Whirlwind of Being', Music & Imagery Therapy Case Study outlining MI to process transference/counter-transference), presented at the 13th European GIM Conference, European Association of Music and Imagery (EAMI)
Wallace, H (2021) 'Containment Through Collaboration: Online Therapy During Lockdown - A Pilot Project', Music & Imagery Therapy Groupwork Case Study, presented as part of a roundtable (Supportive Music & Imagery: Integrating Artwork & Imagery into Music Therapy practice), at The British Association for Music Therapy's annual conference (theme: 'Open Ground: Music Therapy in Collaboration & Exchange)
Wallace, H (2022) 'The Way We Were: A multi-method approach to Music Therapy to support an adult with Learning Disability through bereavement', Music Therapy & Music & Imagery Therapy Case Study, presented at the 12th European Music Therapy Conference (theme: 'Music Therapy in Progress - Please Disturb')
Wallace, H (2022) 'Online Group Music & Imagery Therapy During Lockdown', presented as part of a roundtable (The Use of Music & Imagery Methods as stand-alone interventions and as part of the continuum model), at the 12th European Music Therapy Conference
Wallace, H. & Jakubauskas, R. (2022) 'A Sense of Belonging: Piloting an online Supportive Music & Imagery Therapy Group for Adult Carers during Covid-19', poster presentation at the 12th European Music Therapy Conference
Wallace, H (2022) 'Reclaiming Jocelyn: One Woman's Journey Back to her Self through Music & Imagery Therapy', poster presentation at the 12th European Music Therapy Conference
Wallace, H, & Jakubauskas, R (2023) 'Piloting Online Group Music & Imagery Therapy for Adult Carers during Covid-19', poster presentation at the World Federation of Music Therapy World Congress of Music Therapy
Emi talks with Davina about their recent debut at the BAMT Conference in May 2024 where they spoke about their experiences of being a deaf music therapist.
Here are Emi's words of introduction:
My name’s Emi and my pronouns are they/them. I’m a deaf music therapist who currently works in older people’s mental health in the NHS. I graduated from the University of Derby in 2022 with my master’s in music therapy, where I became passionate about making music therapy more accessible to deaf people. Ever since, I’ve been working on publishing my independent scholarship on how my experience of music impacts my work, and I hope to use my career and research to platform the different ways disabled folks access music and music therapy.
This is the recording of the live discussion from the BAMT conference at the Curve Theatre Leicester on 18 May 2024. The conference panel was Luke Annesley, Rachel Darnley-Smith, Tilly Mutter and Davina Vencatasamy. Surprise special guests were Wendy Magee and Joy Gravestock, who happened to be in the audience, and excerpts were included from previous episodes from Wendy and Joy, along with Denise Wong and Mercedes Pavlicevic. The episode includes discussion about the genesis of the podcast, the processes of interviewing and being interviewed, and closer examination of excerpts from episodes selected by the panellists. Thanks to everyone who attended in person, and to BAMT for a wonderful and enriching conference.
Karen D. Goodman, PhD., Professor Emerita of Music, Montclair State University, Montclair, New Jersey, USA., has been the primary figure in designing and developing both the former undergraduate and graduate music therapy programs at Montclair over forty years. Professor Goodman’s research-based clinical work, at ten clinical settings, includes music therapy practice in child and adult psychiatry and developmental disabilities at New York Hospital- Cornell Medical Center, Creative Arts Rehabilitation Center-NYC and educational programs in the Greater New York area.
Currently an Associate Editor for Psychology of Music, Professor Goodman has served as Editor of Music Therapy: The Journal of the American Association for Music Therapy and other journals in education. Her publications include two widely acclaimed books: Music Therapy Groupwork with Special Needs Children: The Evolving Process (2007) and Music Therapy Education and Training: From Theory to Practice (2011) as well as two edited books International Perspectives in Music Therapy Education and Training: Adapting to a Changing World (2015) and Developing Issues in Music Therapy Education and Training: A Plurality of Views (2023). A frequent presenter at international music therapy conferences over many years, she lectures and consults internationally on topics related to her clinical work and higher education and the relationships between these, most recently her lifespan developmental stage model for music therapy supervision (Goodman, 2023). Her outreach services for clinical supervision, program design, editing, teaching and both book and grant review are described here: karendgoodmanconsulting.com
References
Arieti, S., (1955) Interpretation of schizophrenia.
Goodman, K.D. (2023) The Music Therapy Supervisor: Developmental Perspectives. Aalborg, Denmark: Aalborg University
Goodman, K.D. (Ed.) (2023) Developing Issues in World Music Therapy Education and Training. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas Publisher.
Goodman, K.D. (Ed.) (2015) International Perspectives in Music Therapy Education and Training: Adapting to a Changing World. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas Publisher.
Goodman, K.D. (2011) Music Therapy Education and Training: Theory to Practice. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas Publisher.
Goodman, K.D (2007) Music Therapy Groupwork with Special Needs Children: The Evolving Process. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas Publisher.
Goodman, K.D. (2015) Book Publication in Music Therapy (In) K.D. Goodman (Ed.) International Perspectives on Music Therapy Education and Training: Adapting to a Changing World. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas.
Kaufman, D. L. & Goodman, K.D. Cracking Up and Back Again: Transformation through Music and Poetry. In Z. Li & T.L. Long, (Eds.) (2010) The Meaning Management Challenge: Making Sense of Health, Illness and Disease, Oxford, UK: Inter-Disciplinary Press, pp. 117-129.
Goodman, K.D. (1981) Music Therapy, Chapter 29. In S. Arieti (Ed.) The American Handbook of Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books
Goodman, K.D. (2008) Cracking Up and Back Again: Book Review. Arts in Psychotherapy. 35(2)
Goodman, K.D. (1989) Music Therapy Evaluation of Emotionally Disturbed. Children. Arts in Psychotherapy. 16(2), 179-192.
Goodman, K.D. (1986) Book reviews. Journal of Music Therapy, 23 (1).
Holly Shirra is a qualified music therapist who holds her focus on helping people connect in community and express themselves creatively and authentically. With classical piano training from a young age, Holly discovered a passion for free improvisation while studying music therapy, which she completed in 2020.
To help her understand further how people spontaneously create in groups, Holly founded 'Cambridge Music Improv' - a community project that gathers people from diverse backgrounds in public spaces to improvise music together. This supportive environment allows participants to tap into their creative side and find catharsis and self-expression while building connections with others.
Alongside her community work, Holly has extensive experience in musical education, teaching piano to children since the age of 15. She continues to share her love of music through teaching as a regular part of her work.
In her spare time these days, Holly likes to find balance through cooking, rock climbing, meditation, and spending time in nature.
Here is a link to Holly's documentary about the group:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38w-ygwKaIY&t=43s
Jessica Leza is a board-certified music therapist, author, and multimedia artist. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Music Composition from the University of North Texas and a Master of Arts in Music Therapy from Texas Woman’s University. Leza’s music therapy scholarship and advocacy centers around neurodiversity, disability justice, culture, and LGBTQ+ liberation and includes publications in The Neurodiversity Reader, Sociocultural Identities in Music Therapy, and The Oxford Handbook of Queer and Trans Music Therapy, as well as the solo-authored An Introduction to Neurodiversity and Autistic Culture for (Music) Therapists. Leza’s multimedia works have been showcased in film and arts festivals across the US and Europe, China, and South America.
Luke and Jessica discussed her process of becoming a music therapist and her recent experiences of clinical practice, followed by the concepts of neuroqueering and neurocosmopolitanism as they might apply to music therapy.
e-Book: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1492591757/an-introduction-to-neurodiversity-and
Paperback: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1510338925/paperback-an-introduction-to
https://jessicaleza.com/
References
Hadley, S. 2021 Sociocultural Identities in Music Therapy. United States: Barcelona Publishers.
Lee, C. 2024 Oxford Handbook of Queer and Trans Music Therapy. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, USA.
Leza, J. (n.d.). An Introduction to Neurodiversity and Autistic Culture for (Music) Therapists. United States: La Migdalia Press.
Walker, N. (2021). Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities. United States: Autonomous Press.
Luke talks to Den Vecchio, a play therapist living and working in Bristol, UK. They discuss the principles of play therapy, why play therapy has become more available in mainstream schools in recent years, and overlaps with music therapy practice. Also - why every play therapist should have snakes, spiders and crocodiles in their collection!
Den is a thoughtful practitioner and was a very entertaining and engaging podcast guest. As a music therapist, you're perhaps unlikely to have come across her, but don't let this discourage you from listening to this fascinating episode. There's lots of food for thought here, in particular for music therapists who work with children and young people.
Den Vecchio's website: https://thegardenroombristol.com/author/denvecchio/
References
Axline, V. M. (1975). Dibs: In search of self. Mansion.
Evelyn Mason is an experienced music therapist and Vice-Chancellor’s PhD Student at the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge. Chroma Therapies and the Independent Neurorehabilitation Providers Alliance (INPA) are collaborating with ARU on this study which focuses on music therapy to address the emotional challenges of family caregivers of people with Huntington’s disease. As a practising clinician, she has specialisms in brain injury rehabilitation, adoption, dementia, learning disability and hospice care.
Having completed her MA Music Therapy training at ARU in 2008, she worked for the Northern Ireland Music Therapy Trust in Belfast, with children with learning difficulties in Chennai, India, for Methodist Homes Association (MHA) in central England, for Chroma Therapies with individual adoption cases, and currently works with Chroma Therapies as a Neurologic Music Therapist at a brain injury rehabilitation unit in Bristol.
Evelyn employs an integrative approach in her clinical work. At times, she uses psychodynamic processes at the pre-assessment phase to understand relational or engagement issues with the client. Evelyn seeks to adopt a desire-based approach by putting the client’s choices at the core of the therapeutic journey. She works within the scientific theory model when carrying out her rehabilitation work, seeking to enable the client to benefit from inter-disciplinary working and patient-centred rather than discipline-centred programs.
Evelyn's future research interests are related to the field of neuro-disability. They include:
- Developing musical techniques to address neurologically-induced sensations.
- Examining music therapy techniques to address speech deficits in stroke patients diagnosed with aphasia.
- Analysing connections between social issues and acquired brain injury.
- Developing online music therapy models for carers of people with neurodegenerative conditions.
References/links:
The Academy of Neurologic Music Therapy – -In Memory of Robert F. Unkefer (nmtacademy.co)
https://nmtacademy.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/nmt-definitions.pdf
Bruscia, K.E. (2014) Defining music therapy. 3rd ed. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers. Rolvsjord, R. (2016) Resource-Oriented Perspectives in Music Therapy. Oxford University Press.
Thaut, M. and Hœmberg, V. (2016) Handbook of neurologic music therapy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Elaine is a BAMT registered clinical supervisor, and consultant lead visitor for the HCPC. She studied piano and composition at GSMD, and trained as a music therapist with Dr Paul Nordoff and Dr Clive Robbins in London. After running the music therapy service at the CDC, Charing Cross Hospital for several years, and completing an MA research thesis in music therapy at the University of York, Elaine was appointed Senior Lecturer at the Roehampton Institute where she developed a new post-graduate course in Music Therapy. Her music therapy practice with children, young people, and adults ran alongside her lecturing work, She trained as a psychodynamic counsellor at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation and taught various aspects of music therapy at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for many years, including clinical improvisation.
Following a Churchill Research Fellowship in the 1980's, Elaine initiated, developed and coordinated the BAMT (formerly APMT) post training supervision scheme for registered music therapists in the UK. She has an established supervision practice working with individual therapists and small group supervision for and supervisors working in the UK and abroad.
Previous Roles
Acting Head of Music Therapy, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.
Visiting Professor of Music Therapy Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.
Senior Lecturer in Music Therapy, Clinical Tutor, and Clinical Music Improvisation Tutor, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
Head of Music Therapy Training, Senior Lecturer, University of Roehampton UK.
Initiator and Coordinator of the Association of Professional Music Therapists* Post-Diploma Supervision Scheme, UK.
Music Therapy Group Training Therapist for students studying for Masters in Music Therapy degrees at :
Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Nordoff Robbins Centre London, University of the West of England, and Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
Music Therapy Charity Ph,D. Research Fellowship at the University of York.
University of York PhD Research Fellowship in Music Therapy,
Churchill Fellowship in Music Therapy.
Clinical Music Improvisation Tutor, Nordoff Robbins Institute at Southlands College.
Head Music Therapist, Child Development Centre, Paediatric Department, Charing Cross Hospital, London.
References
Streeter, E. et al: The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 1–10 'Computer aided music therapy evaluation: Testing the Music Therapy Logbook prototype 1 system'
Streeter, E. (2011) 'From Trainee to Practitioner: the supervision of registered music therapists' Chapter 13 in Karen D Goodman's 'Music Therapy Education and Training: from Theory to Practice' Charles C Thomas publisher USA
‘Streeter, E. (2010) ‘Computer-Aided Music Therapy Evaluation: Investigating and Testing the Music Therapy Logbook Prototype I’ Ph,D. Thesis (York)
Streeter, E. (2006). What Are We Doing to Ourselves? The Branding of Music Therapy in Academia. In: Hadley, S. (Ed), Feminist Perspectives in Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers. p.359.
Streeter, E. (2001). Making Music with the Young Child with Special Needs: A Guide for Parents. Revised Edition London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Streeter, E. (1999) Finding a balance between psychological thinking and musical awareness in music therapy theory — a psychoanalytic perspective. British Journal of Music Therapy
Streeter, E. (1999) Definition and Use of the Musical Transference Relationship. In: Wigram, T. & De Backer, J. (Eds), Clinical Applications of Music Therapy in Psychiatry. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Chap.15, p.84-90.
Streeter, E. (1981).Towards a Theoretical Understanding of Rhythmic Responses in Music Therapy. British Society of Music Therapy. Monograph. Available from: British Association of Music Therapy, UK.
Streeter, E. (1979). A Theoretical Background to the Interpretation of Rhythmic Skills, with Particular Reference to the Use of Music Therapy as an Aid to the Clinical Assessment of Pre-School Children. MA Thesis. Department of Music, University of York.
Prof. Dr. Gitta Strehlow is Professor of Music Therapy at the University of Music and Drama Hamburg in Germany and a Music therapist at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the AGAPLESION Bethesda Hospital Hamburg-Bergedorf, Germany. Her research areas include: psychodynamic music therapy, trauma, psychiatry and mentalization.
She undertook special education teacher training with music as a subject, University of Hamburg and Hamburg University of Music and Drama (1986-1994), field research in Indonesia exploring gamelan music (1994-1995). She was a teacher at a special school (1997-2000) before embarking on a diploma in music therapy at the University of Music and Theater Hamburg (1997-2000). Practical research: music therapy with sexually abused children and adolescents, Institute for Music Therapy at the University of Music and Theatre Hamburg (Prof. Dr. Decker-Voigt) in conjunction with the association Dunkelziffer e.V. (1997-2005). Self-employed there. Music therapist from 2005.
Gitta has been a music therapist at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Bethesda Hospital Hamburg-Bergedorf (since 2000). Further training in psychodynamic-imaginative trauma therapy (2002). National and international lecturing and teaching activities (since 2004). Further training in Mentalization-Based-Treatment (MBT) with P. Fonagy and A. Bateman (2007).
Her doctorate was entitled "Töne an der Grenze, Interaktionsmuster in der musiktherapeutischen Begegnung mit Patienteninnen, die unter einer Borderline-Pönlichkeitsstörung leiden" (“Tones on the borderline, interaction patterns in music therapy encounters with patients who suffer from borderline personality disorder“). She has also conducted post-doctoral research into Borderline personality disorder patients in music therapy in Belfast in 2015).
She has held a part-time professorship "Psychoanalysis/Psychodynamic Theory and Practice" at the Institute for Music Therapy at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama since October 2019.
Webpage:
https://www.hfmt-hamburg.de/hochschule/organisation/personen/gitta-strehlow
PUBLICATIONS
Strehlow, G. (2023 in press) Selected contemporary approaches to music therapy in psychiatry. Music & Medicine, Volume 15/ 4
Strehlow, G. (2023) Alliance Rupture in Musiktherapie In. Die Psychotherapie, 68/4, S. 289-295
Strehlow, G. (2023) Hamburg Institute for Music Therapy: A Model for free Improvisation within Psychodynamic Music Therapy. In: K. Goodman (Ed.) Developing Issues in World Music Therapy Education and Training: A Plurality of Views. Charles C. Thomas. P. 49-71.
Strehlow, G. (2021) Trust development is essential in music therapy, Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, Vol. 30, No1,97-99. DOI: 10.1080/08098131.2020.1812272
Strehlow, G. (2021). Trauma, Mentalisierung und künstlerische Therapien, Band Trauma II, Forum für Kunsttherapien, Fachverband für Gestaltende Psychotherapie und Kunsttherapie, Schweiz (S. 13-18)
Strehlow, G. (2021). Stichwörter „Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung“ und „Mentalisierung“. In: H.-H. Decker-Voigt & E. Weymann (Hg): Lexikon Musiktherapie, 3. Auflage Göttingen u.a.: Hogrefe Verlag, S. 83-88; 340-346.
Strehlow, G. & Spitzer C. (2020). Dissoziative Störungen. In U. Schmidt, T. Stegemann, C. Spitzer (Hg.): Musiktherapie bei psychiatrischen und psychosomatischen Störungen. München: Elsevier Urban & Fischer, S. 112-118
Strehlow, G. & Schmidt, U. (2020). Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörungen. In: U. Schmidt, T. Stegemann, C. Spitzer (Hg.): Musiktherapie bei psychischen und psychosomatischen Störungen. Elsevier Urban & Fischer, S. 135-138
Strehlow, G. (2020). Musiktherapie mit Opfern sexueller Gewalt. In: A.Wölfl & S. Siebert (Hg.). Musiktherapie mit Opfern von Missbrauch und Gewalt. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. S. 47-59
Strehlow, G. (2020). Traumata und deren Auswirkung. In: Spektrum der Musiktherapie. VdM (Verband deutscher Musikschulen). S. 84-86
Strehlow, G. (2019). How Neuro Research supports Music Therapy with Children who have experienced Sexual Abuse. In: Music Therapy Today, open access, music-therapy-today, special issue: Trauma. S. 59-77 (Mentalising)
Strehlow, G. (2019): Musiktherapeutische Cochrane Studien im Bereich der Psychiatrie. In: GMS Journal of Arts Therapies – Journal of Art-, Music-, Dance-, Drama- and Poetry-Therapy. GMS J Art Ther 2019;1:Doc04
Strehlow, G. & Hannibal, N. (2019). Mentalizing in improvisational music therapy, In: Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 28:4, 333-346, DOI: 10.1080/08098131.2019.1574877
Keller, J.; Strehlow, G.; Wiesmüller, E.; Wolf, H.G. & Wölfl, A. (2018): Methodische Modifikationen für die musiktherapeutische Behandlung von Patientinnen mit Traumafolgestörungen. In: MU, 39(1), S. 12-22
Fenner, F.; Abdelazim, R.; Bräuninger I.; Strehlow, G. & Seifert, S. (2017): Provision of arts therapies for people with severe mental illness. In: Curr Opin Psychiatry, 30, 306 – 311
Strehlow, G. & Schmidt, U. (2017): Musiktherapie bei Patienten mit Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung. In PTT, Schattauer 2, S. 129-138.
Strehlow, G. (2016). Traumatische Erfahrungen und ihre Behandlungsmöglichkeiten in der Musiktherapie. Musik und Gesundheit, Hg. Decker-Voigt. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. 30, S.14-18
Strehlow, G. & Lindner, R. (2016): Music therapy interaction patterns in relation to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) patients. In: Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 2, 134-158.
Strehlow, G. & Schmidt, U. (2015). Musiktherapie bei Patienten mit Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung – ein Überblick. Musik und Gesundsein, Hg. Decker-Voigt, Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. S. 15-21.
Strehlow, G. (2014): Förderung der Mentalisierungsfähigkeit in der Gruppenmusiktherapie. Hg. (DMtG) Jahrbuch Musiktherapie. Wiesbaden: Reichert, S. 197-214
Strehlow, G. (2013): Music versus shard. In: Metzner, S. (Ed.): Reflected Sounds. Case Studies from Music Therapy. E-book. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag. Übersetzung von 2007
Strehlow, G. (2013): Mentalisierung und ihr Bezug zur Musiktherapie. In: MU, 34(2), S. 135-145
Strehlow, G. (2012): Scham und Musiktherapie bezogen auf die Problematik des sexuellen Missbrauchs. In: MU, 33(3), S. 228-237.
Monographie: Strehlow, G. (2011): Töne an der Grenze. Interaktionsmuster in der musiktherapeutischen Begegnung mit Patientinnen, die unter einer Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung leiden. Online Veröffentlichung der Dissertation: http://www.sub.uni-hamburg.de/opus/volltexte/2011/4968
Strehlow, G. (2009a): Mentalisierung und ihr Nutzen für die Musiktherapie. In: MU, 30(2), S.89-101.
Strehlow, G. (2009b): The use of music therapy in treating sexually abused children. In: Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 18(2), S. 167–183.
Georgina Aasgaard
Cellist and Music and Health Practitioner
Georgina Aasgaard is a Liverpool based Cellist and Music and Health practitioner who has a passion for bringing Music from the concert platform to challenging and more intimate environments. She has 20 years of experience delivering music interventions in a broad range of health and social settings such as hospitals, mental health units, prisons, homes for the elderly as well as community centres for refugees and the homeless. Her practice includes 15-year partnerships with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust and Live Music Now. She has also aworked for 10 years with DadaFest and Drake Music, engaging with people with disabilities through music making and technology . As a musician in residence, she has led innovative and groundbreaking programmes which include both one to one interaction on intensive care units and group work in mental health units. She has co-created recovery courses, co-produced performances, exploring skills such as improvisation, composition, songwriting, music technology, and including employability opportunities. Her activities have been measured through co-evaluation methods and continuous contact with patients and service users.
These collaborations have enabled her to draw on her experiences to create context specific training and mentoring programmes. She is currently developing a toolkit for musicians working in healthcare, informed by her collaborative work over the years and her research activities.
Georgina was awarded a Pre-doctoral Local Authority Fellowship by the NIHR, as a Director of Training and Development Research for Live Music Now, working in partnership with the University of Liverpool to investigate the influence of non-clinical music interventions on mental health.
She currently works in close collaboration with The Liverpool Centre for Health, Art, Society and Environment (CHASE) at the University of Liverpool aiming to foster critical inquiry, dialogue and creativity to build new knowledge about enabling creative communities through music collaboration and cross-sector partnerships. As part of this collaboration, she has been granted a new Community Innovation Practitioner (CIP) award funded by the AHRC to investigate how collaborations between academics and partners from across different sectors can work to benefit health and wellbeing.
Awards and Honorary Fellowship
· 05/07/2022: Festival of Learning Awards: Winner of the President’s Award. Music and Mental Health Programme at the Life Rooms, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Lead musician
· 01/02/2021: Liverpool City Region Culture and Creativity Awards: Winner of the Impact Award on Health and Wellbeing Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Lead Musician
· 01/05/2019: Winner of the Merseyside Woman of the Year in the category of Arts, Culture and Media
· 01/03/2016: NHS Award in Health and Care - Certificate of Recognition for Commitment to learning in Health and Care
· 01/09/2011: University of Liverpool Honorary Fellowship, Music and Wellbeing
· 01/09/2010: NHS Positive achievement Award in Mental Health
Katie Bycroft is a musician, music therapist, supervisor and advocate for access to musical experiences for all. She trained at the Guildhall in 1998, having initially studied Oriental Studies (Japanese) at Cambridge University. Music was important from very early days, and she immersed herself in flute playing from the age of 8, taught by her flautist aunt. Music has always been a way for her to connect with people from other cultures, from youth orchestra and choir trips to Europe, to joining a folk music group in Japan as well as singing the Messiah in Japanese while living there in the 1990s. Her latest musical adventure has been to move to Malta to work for Villabianca Centre for Music and the Arts, a new music therapy project set up in 2021 by The Malta Trust Foundation. This unique opportunity to be involved in establishing a music therapy service where none existed before has been transformational in many ways, for many people. She continues to be active in the UK music therapy world, as Supervision Network co-ordinator for BAMT, clinical placement seminar leader at UWE, and working together with University of the West of England to establish a blended, distance-learning music therapy training for trainees based in Malta. Music therapy continues to bring welcome connections, with a visit during a recent trip to Australia to the Noro Music Therapy Centre just outside Sydney. She is also Director of the Oxford Flute Summer School which continues after 35 years to attract flautists from all over the world for a wonderful week of flute playing with like-minded people.
Luke spoke to Katie in person, at University of the West of England, Bristol in August 2023.
Beth Pickard is a Senior Lecturer, Researcher and PhD Supervisor at the University of South Wales. Her music therapy teaching and practice is heavily informed by her research in Critical Disability Studies. Beth’s research explores how disability is socially constructed, interpreted and represented across disciplines and pedagogy. Beth is a passionate ally, activist and advocate of social justice and anti-oppressive practice. She is also currently a consultant for the National Music Service for Wales on developing access to musical opportunities for children and young people with additional learning needs, a researcher for Live Music Now across a range of projects informed by the Sounds of Intent framework and an evaluator for The Amber Trust's portfolio of inclusive music schemes. Beth is currently involved in a research project with Hilary Davies about the lived experiences of disabled music therapists in the UK, and with counselling psychologist Rachel Davies about service user engagement in curriculum development processes.
Luke spoke to Beth in person at USW, Newport, in July 2023.
References
Low, M. Y. et al., (2023), 'Exploring the Lived Experiences of Young Autistic Adults in Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis', Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 32(4), p. 341-364.
Pickard, B. (2022), ‘The Importance of Collaboration: Valuing the Expertise of Disabled People Through Social Confluence’ in King, H. (Ed), Developing Expertise for Teaching in Higher Education: Practical Ideas for Professional Learning and Development, SEDA / Routledge. pp. 69-84.https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003198772-7
Pickard, B. (2022), 'Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy as an Opportunity for Consciousness Raising in the Music Therapy Profession: A Critical Disability Studies Perspective', British Journal of Music Therapy, Special Issue: Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. 36(1), p. 5-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/13594575221078582
Pickard, B. (2020), 'Challenging Deficit Based Discourse in Higher Education Through a Social Connection Model of Disability: A Critical Disability Studies Perspective', PhD by Portfolio, University of South Wales, Available at https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/challenging-deficit-based-discourse-in-higher-education-through-a
Pickard, B. (2020), ‘A Critical Reflection on the HCPC Standards of Proficiency for Arts Therapists: A Critical Disability Studies Perspective’, British Journal of Music Therapy, 34(2), p. 82-94, https://doi.org/10.1177/1359457520971812
Young, I. M. (2006), ‘Responsibility and Global Justice: A Social Connection Model’, Social Philosophy and Policy, 23(1), p. 102-130.
Young, I. M. (1990), Justice and the Politics of Difference, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Luke spoke to music therapist Alphonso Archer about his career in music, music education, music therapy, and football coaching. This has included big personal challenges, inspiring moments and the development of innovative and creative approaches.
Alphonso says:
I spent over 25 years immersed in IT, Software, and Artificial Intelligence, building a career rooted in technological expertise. However, a personal diagnosis of prostate cancer and a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in 2016 marked a pivotal moment, guiding me towards the world of music therapy.
My transition was also profoundly influenced by my personal experiences. Growing up with a father diagnosed with schizophrenia offered me firsthand insights into the complexities of mental health. My academic exploration in this area led to a dissertation titled "Ambiguities in the Diagnosis of Schizophrenia Amongst Ethnic Minorities", shedding light on mental health nuances within the black community.
I trained as a music therapist at the University of the West of England (UWE), graduating with distinction in 2022. As a newly qualified freelance music therapist, I work with neurodiverse children, particularly those with autism and other co-occurring conditions. My therapeutic approach also encompasses adults with autism and those managing mental health challenges. Collaborating with a cancer charity, I facilitate music therapy sessions tailored for those navigating the aftermath of a cancer diagnosis.
I am publishing my master's dissertation, which centres on "How Black Men Use Music to Cope with the Psychosocial Symptoms of Their Prostate Cancer Post Treatment". This research underscores my interest and commitment to understanding the intricate connections between music, therapy, race, and health outcomes.
At the 2022 European Music Therapy Conference, I had the opportunity to co-present with Dr Kate Jones, who introduced her music therapy toolkit designed for children with selective mutism. I was also involved in workshops and discussions surrounding race and belonging, social dreaming matrix and shared my thoughts on the future trajectory of the music therapy profession.
Music has been a constant as a multi-instrumentalist, starting in church and rich experiences such as playing guitar in the Derbyshire Youth Jazz Orchestra to jazz piano lessons with composer and recitalist James Harpham. For over two decades, I have taught piano, guitar and bass, instruments that I've been connected to since my early years.
You can contact me via my new website:
www.livingwellthroughmusic.com
Twitter: @AlphieArcher
In this episode, Luke talks to Hilary Davies, with a focus on music therapy and neurodiversity.
Hilary Davies is a freelance music therapist currently specialising in working with autistic adults, including recently-diagnosed autistic adults and autistic adults with co-occurring conditions such as complex PTSD. She is also working towards a PhD on the topic of neurodiversity paradigm-informed music therapy practice with autistic people at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, funded by the Guildhall EDI in Music Therapy PhD Studentship. Hilary has also worked in a variety of other music therapy roles, including setting up and leading projects for Music Place North West (in hospice care) and Entelechy Arts.
Hilary trained as a music therapist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating with distinction in 2019. She also studied Music at the University of Cambridge (Gonville and Caius College). Prior to training as a music therapist, Hilary worked as a music teacher and freelance performer for more than a decade.
Alongside her research on music therapy with autistic people from a neurodiversity paradigm-perspective (a topic on which she has published as well as presenting at various conferences including BAMT 2021, European Music Therapy Conference 2022, World Music Therapy Congress 2023 and guest lecturing at various universities) Hilary has research interests in music therapy with adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities, and music therapy and disability studies, including the experience of disabled music therapists (she is currently involved in a Music Therapy Charity funded research project on this topic with Beth Pickard). She is the founder and co-ordinator of the BAMT Support Network for Disabled Music Therapists, and advocates in various ways for the increased inclusion and understanding of disabled people within the music therapy profession.
Links
Amanda Baggs - ‘In My Language’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc
References
Davies, H. (2022) “Autism is a way of being”: An Insider Perspective on Neurodiversity, music therapy and social justice” in British Journal of Music Therapy 36 (1).
Devlin K (2018) “How do i see you, and what does that mean for us? An autoethnographic study” in Music Therapy Perspectives 36(2).
Harris, T. A. (2012). I'm OK, you're OK. Random House.
Milton, D. (2012) “On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’” in Disability & Society 27 (6)
Pickard B, Thompson G, Metell M, Roginsky E., Elefant C. (2020) “‘It’s Not What’s Done, But Why It’s Done’: Music therapists’ understanding of normalisation, maximisation and the neurodiversity movement” in Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy 20(3)
Price, D (2022) Unmasking Autism: The Power of Embracing our Hidden Neurodiversity New York: Penguin Random House
Singer, J (1998 / 2017) NeuroDiversity: The Birth of an Idea. Kindle Edition.
Shiloh, C.J. & Blythe Lagasse, A. (2014) “Sensory Friendly Concerts: A community music therapy initiative to promote Neurodiversity” in International Journal of Community Music 7 (1)
Walker, N. (2012) “Throw Away the Master’s Tools: Liberating Ourselves from the Pathology Paradigm” in J. Bascom (ed.)Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking Washington: Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.
Walker, N. (2021) Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities Fort Worth: Autonomous Press.
Winter P (2012) Loud hands and loud voices. In: Bascom J (ed.) Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking. Washington, DC: Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.
Luke spoke to the musician Robert Mitchell about his life as a creative artist and the importance of music and other arts to society and, more broadly, for humankind.
Robert Mitchell is one of the most significant voices in British jazz. Multi-faceted creator, pianist, keyboardist, composer, improviser, writer, poet and so much more. He is a relentless seeker and thinker, encompassing many art forms, musical genres and constantly pushing the envelope. In the last year he has released the extremely contrasting albums “Hold The Light/The New Resistance' DOF004 (from his unit TRUE THINK) and 'Towards The Flame' 577 Records (from the improv trio The Flame). He has released 13 albums.
Robert is a throwback to the powerful tradition of artistic mastery in pursuit of transcendence. He is proud to have been a Steinway artist since 2009. He was MD on the successful BBC4 television programme ‘Jazz 625 Live: For One Night Only’ which won the British Broadcasting Award. He has played with Billy Harper, Greg Osby, Courtney Pine CBE, Alicia Olatuja, Orphy Robinson, Steve Coleman, Phil Ranelin, Omar Puente, Ernesto Simpson, Daymé Arocena, Jason Rebello, Shirley Smart, Basement Jaxx, Dub Colossus, Daniel Casimir, Joshua Redman, Jacqui Dankworth MBE, and many others. Robert Mitchell’s works have been performed by the Grammy-winning Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and the London Sinfonietta, amongst others. He is a sought-for composer and known as an innovator with a distinct, unique voice.
Robert has performed solo piano since the 90s. Recent concerts include Romania, Derby, Coventry, London with more on the way this year in Newcastle, Brighton and Bristol. His 2020 album The Rainbow Mountain/Can We Care' - was a near 40 min improvisation (completed with one of his original songs - live at the Jazz Cafe, London). Solo performances now include original music, Classical, Jazz, improvisations, left hand only, inside piano and poetry. He releases his second collection of poetry later this year - on Common Tone Press.
Robert is a Professor of Jazz Piano (Guildhall School Of Music And Drama), Piano Lecturer (Leeds Conservatoire) and Piano teacher at YMM.
https://robertmitchell.bandcamp.com/album/hold-the-light-the-new-resistance-dof0004
https://twitter.com/robertmitchellm
https://www.instagram.com/robertmitchellmusic/
Luke spoke to Preet Kalsi about her musical upbringing, and her training and subsequent work as a music therapist. The conversation also explored the relationship between psychodynamic and indigenous perspectives in her work.
Gurpreet Kaur Kalsi is from Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, and of Punjabi and Kadazan (Indigenous to Sabah) heritage. She is a music therapist and GIM therapist. She works with clients of all ages with psychiatric and medical conditions in healthcare, community, education, and corporate settings. Her work navigates psychodynamic approaches with culture and Indigenous concepts towards the dynamics of life and healing within oneself, the community, and the environment. She has recently begun incorporating EMDR with music therapy and GIM in the treatment of trauma.
Instruments referred to during the conversation
https://youtu.be/BLFSV79KwnQ
- the knobbed gongs that are played communally. It accompanies the Sumazau dance at Pesta Magavau, the rice Harvest Festival in May, and at all social events and gatherings.
https://youtu.be/1yKZNKNZhrc
- the sompoton. played by blowing and drawing air.
https://youtu.be/kHj9Zrg_VxU
- the tongkungon - a bamboo zither for playing the 'tagung' (gong) rhythm pattern. The strings are bamboo strips cut from the bamboo node.
References
Colonialism and Music Therapy Interlocutors (CAMTI) Collective (2022) Colonialism and Music Therapy. Barcelona Publishers.
Pugh-Kitingan, Jacqueline. (2014). Balancing the Human and Spiritual Worlds: Ritual, Music and Dance Among Dusunic Societies in Sabah. Yearbook for Traditional Music, 46:172-192.
Pugh-Kitingan, Jacqueline, Hanafi Hussin & Judeth John Baptist. (2009). Symbolic Interactions between the Seen and the Unseen through Gong Music and Dance in the Lotud Mamahui Pogun. Borneo Research Journal, 3:221-237.
Pugh-Kitingan, Jacqueline, Hanafi Hussin & Judeth John Baptist. (2009). A Conduit Between the Seen and Unseen: Comparing the Ritual Roles of Drumming and Gong Ensemble Music in the Mamahui Pogun of the Lotud of Tuaran and the Monogit of the Kadazan of Penampang, Sabah. Tirai Panggung. Jurnal Seni Persembahan, 9:98-123.
Pugh-Kitingan, Jacqueline & Judeth John Baptist. (2009). Music for Cleansing the Universe—Drumming and Gong Ensemble Music in the Mamahui Pogun Ceremonies of the Lotud Dusun of Tuaran, Sabah, Malaysia. Borneo Research Bulletin. 40:249-276.
This episode is Luke's conversation with Giorgos Tsiris, with a focus on spirituality and music therapy.
Born and raised in Athens, Greece, Giorgos moved to London in 2007 for his music therapy training. For the past 14 years, he has worked as a music therapist in diverse palliative care contexts for adults with incurable illnesses, their families and their local communities. He has developed collaborative community and intergenerational projects disrupting societal assumptions about death and dying, and his work has received national awards and informed similar arts initiatives internationally. Alongside his practice, Giorgos has a multifaceted research portfolio with extensive experience in issues pertaining to service evaluation and professionalisation in music therapy and within the wider field of arts and health, and in 2014 he co-authored two books on service evaluation and research ethics respectively. His doctorate focused on spirituality and its place in music therapy. Through an ethnographic lens, his research has brought to the fore the ‘doing’ of spirituality, its messiness and its performance within everyday music therapy contexts. Giorgos is the founding editor of Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, and in 2022 he co-chaired the 12th European Music Therapy Conference. He currently serves as Senior Lecturer in Music Therapy at Queen Margaret University and the Arts Lead at St Columba’s Hospice Care, Edinburgh, Scotland.
References:
Bucar, L. (2022). Stealing my religion: Not just any cultural appropriation. Harvard University Press.
MacKian, S. (2012). Everyday spirituality: Social and spatial worlds of enchantment. Palgrave Macmillan.
Tsiris, G. (2017). Music therapy and spirituality: An international survey of music therapists’ perceptions. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 26(4), 293-319.
Tsiris, G. (2018). Performing spirituality in music therapy: Towards action, context and the everyday (Doctoral dissertation, Goldsmiths, University of London). https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/23037/
Tsiris, G. (2021). Tracing spirituality in everyday music therapy contexts: Methodological reflections. In K. Hendricks & J. Boyce-Tillman & (Eds.), Authentic connection: Music, spirituality and wellbeing (Chapter 10). Peter Lang.
Tsiris, G., & Ansdell, G. (2019). Exploring the spiritual in music. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 11(1), 3-8. https://approaches.gr/tsiris-e20191124/
Episode 72 is Luke’s interview with Dr Dwight Turner. They spoke in December 2022, in person, about psychotherapy and music therapy, intersectionality, music, exotification, Our Price Records, and a dream involving John Lennon and David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’.
Dr Dwight Turner is Course Leader on the Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy Course at the University of Brighton, a PhD Supervisor at their Doctoral College, a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice. His latest book Intersections of Privilege and Otherness in Counselling and Psychotherapy was released in February 2021 and is published by Routledge. An activist, writer and public speaker on issues of race, difference and intersectionality in counselling and psychotherapy, Dr Turner can be contacted via his website http://dwightturnercounselling.co.uk, where you can also find his blog, and he can be followed on Twitter at @dturner300
The blog post discussed at the beginning of the interview is here.
References
Czyzselska, J. (2022) Queering Psychotherapy. Karnac.
Fanon, F. (2008). Black skin, white masks. Grove press.
Turner, D. (2021). Intersections of privilege and otherness in counselling and psychotherapy: Mockingbird. Routledge.
In episode 71, Davina Vencatasamy talks to Denise Wong.
Originally from Hong Kong, Denise Wong MA BSc, is a self-employed music therapist (HCPC-Registered) based in Bristol, UK. She works with the Bath Aphasia Choir (Stroke Association), Soundwell and NEHK, a community-led group for and by HongKongers living in the UK. Denise appeared on the BAMT Racial Awareness Panel and took part in presentations and roundtables at the 2022 European Conference in Edinburgh.
This interview covers intersectional experiences of racial stereotyping, sexism, ageism and ableism, including the word ‘yellow’ as a racial descriptor’, and what it feels like to be a therapist from a minority racial and cultural background, both when working with clients, and within teams of professionals.
Denise Wong (denisewongmusictherapy.co.uk)
Episode 70 is the fourth and final dispatch from the EMTC conference at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, June 2022 (see also episodes 63, 65 and 68). Luke had the opportunity to speak to a genuine music therapy pioneer in the person of Inge Nysgaard Pedersen.
Inge Nygaard Pedersen is an Associate Professor, Emerita, PhD, Aalborg University, Denmark. She is the founder of the Aalborg Music Therapy Training Program and the Head of the Music Therapy Research Clinic at Aalborg University Hospital, Psychiatry 1995-2021. Her research areas include psychodynamic music therapy and psychiatry, supervision, and experiential/resonant learning processes for music therapy students (438 publications).
For publications see https://vbn.aau.dk/da/publications/?search=Inge+Nygaard+Pedersen&originalSearch=Inge+Nygaard+Pedersen&pageSize=50&ordering=rating&descending=true&showAdvanced=false&allConcepts=true&inferConcepts=true&searchBy=PartOfNameOrTitle
References
Jacobsen, SL., Pedersen, IN & Bonde, LO (2019) A Comprehensive Guide to Music Therapy. Second Edition. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Pedersen, INP., Lindvang, C & Beck, BD (2022) Resonant Learning in Music Therapy. A Training Model to Tune the Therapist. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Pedersen, IN., Bonde, LO., Hannibal, N., Nielsen, J., Aagaard, J., Gold, C., Bertelsen, LR., Jensen, SB. & Nielsen, RE. (2021) Music Therapy vs. Music Listening for Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia: Randomized, Controlled, Assessor- and Patient-Blinded Trial. Frontiers in Psychiatry. Sec Psychiatry. 12, 738810 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.738810
Davina Vencatasamy spoke to Revd Jide Macaulay about LGBTQ+, racial and intersectional issues in psychotherapy, music therapy, and society.
Reverend Jide Macaulay (he/him/momma) is the Founder and CEO of House of Rainbow CIC. Openly gay British Nigerian born in London, he has been a Christian minister since 1998. He is an Anglican Priest and inspirational speaker, author, poet, pastor and preacher and an HIV Positive activist. Jide holds a degree in Law, master’s degree in Theology and Post-graduate certificate in Pastoral Theology.
Revd Jide Macaulay focuses his ministry on inclusion and reconciliation of sexuality, spirituality, and human rights. He is also a former Board of Trustee at Kaleidoscope Trust UK.
Currently Jide is a Chairperson at INERELA+ Europe, an international network of religious leaders, living with, or personally affected by HIV.
Jide is a Patron at ReportOUT, Vice Chair One Voice Network, HIV mentor at Positive East, Nominee British LGBT Award 2021 - Top 10 Outstanding Contribution to LGBT+ Life, nOSCARS Award winner 2014, 2017, 2018, Volunteer Chaplain at Mildmay HIV Hospital and Volunteer Champion at Africa Children's Charity.
"I will like see more unity and love within the LGBTIQ+ community, we must recognise that we are strengthened when we stand together against the sequence of hatred in this world, by doing so we make a difference across oceans and the sky is the limit for our desired change in this world."
https://londonfriend.org.uk/50LGBTQLondoners/revd-jide-macaulay/
“We’re doing music therapy because of people’s humanity, not because of what people lack”
Luke spoke to Hakeem Leonard at the EMTC conference, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, in June 2022.
Hakeem Leonard is an Associate Professor of Music Therapy and the Assistant Provost for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia (United States). In his music therapy role, he has taught a range of courses, but most enjoys his social justice in music/arts and psychology of music courses, where the nexus of his current research focus lies in developing a desire-based, lifespan developmental framework to shape education, training, and personhood in and beyond music therapy. His published scholarship includes rehabilitation work as well as work rooted in anti-racist and culturally sustaining perspectives. Those include the article “The Problematic Conflation of Justice and Equality: The Case for Equity in Music Therapy” and his most recent co-authored chapter in the new Colonialism and Music Therapy text.
He has a passion for walking alongside students in their developmental growth process as culturally reflexive, confident, whole persons, with excellent music therapy knowledge and skills. He likes to stay grounded through various practices of listening and to experience joy through rest, creating things, and vibing with experiences and people. He is invested in conversations of anti-colonial and anti-oppressive practice from a place of intuition, desire, sustenance, love, wholeness, and relationship.
He is active on Instagram (@musicallman) where he shares about life, music therapy, and inclusion.
References
Devlin, K. (2018). How do I see you, and what does that mean for us? An autoethnographic study. Music Therapy Perspectives, 36(2), 234-242.
Dissanayake, E. (1993). Homo aestheticus: Where art comes from and why. University of Washington Press.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of black folk. Chicago: McClurg.
Fisher, C. & Leonard, H. (2022). Unsettling the classroom and the session: Anticolonial framing for Hip hop music therapy education and clinical work. In CAMTI Collective, Colonialism and music therapy (p. 305-334). Barcelona Publishers.
Kenny, C. (2014, March). The field of play: An ecology of being in music therapy. In Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 14(1).
The Colonialism, & Music Therapy Interlocutor’s (CAMTI) Collective. (2022). Colonialism and Music Therapy. Barcelona Publishers.
Trondalen, G. (2016). Relational music therapy: An intersubjective perspective. Barcelona Publishers.
Persons Referenced
Clifford K. Madsen
- http://www.cliffordmadsen.com
Jayne Standley
- https://music.fsu.edu/person/jayne-standley/
Tom Sweitzer
- http://www.aplacetobeva.org/a-place-to-be-staff
Davina Vencatasamy speaks to Penny Rogers, with a focus on safeguarding issues in music therapy.
Penny Rogers studied cello with Bernard Gregor-Smith (Lindsay Strong Quartet) in Manchester before going on to complete a postgraduate diploma in Music Therapy at the Guildhall. As a therapist, she found the majority of individuals referred went on to disclose histories of child abuse and so her passion for safeguarding began. Since that time Penny has completed a variety of further trainings including Masters in Cognitive Neuropsychology, Child Protection & Working with Families, and Systemic Psychotherapy. She was research fellow in MT at City University exploring the impact of music therapy on children and young people with histories of sexual abuse - resulting in a number of articles and chapters in books and lecturing opportunities in places as diverse as UK, Estonia, Vittoria, Philadelphia. Penny also has a PGDip in Mental Health Law and today works as a Deputy Director for Devon Partnership Trust with a portfolio including all aspects of safeguarding, mental health law and legislation. She continues to play the cello almost every day, and is a member of a number of local orchestras in Devon and a dedicated quartet enthusiast. Penny believes that safeguarding training is essential for all those working with children & adults.
References
Rogers, P. (1992). Issues in working with sexually abused clients in music therapy. Journal of British Music Therapy, 6(2), 5-15.
Rogers, P. (2000). Truth or illusion: evidence-based practice in the real world. Music therapy research: Growing perspectives in theory and practice, 1.
Rogers, P. (2003). Working with Jenny: Stories of gender, power and abuse. Psychodynamic music therapy: Case studies, 123-140.
Victoria Clarke is an Associate Professor in Qualitative and Critical Psychology at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, UK, where she teaches about qualitative research methods and supervises student research on various postgraduate programmes. Her research interests lie in the intersecting areas of gender and sexuality, and difference and social justice. With Virginia Braun, she has developed a widely used approach to thematic analysis, now called reflexive thematic analysis (see thematicanalysis.net), and has written extensively about this, including most recently the book Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide (SAGE, 2022). They have also co-authored an award-winning textbook on qualitative research: Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for Beginners (SAGE, 2013) and with Debra Gray co-edited Collecting Qualitative Data: A Practical Guide to Textual, Media and Virtual Techniques (Cambridge, 2017). With Virginia and others, Victoria has also written about the novel creative method of story completion (see storycompletion.net). She is active on Twitter – mainly tweeting about thematic analysis and qualitative research @drvicclarke.
References
Azoulay, P., Fons-Rosen, C., & Graff Zivin, J. S. (2019). Does science advance one funeral at a time? American Economic Review, 109(8), 2889-2920.
Goffman, E. (1955). On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. Psychiatry, 18(3), 213-231. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00332747.1955.11023008
Scully, D. (2013). Understanding sexual violence: A study of convicted rapists. Routledge.
Willcox, R., Moller, N., & Clarke, V. (2019). Exploring attachment incoherence in bereaved families’ therapy narratives: An attachment theory-informed thematic analysis. The Family Journal, 27(3), 339-347.
The interviews in this episode were recorded at the conference of the European Music Therapy Confederation at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh in June 2022.
Tilly Mütter is a student on the MSc Music Therapy Course at QMU. She completed her degree in music at Canterbury, where she first became aware of music therapy. After graduating, Tilly became the Music Lead at The Sunflower Federation Schools in Hertfordshire, for students with additional needs and profound multiple learning disabilities. This role inspired her to study music therapy.
This episode was edited by Tilly from conversations with twenty-one music therapy students across Europe, sharing their journeys. She asked each person four questions: 1. Please introduce yourself: what course are you on? 2. What have you found challenging and rewarding about your course so far? 3. What have you enjoyed about the EMTC conference? 4. What advice would you give to someone wanting to study music therapy?
She spoke to Folke Wiemann, Marie Winneke. Laura O'Neill, Harry Harris, Clare Woodham, Lona Frießner, Hannah Quigley, Dorothy Ogilvy, Megan Thomas, Lisa Johnston, Kelly Nga-Ying Luk, Erin McGonigle, Karen Biørnskov Christensen, Phoebe Janisch , Alice Paine, Emma Keeling , Hiu Tung Yan, Tao-Deva Stingl, Susanne Gruss, Calum Frame and Alphonso Archer.
Jazz pianist, composer and educator, Simon Purcell came to prominence during the UK jazz boom of the 1980s. After working in East London schools, as a passionate music educator and thinker, Simon has been active in the conservatoire sector since 1985, first as a senior lecturer at GSMD between 1987-2005, Head of Jazz at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Music between 2005-2017 and returning to GSMD as International Chair in Improvisation in 2018. He has contributed to the development of jazz education in the UK for many years and in 2006 was awarded Jazz Educator of the Year by the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group.
Simon was a member of the Working Group for the Pop and Jazz Platform within the Association of European Conservatoires (2009-2018) and his research into teacher-development in jazz education was published by Ashgate in 2005. His work in jazz education has taken him to Brazil, China, New Zealand and many parts of Europe and current research interests are: teacher-education in jazz, jazz within wider music education and neurologically informed pedagogy. For more information see https://simonpurcell.com/about
Luke spoke with Simon in March 2022. Taking face to face in an actual room, they discussed improvisation and how to teach it, comparing perspectives in music therapy and jazz education. How is music experienced? What are the best ways to understand it? And how would you go about teaching improvisation badly?
References
Green, B., & Gallwey, W. T. (1987). The inner game of music. Pan Macmillan.
Helding, L. (2020). The musician's mind: Teaching, learning, and performance in the age of brain science. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
McCrary, J. M., Altenmüller, E., Kretschmer, C., & Scholz, D. S. (2022). Association of Music Interventions With Health-Related Quality of Life. JAMA, (3)
Paton, R. (2011) Lifemusic: Connecting People to Time. Archive Publishing.
Werner, K., & Aebersold, J. (1996). Effortless mastery. New Albany, IN: Jamey Aebersold Jazz.
Karan Casey
Does Singing Songs Make a Difference?
This episode is a recording of Karan Casey’s keynote presentation at the close of the conference of the European Music Therapy Confederation in Edinburgh, 8-12 June 2022. Karan talked about songs and social justice, arts practice research, and about her own life and experiences as a performer and campaigner on social issues. She performed a number of songs as part of the presentation, and then had a conversation with Luke Annesley to explore these issues further. It was an inspiring ending to a varied and exciting conference.
About Karan:
Singing songs charged with a sense of social responsibility in a career spanning over 25 years Karan Casey has released eleven albums as well as contributing to numerous other artists’ projects – appearing on more than 50 albums in total. She has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Japan, performing with her own band as well as collaborating with such diverse musicians as Maura O’Connell, James Taylor, Bela Fleck, Boston Pops Orchestra, Kate Ellis, Niall Vallely, Pauline Scanlon, The Chieftains, The Dubliners, Peggy Seeger, Karen Matheson, Mick Flannery, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Tim O’Brien, Solas and Lúnasa.
In 2018 Karan helped found FairPlé which is an organization aimed at achieving fairness and gender balance for female performers in Irish traditional and folk musics.
Karan tours with her band Niamh Dunne, Sean Óg Graham and Niall Vallely.
Karan’s most recent album Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale was released on the Vertical Records Label. Her song “Down in the Glen” was nominated for Best Original Folk Song at the RTE Folk Awards 2019 and she completed a PhD in music in 2019. Karan has recently performed her new show with Director Sophie Motley called I Walked into My Head which was premiered at the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2021.
Karan is currently working on a new stage show to be produced at the Everyman Theatre in Cork in early 2023 as well as an album of new songs about women in the Irish revolutionary period.
Please note: As we are awaiting permission to include the performance of 'The King's Shilling' in this episode, here is a YouTube link to Karan's studio version of the song.
Reviews of Karan's music:
"Karan Casey’s latest album is revelatory. She’s always been a singer of songs that tell a story and show their muscle…This is a strikingly three-dimensional work that stands the test of intensive and repeated listening with ease. A vivid and dazzling snapshot of Casey invincible, at the height of her powers.”
Siobhán Long, Irish Times
“Casey’s voice is among the loveliest in folk music and she’s a wonderful interpreter of both contemporary and traditional material.”
BOSTON GLOBE
“Karan Casey's latest solo venture is a thing of rare beauty.”
SING OUT
"The most soulful singer to emerge in Irish traditional music in the past decade."
THE GLASGOW HERALD
“If ever any doubt existed about who's the best Irish traditional woman singer today, "Exiles Return" sweeps aside all pretenders…Karan Casey has no vocal peer.”
IRISH ECHO
Songs
Siúil a Rúin (trad.)
The King's Shilling (Ian Sinclair)
Rocks of Bawn (trad.)
Ballad of Accounting (Ewen MacColl)
I'm Still Standing Here (Janis Ian)
Hear How the Music it Heals (trad.)
Bog Braon (trad.)
Other links and references:
Casey, K. (2017, September). Singing my way to Social Justice. In Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy (Vol. 17, No. 3).
Davis, A. Y. (2011). Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. Vintage.
www.karancasey.com
info@karancasey.com
Lyrics
Siúil a Rúin
I wish I was on yonder hill
'Tis there I would sit and cry my fill
Until every tear it would turn a mill
Is go dté tú mo mhúirnín slán
I would sell my rock, I would sell my reel
I would sell my only spinning wheel
For to buy my love a sword of steel
Is go dté tú mo mhúirnín slán
Siúil, siúil, siúil a rúin
Siúil go sochair agus siúil go ciúin
Siúil go doras agus éalaigh liom
Is go dté tú mo mhúirnín slán
And now my love he has gone to France
To try his fortune to advance
And if he returns, 'tis but a chance
Is go dté tú mo mhúirnín slán
Siúil, siúil, siúil a rúin
Siúil go sochair agus siúil go ciúin
Siúil go doras agus éalaigh liom
Is go dté tú mo mhúirnín slán
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
I wish I had my heart again
And it’s vainly I think that I would not complain
Is go dté tú mo mhúirnín slán
The King’s Shilling
Oh my love has left me with bairnes twa
And that's the last of him I ever saw
He's joined the army and marched to war
He took the shilling
He took the shilling and he’s off to war
Come laddies come, hear the cannons roar
Take the King's shilling and you’re off to war
Well did he look as he marched along
With his kilt and sporran and his musket gun
And the ladies tipped him as he marched along
He sailed out by
He sailed out by the Broomielaw
The pipes did play as he marched along
And the soldiers sang out a battle song
March on, march on, cried the Captain gay
And for King and country
For King and country we will fight today
Come laddies come, hear the cannons roar
Take the King's shilling and we're off to war
The battle rattled to the sound of guns
And the bayonets flashed in the morning sun
The drums did beat and the cannons roared
And the shilling didn't seem
Oh the shilling didn't seem much worth the war
Come laddies come, hear the cannons roar
Take the King's shilling and we're off to war
Well the men they fought and the men did fall
Cut down by bayonets and musket ball
And many of these brave young men
Would never fight for
Would never fight for the King again
Come laddies come, hear the cannons roar
Take the King's shilling and we're off to war
Come laddies come, hear the cannons roar
Take the King's shilling and you’ll die in war
Rocks of Bawn
Come all ye loyal heroes wherever you may be.
Don't hire with any master till you know what your work will be
You will rise up early from the clear day light till the dawn
and you never will be able for to plough the Rocks of Bawn.
Rise up, gallant Sweeney, and give your horse some hay
And give them a good feed of oats before they stray away
Don't feed them on soft turnip put them out on your green lawn
Or they never will be able for to plough the Rocks of Bawn.
My curse upon you, Sweeney boy, you have me nearly robbed
You're sitting by the fireside with your dúidín in your gob
You're sitting by the fireside now from clear daylight till the dawn
And you never will be able for to plough the Rocks of Bawn
My shoes they are worn and my stockings they are thin
My heart is always trembling for fear they might give in
My heart is always trembling from the clear daylight till the dawn
And I never will be able for to plough the Rocks of Bawn.
I wish the Queen of England she would call for me in time
And place me in some regiment all in my youth and prime
I'd fight for Ireland's glory from the clear daylight till dawn
And I never would return again to plough the Rocks of Bawn.
Ballad of Accounting
In the morning we built the city
In the afternoon walked through its streets
Evening saw us leaving
We wandered through our days as if they would never e
All of us imagined we had endless time to spend
We hardly saw the crossroads
And small attention gave
To landmarks on the journey from the cradle to the grave,
cradle to the grave, cradle to the grave
Did you learn to dream in the morning?
Abandon dreams in the afternoon?
Wait without hope in the evening?
Did you stand there in the traces and let them feed you lies?
Did you trail along behind them wearing blinkers on your eyes?
Did you kiss the foot that kicked you?
Did you thank them for their scorn?
Did you ask for their forgiveness for the act of being born,
act of being born, act of being born?
Did you alter the face of the city?
Did you make any change in the world you found?
Or did you observe all the warnings?
Did you read the trespass notices did you keep off the grass?
Did you shuffle off the pavement just to let your betters pass?
Did you learn to keep your mouth shut,
Were you seen and never heard?
Did you learn to be obedient and jump to at a word,
jump to at a word, jump to at a word?
Did you ever demand any answers?
The who, the what or the reason why?
Did you ever question the setup?
Did you stand aside and let them choose while you took second best?
Did you let them skim the cream off and then give to you the rest?
Did you settle for the shoddy?
Did you think it right
To let them rob you right and left and never make a fight,
never make a fight, never make a fight?
What did you learn in the morning?
How much did you know in the afternoon?
Were you content in the evening?
Did they teach you how to question when you were at the school?
Did the factory help you grow, were you the maker or the tool?
Did the place where you were living
Enrich your life and then
Did you reach some understanding of all your fellow men,
all your fellow men, all your fellow men?
I’m Still Standing Here
See these lines upon my face
They’re a map of where I’ve been
In the deep they are traced a deeper life has settled in
How do we survive living out our lives
I wouldn’t trade a line make it smooth or fine
Or pretend that time stands still
I want to rest my soul here where it can grow without fear
Another line another year
I’m still standing here
See these marks upon my skin
They’re the lyric of my life
Every story that begins
Means another ends in sight
Only lover’s understand
Skin just covers who I am
I wouldn’t trade a line make it smooth or fine
Or pretend that time stands still
I want to rest my soul here where it can grow without fear
Another line another year
I’m still standing here
See these bruises see these scars
Hieroglyphs that tell the tale
You can read them in the dark
Through your fingertips like braille
I wouldn’t trade a line make it smooth or fine
Or pretend that time stands still
I want to rest my soul here where it can grow without fear
Another line another year
I’m still standing here
Davina Vencatasamy talks to Lesley Schatzberger. Lesley is the founder of the charity Jessie's fund. Jessie’s Fund was established as a registered charity in 1995 and helps children with serious illness, complex needs, and communication difficulties through the therapeutic use of music. Music can provide a powerful and profound way in which children can express themselves and connect with the world around them. Lesley’s experience when her daughter Jessie was in a children’s hospice made her aware of how many children struggle to communicate: it was clear to her how music could help these children. As a clarinettist Lesley has worked in a range of music-making – from working with Stockhausen to touring extensively with orchestras such as the English Baroque Soloists and the Academy of Ancient Music. She teaches at the University of York: in 2006 that institution awarded her an honorary doctorate.
https://jessiesfund.org.uk/
Seb is a detective constable with Surrey Police, working in their public protection unit investigating serious crime against the most vulnerable in our society. His Policing career started in the Met Police where, after 2 years as a volunteer Police Officer or ‘Special’, he caught the Policing bug and joined ‘the job’ full time in 2011. He chose Hounslow as the place to get experience and spent two years as a uniform constable answering 999 calls there. He also had the pleasure of seeing the sights of London from a different perspective as a public order officer.
Being an avid fan of ‘The Sweeney’ he always knew he was destined to be a detective. After a stint working on a new initiative to better deal with foreign national offenders and a few months as a street duties instructor and acting Sergeant, Seb applied for CID. He attended Scotland Yard’s world-famous Crime Academy, becoming a substantive detective in 2017. A country boy at heart, the rolling hills of Surrey were too beautiful to resist so he transferred to Surrey Police soon after and choose to work in the safeguarding unit, training to be a specialist accredited child abuse investigator.
The son of a GP (who was also an artist) and a music teacher, he was born and raised in Bristol where he enjoyed a house full of music. His mother would teach piano at home and he would spend hours listening to Beethoven and Bach from his dad’s record collection. There is photographic evidence of him conducting Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in the lounge in his pyjamas at age 8, but that is locked away securely! He attended King Edward’s School, Bath, where he joined the choir and sang many services in the awesome Bath Abbey. He also played the violin and was a member of multiple music groups including a medieval group where he played medieval fiddle and Psaltery (Google it). He took part in chamber concerts in the Holbourne Museum, Bath, which houses a Steinway Piano Rachmaninov chose to play when he came to the city. Following a brief episode where he applied to study Physics at University and join the RAF as a pilot, he came to his senses at the last minute and auditioned for the Royal College of Music as a singer. He studied there for 5 years between 2000 and 2005, gaining a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance. Seb then spent the next few years trying to make a living as a musician and having a lot of fun in the process, working for Opera companies all over the UK and touring the USA for 3 months with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. he hasn’t sung a wide range of roles from Pantomime and Gilbert and Sullivan to Mozart and Verdi.
Seb talked about his work with Blue Light Symphony Orchestra, and about an innovative recent reject with Chroma and music therapist Amanda Thorpe, working with emergency services professionals.
https://www.bluelightsymphony.org/
https://youtu.be/lzgDtzKKETg
References
Kahneman, D. (2017) Thinking, fast and slow. Penguin Books.
Rosenberg, M. B., & Chopra, D. (2015). Nonviolent communication: A language of life: Life-changing tools for healthy relationships. PuddleDancer Press.
In episode 60, Davina Vencatasamy talks to Helen Minors.
Helen Julia Minors is School Head of Performing Arts and Associate Professor of Music at Kingston University, London. She is also a Visiting Professor in Artistic Research at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. She has published books: Music, Text and Translation (2013); Building Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Bridges: Where Theory Meets Research and Practice, co-edited with Pamela Burnard, Valerie Ross, Kimberly Powell, Tatjana Dragovic and Elizabeth Mackinlay (2016); Paul Dukas: Legacies of a French Musician, co-edited with Laura Watson (2019); Artistic Research in Performance Through Collaboration, co-written/co-edited with Martin Blain (2020); Music, Dance and Translation (forthcoming); and The Routledge Companion to Women and Musical Leadership: the nineteenth century and beyond, co-edited with Laura Hamer (forthcoming). Recent articles have appeared in London Review of Education (2017, 2019) and recent book chapters in Translating Opera: Eastern and Western Perspectives (2019), Translation and Multimodality: Beyond Words (2019), Tibon (2021).Helen is also the founder and co-chair of EDI Music Studies Network, https://www.edimusicstudies.com/ and former chair of MusicHE https://musiche.ac.uk/. From January 2022 she will be co-investigator of Women's Musical Leadership Online Network, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FW000369%2F1.
https://www.helenjuliaminors.com/about
Kiz Bangerh (now Manley) is the founder of Hip Hop Heals. Here's how she describes herself on her website:
"I lost my older sister, Promila, in a car accident in 2000. After, I suffered a delayed traumatised grief reaction. I was an English Literature graduate and keen writer but experienced a creative block that lasted ten years. During this time, I trained as a secondary English teacher, and enjoyed a fruitful career in museum and gallery education.
When my father died in 2010, I was in recovery from a delayed traumatised grief reaction and a breakdown. This is when I discovered therapeutic writing. My writer’s block came undone. I already had an MA in Literature and decided to do an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes to share what I’d learnt about self-healing through creativity. I set up Hip Hop HEALS, a mental health project that tackles mental health inequalities in disadvantaged groups, particularly BAME groups, young people and men.
We deliver poetry therapy-style workshops in schools, probation centres, mental health units and homeless hostels. I am also now Director of Story with Lapidus International and Communications Director for its academic research journal, LIRIC, as well as Lived Experience Champion for LENS Network (Lived Experience Network).
Outside of work, I run Dubgasm: a social action fundraiser for Brum's foodbank and homeless communities. I still love teaching and tutor Looked After Children in my spare time. Recently, I was selected for Lloyd's Bank's School for Social Entrepreneurs to develop Hip Hop HEALS into a social enterprise business with a grant of £1000. Through this, I’ve been developing mental health resources using Hip Hop’s central tenet: ‘Knowledge of Self’. My goal is to spread knowledge and research about the therapeutic power of Hip Hop culture. My thesis on this topic applied narrative and poetic inquiry to interpret MC interviews (available on request: hiphophealsuk@gmail.com)"
Kiz spoke in detail about these experiences. This includes some graphic description of her sister's car crash - so be aware of this particularly towards the later part of the interview (1:00:13-1:01:37). She talks about her PTSD and how her creative process has helped her to integrate traumatic memories.
Resources:
Hip Hop Heals website home page:
https://www.hiphophealsuk.org/
Glowitheflow Podcast:
hiphophealsuk.org/podcast
Trauma Research Foundation (includes videos on Hip Hop Therapy):
Trauma Research Foundation - YouTube
Feeling the Beat: TRF Tuesday Therapeutic Applications of Hip Hop Workshop Series Week 1 - YouTube
References:
Afonu, D. (2015). Hip-Hop As Community Psychology?: A Participatory Research Project with Adolescent Co-Researchers (Doctoral dissertation, University of East London).
Allen, T. N., & Randolph, A. (2020). Listening for the Interior in Hip-hop and R&B Music. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 6(1), 46-60.
Kirkland, K., & King, S. (2019). Rap and recovery: A music therapy process-oriented intervention for adults with concurrent disorders. www. approaches. gr ISSN 2459-3338, 70.
Levy, I. P. (2019). Hip-hop and spoken word therapy in urban school counseling. Professional School Counseling, 22(1b), 2156759X19834436.
Travis, R., Gann, E., Crooke, A. H., & Jenkins, S. M. (2019). Hip Hop, empowerment, and therapeutic beat-making: Potential solutions for summer learning loss, depression, and anxiety in youth. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 29(6), 744-765.
Davina Vencatasamy spoke to Sandra Schembri, the CEO of Nordoff Robbins, UK, continuing her sequence of interviews exploring diversity, race and representation in music therapy. Sandra describes herself as follows:
"Over the course of my 26+ year career so far I have had the pleasure of working with some amazing organisations including Bloomberg, The Royal Academy of Arts, Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club and The House of St Barnabas, supporting further social change in the areas of music, culture, homelessness and employment. I am a "People 1st" leader and believe very deeply that "culture eats strategy for breakfast". I currently have the privilege of leading Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy UK where my music studies are being put to good use (singer, cello, clarinet). I am a proud mother of a 6-year-old force of nature and big on family, dogs, sci-fi, trees and food. There is nothing that cannot start to be solved with the help of a cup of tea with a biscuit."
Nsamu is a music therapist and psychotherapist born and raised in Zambia. Nsamu earned a BA in Psychological Counselling from the University of South Africa and MMus in Music Therapy from the University of Pretoria. A therapist grounded in holistic anti-oppressive practice, Nsamu works with people exploring health and lifestyle choices, medical complications, human sexualities and gender, spiritualities and religious experiences, psychosocial support, and learning enhancement. His music therapy experience spans health, medical, and school settings, and centres human development programming, design and facilitation, community infrastructure and social development, cross-cultural living and working.
Nsamu is a classically trained singer and enjoys dancing. His interests include lifelong development, learning, and critical theory-informed research. He enjoys long-distance running and writing mystical poetry. He is a foodie, enjoys mentoring youth, and loves being an uncle.
Nsamu is affiliated with the Health Profession Council of South Africa, South African Music Therapy Association, South African National Art Therapy Association, and the Institute for Creative Conversations.
Nsamu talked about the batonga tradition in Zambia, and how he perceives music therapy in the light of his studies and experiences. Anti-oppressive practice in music therapy is explored, along with therapeutic stance, and the episode includes a bonus section after the 'official' ending.
References:
Baines, S. (2013). Music therapy as an anti-oppressive practice. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 40(1), 1-5.
Moonga, N. U. (2019). Exploring music therapy in the life of the batonga of Mazabuka Southern Zambia (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).
Nsamu also referred to the work of Henri Nouwen
Luke's blogpost about the Gnawa is here.
A blog about Maslow and the Blackfoot people is here.
Wendy Magee has a background in practice and scholarship concerning music interventions for brain injury rehabilitation. She moved to Philadelphia in 2011, a city with the fourth largest African American population and the highest rate of deep poverty in the US. Navigating the evident inequities for marginalized people in her new home city has offered her opportunities to learn about social justice, albeit from a position of privilege. She describes herself as being at the start of a long journey of learning how to challenge the existing systems that maintain dominant narratives and ensure social inequities, of how to practice allyship, and of learning how to put well-meaning thoughts into action, saying that there is much to learn.
In this episode, Wendy follows on from her seminal keynote lecture at the most recent BAMT conference, highlighting issues of race, equality and privilege with Davina. She talks about personal and painful experiences which highlighted for her, how privilege can be present in everyday life and do its damage without being necessarily aware. She starts to explore issues of white supremacy to unpack that emotive term and think about how it is applied to music therapy.
Luke talked to Barbara Wheeler about her wide ranging experience in music therapy as a researcher, clinician, educator, and author.
Barbara L. Wheeler, PhD, MT-BC, holds the designation of Professor Emeritus from Montclair State University, where she taught from 1975-2000. She initiated the music therapy program at the University of Louisville in 2000, retiring in 2011. She presents and teaches in the U.S. and internationally. She has a current faculty appointment at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music, Katowice, Poland. She has been an active clinician throughout her career and worked with a variety of clientele. Barbara edited Music Therapy Handbook (2015); Music Therapy Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives (1995); Music Therapy Research (2nd Edition, 2005); is one of the editors of Music Therapy Research (3rd Edition; 2016); and is coauthor of Clinical Training Guide for the Student Music Therapist (1st edition, 2005; 2nd edition, 2017). She is also the author of numerous other articles and chapters. She is a past president of the American Music Therapy Association and was Interview Co-Editor for Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Barbara received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Federation of Music Therapy in 2017 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Music Therapy Association in 2019.
In this interview they cover a wide range of topics, among them the issue of the importance of randomised control trials in building the evidence base for music therapy. the resources below include reference to several of these, as well as other articles referred to in this discussion.
The first two are examples of relatively small RCTs, done by a single investigator or team, in one setting. There are many examples of this type of RCT.
Ghetti, C. M. (2013). Effect of music therapy with emotional-approach coping on preprocedural anxiety in cardiac catheterization: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Music Therapy, 50(2), 93-122.
Chlan, L., Weinert, C., Heiderscheit, A., Tracy, M. F., Skaar, D., Guttormson, J., & Savik, K. (2013). Effects of patient directed music intervention on anxiety and sedative exposure in critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilatory support. JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, 309(22), 2335-2344. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.5670
The next two are multi-site RCTs.
Robb, S. L., Burns, D. S., Stegenga, K. A., Haut, P. R., Monahan, P. O., Meza, J., ... & Haase, J. E. (2014). Randomized clinical trial of therapeutic music video intervention for resilience outcomes in adolescents/young adults undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant: a report from the Children's Oncology Group. Cancer, 120(6), 909-917.
Robb, S. L., Burns, D. S., Stegenga, K. A., Haut, P. R., Monahan, P. O., Meza, J., …Haase, J. E. (2014). Randomized clinical trial of therapeutic music video intervention for resilience outcomes in adolescents/young adults undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplant: A report from the Children’s Oncology Group. Cancer, 120, 909–917. doi:10.1002/cncr.28355
The final two are Protocols for RCTs. These are large, multi-site studies, not yet completed.
Ghetti, C., Bieleninik, Ł., Hysing, M., Kvestad, I., Assmus, J., Romeo, R., ... & Gold, C. (2019). Longitudinal Study of music Therapy’s Effectiveness for Premature infants and their caregivers (LongSTEP): protocol for an international randomised trial. BMJ open, 9(8), e025062.
Baker, F. A., Bloska, J., Braat, S., Bukowska, A., Clark, I., Hsu, M. H., ... & Odell-Miller, H. (2019). HOMESIDE: home-based family caregiver-delivered music and reading interventions for people living with dementia: protocol of a randomised controlled trial. BMJ open, 9(11), e031332.Felicity Anne Baker
Additional references
Wheeler, B. L., & Baker, F. A. (2010). Influences of music therapists’ worldviews on work in different countries. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 37(3), 215-227.
https://voices.no/community/index.html?q=fortnightly-columns%252F2001-various-problems-language-and-terminology
In Episode 54, Davina Wilson talks to Michaela de Cruz. Michaela qualified in 2019 and is relatively new to music therapy but is not new to music activism. Over her 20 years as a jazz and soul performer, musician and songwriter, she has championed and contributed to causes as varied as racial awareness, gender and sexual equality and animal rights. As an activist in the music therapy scene, Michaela was on the panel for the first ever BAMT racial awareness event, which was a seminal effort for music therapy in the UK. In this podcast, Michaela speaks with her panel member Davina about the events which led to her putting her passion behind the fight for racial equality and equity in the music therapy space for both therapists and their clients, why she believes there can be no more excuses for ignorance of racial issues and discrimination in the community, as well as what she hopes to see in the future for music therapy training and practice across the UK. Michaela works primarily in adult mental health and runs her own private practice MdC Music Therapy. She will be presenting a roundtable discussion together with the BAMT racial awareness panel members at the upcoming European Music Therapy Conference in 2022. MdC Music Therapy - www.mdcmusictherapy.com Michaela Therese music - https://soundcloud.com/michaelatheresemusic/tracks Resource Books: Turner, D. (2021). Intersections of Privilege and Otherness in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Mockingbird. Routledge Keval, N. (2016). Racist States of Mind: Understanding the Perversion of Curiosity and Concern. Routledge. Shukla, N. (2017). The Good Immigrant. Unbound.
Episode 53 features Francis Myerscough, who was part of the panel discussion on diversity chaired by Wendy Magee at the 2021 BAMT conference. Francis Myerscough qualified as a music therapist from the University of South Wales in 2018. They work in a number of different settings, with a background in adoption support and more recently in a local children’s services harmful sexual behaviour team. Other roles have included supporting LGBTQ+ young people at a local youth club, and as founder of and music therapist at Phoenix Song Project – a therapy organisation co-directed with and offering therapy for other members of trans and non-binary communities.
There is some discussion here about language, and Francis also discusses their clinical practice, musical training and upbringing, shifts in musical identity, including instrument choice, and the importance of the voice in their therapy work.
Resources
Practice Your Pronouns:
https://www.patreon.com/PracticeYourPronouns
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjZ0Kl2fL5gC4BkYd0oQKbQ/
Jessica Kingsley list:
https://uk.jkp.com/collections/gender-diversity-gender-diversity-pid-906
Ruth Pearce book
https://ruthpearce.net/books/understanding-trans-health/
GIRES
https://www.gires.org.uk/
Gendered Intelligence (this is one example of an organisation who offer training for talking therapies, but broader resources also available that might be relevant for music therapists too)
https://genderedintelligence.co.uk/
Mermaids
https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/
BISH examples - https://www.bishuk.com/about-you/whats-your-gender/
https://www.bishuk.com/parents/teach-yourself-sex-ed-gender-you-and-culture/ (includes a chocolate bar gender map!)
TransActual https://www.transactual.org.uk/
TransActual UK was founded by a group of British trans people in 2017 as a response to increasing press hostility, transphobia and misinformation. They are run by the trans community, with the trans community, for the trans community.
In June 2020 they expanded their scope and remit so that they may:
- share reliable information about trans people’s lives and about trans rights in the UK, as well as dispelling common myths
- amplify the voices of trans people so that the wider world may hear the experiences of a wide range of trans men, trans women and non-binary people
- educate people about trans people's lives and the issues we face
- advocate for trans people
- empower trans people to make bring about change in their lives and in the community
They are working to improve:
- Trans people’s experiences of healthcare.
- Legal recognition & protections for trans people.
- Media representation of trans people and an end to press transphobia.
University of Wisconsiun, Milwaukee LGBTQ+ Resource centre: https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc
Includes page about gender pronouns: https://uwm.edu/lgbtrc/support/gender-pronouns/
CliniQ - https://cliniq.org.uk
The film KIKI (Dir: Sara Jordenö, 2017) provides an update from the iconic 1990 documentary Paris is Burning. Both centre around ballroom culture and vogueing. Francis recommends both as intros to this rich area of history and creative practice, spearheaded by queer people of colour.
Luke's blog post:
http://jazztoad.blogspot.com/2018/11/curiouser-and-curiouser.html
Francis' response:
https://facethemusicandtrans.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/working-with-voice-and-trans-clients-musings-in-response-to-luke-annesleys-curiouser-and-curiouser/
Dr. Pasiali received a BA Honors in Music Performance, from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Subsequently, she worked as a public school music teacher and a freelance flute performer in Cyprus. She completed her equivalency/Master’s degree in Music Therapy at the University of Kansas. Upon graduation, she worked as a music therapist in private practice (Ohio, US) and at the Music School Settlement (Cleveland, Ohio). She completed her PhD in Music Education with a cognate in Music Therapy at Michigan State. Currently, she is Associate & Livingstone Professor of music therapy and Chair of the Academic Honors Program at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. Her research interests include early intervention, family-based music therapy, prevention, wellness and mental health, resilience, and socioemotional health. Dr. Pasiali is a regular presenter at conferences and has published in various journals. Main lecturing areas include improvisation, applied clinical techniques, and psychology of music. She is an invited reviewer for music therapy journals including Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, Journal of Music Therapy, The Arts in Psychotherapy and Frontiers in Psychology. She served as an associate editor for the open access peer-reviewed journal Therapy, and Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy and on the editorial board for the Journal of Music Therapy. Currently she serves on the editorial board for Music Therapy Perspectives and Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy.
At the very end of our conversation we alluded to Pinker's views on the non-adaptive role of music which he describes as 'auditory cheesecake'. Here are some links to follow this up, for anyone interested:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90569391/how-did-music-evolve-harvard-study-reveals-a-surprising-theory-no-its-not-a-sexual-mating-call
Also, here is a discussion by Levitin (evolutionary origins of music) about/against Pinker (who argues that music is a by product or an 'auditory cheesecake')
https://youtu.be/bf_tJK-we2w Part 1
https://youtu.be/iDJH9ITlF9E Part 2
https://youtu.be/UgGRR-6jHmI Part 3
And Pinker still argues about auditory cheesecake: 12:40 Pinker discussion. http://trbq.org/trbq-podcast-6-steven-pinker-on-music/
Here also are some references and links to Varvara's work:
Pasiali, V. & Clark, C. (2018). Evaluation of a music therapy social skills development program for youth with limited resources. Journal of Music Therapy, 55(3), 280-308. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/thy007
Pasiali, V., Schoolmeesters, L., & Engen, R. (2018). Mapping resilience: Analyses of measures and suggested uses in music therapy. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 10(1), 1-25. https://approaches.gr/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2-Approaches-10-1-2018-a20160920_pasiali.pdf
Pasiali, V. (2014). Music therapy and attachment relationships across the lifespan. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 23(3), 202-223. https://doi.org/10.1080/08098131.2013.829863
Pasiali, V. (2012a). Supporting parent-child interactions: Music therapy as an intervention for promoting mutually responsive orientation. Journal of Music Therapy, 49(3), 303-334. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/49.3.303
Pasiali, V. (2012b). Resilience, music therapy, and human adaptation: Nurturing young children and families. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 21(1), 36-56. https://doi.org 10.1080/08098131.2011.571276
Dr. Diane Austin DA, LCAT is the Director of the Music Psychotherapy Center in New York City where she offers a two-year post-graduate certificate program in Vocal Psychotherapy. She teaches in the graduate music therapy department at New York University. Dr. Austin has maintained a private practice in music, expressive psychotherapy and supervision for over 25 years, and has lectured and taught Vocal Psychotherapy trainings internationally. Her work has been published in numerous journals and books and translated into several languages. Diane created the first distance training program in Vocal Psychotherapy in Vancouver, B.C. and had a distance training program in Seoul, Korea for 12 years which started again virtually in 2021. Her first international/multicultural distance training program in Vocal Psychotherapy began in 2018 at Mayfield Farm in England (about an hour from London). Her book, “The Theory and Practice of Vocal Psychotherapy: Songs of the Self” was published by Jessica Kingsley in 2010 and codified the first voice-based model of music psychotherapy.
Diane talks in this interview about the genesis of her approach, including her background in musical theatre and jazz, and how psychoanalysis played an important part.
Dianeaustin.com
Diane's email address: Diane@dianaustin.com
More details about the vocal psychotherapy training programme can be found on the BAMT website
Austin, D. (2009). The theory and practice of vocal psychotherapy: Songs of the self. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Julie Sutton works in a regional adult psychiatry NHS service for patients with severe, complex disturbance, and in private psychoanalytic practice. Having qualified in 1982 she retired from music therapy in June 2020. Over the decades her work covered most areas across the age range and she presented, lectured and examined nationally and internationally. Former Head of Training for NR London she also consulted for the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar. Her PhD looked at improvisation as a form of conversation & reflects a lifelong interest in relational musical processes. A BAMT Trustee for three terms, former Editor-in-Chief of the BJMT & EMTC Vice President, Julie has written about music therapy in many chapters and articles, including her books “Music, Music Therapy & Trauma” and “The Music in Music Therapy” (2002 & 2014). She is registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council and is a Board Member of the N. Ireland Psychoanalytic Society.
This was an unplanned conversation that covered many areas of theory, practice and life experience. Before that, a brief excerpt from episode 1 to mark the occasion!
'Breaking Free: Freud versus music' (BBC Sounds)
The musicologist Julie referred to was Max Graf
Karnac books by Andrea Sabbadini
References
Kennedy, R. (2020). The Power of Music: Psychoanalytic Explorations. ISD LLC.
Kroeker, J. (2019). Jungian music psychotherapy: When psyche sings. Routledge.
Sutton, J. and De Backer, J. (2014). The music in music therapy: Psychodynamic music therapy in Europe: Clinical, theoretical and research approaches. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Sutton, J. (2002). Music, music therapy and trauma: International perspectives. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Davina qualified as a music therapist from Anglia Ruskin University in 2006 and has been working in wide variety of settings ever since. She specialised in a brief therapy model, writing her masters these in this field. She has continued to explore this model in special educational needs settings with children and adults in schools and residential settings. She has worked in acute and long term mental health in the NHS and continues to explore different and innovative ways of working. She is currently one of 5 directors at Drum and Brass, a grassroots arts organisation making headway in effecting positive change in diversity and safeguarding in Leicester with dreams of changing the discourse and filling the gaps on a national landscape. She is a registered supervisor and works closely with BAMT as their area group coordinator and CPD officer.
Luke and Davina talk about racial inequalities in the UK and in music therapy. They discuss the BAMT EDI Report, as well as Davina's personal experiences of growing up in the UK and training as a music therapist, including her experiences of racism. They consider where we go from here in relation to Black Lives Matter, and the current lack of racial diversity and representation in the UK music therapy profession.
Podcasts:
Racism at Work
The Diversity Gap
Other resources:
The BAMT Diversity Report
BMJ Response to the government report
24 April 2021 Panel discussion chaired by Davina Wilson: Racial Awareness in Music Therapy: Starting the journey to true EDIB
References:
Ablack, J. (2000). Body psychotherapy, trauma and the Black woman client. International Journal of Psychotherapy, 5(2), 145-151.
Akala (2019) Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. Two Roads Books.
Bull, A. (2019). Class, control, and classical music. Oxford University Press.
Eddo-Lodge, R. (2020). Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Ellis, E. (2021) The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating life-changing dialogue. Confer Books.
DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.
Turner, D. (2021). Intersections of Privilege and Otherness in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Mockingbird. Routledge.
Associate Professor Daphne Rickson, PhD, teaches music therapy at the New Zealand School of Music – Te Kōkī, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She has practiced music therapy and undertaken research with a range of client populations but particularly with children and adolescents in schools. Her research has involved critical analysis of the concept of disability and investigation into music as an inclusive resource, including: Participatory Action Research with young people who have intellectual disability; an investigation into singing for wellbeing in a Christchurch school severely affected by earthquakes; song-writing with adolescents experiencing life-limiting illness; and music therapy with children who have Autism Spectrum Conditions. Daphne is co-author, with Katrina McFerran, of Creating Music Cultures in the Schools: A perspective from community music therapy (2014).
One of topics she touches on in this podcast is the importance of NZ MT trainers collaborating with Maori to ensure their programme is as welcoming/appropriate as it can be for Māori students, while also noticing and valuing that Maori have their own healing processes involving music. For those interested in learning more, Māori student, Ruby Solly’s writes of her use taonga puoro in music therapy practice at http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/xmlui/handle/10063/8260.
Alexia Quin is the director of Music as Therapy International, a charity which she founded in 1995 and which seeks to embed music into the care and education of vulnerable people worldwide. Alexia trained at Roehampton in the late 1990s and worked as a music therapist in the NHS for 15 years. In 2017 she was awarded the WFMT Advocate of Music Therapy Award and in 2018 she was a member of the Commission which examined the role of music within the care and treatment of people living with dementia.
Luke talked to Alexia about the genesis of the charity, which she founded before training as a music therapist. They discuss how training affected her attitude to the work of the charity, and vice versa, and talk in much detail about the many projects that have happened since, and are continuing to be developed at the moment, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
After the tumultuous last year, many schools are beginning to think how they might enhance the mechanisms they have to provide universal support to students with respect to mental health and well-being. If there are any music therapists out there who want to consider their role contributing to this in schools known to them and/or how they identify and share relevant skills, Alexia would love to hear from them.
Anderson, M.B., Brown, D. and Jean, I. (2012) Time To Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid. CDA Collaborative Learning Projects.
Cottam, H. (2018) Radical Help: How we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionalise the welfare state. London: Virago Press.
Quin, A. (2017) Bringing it all back home. Unpublished paper. Japan: World Congress of Music Therapy.
Sen, A. (2001). Development as freedom. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.
www.musicastherapy.org
https://www.facebook.com/musicastherapy
www.interactivemusicmaking.org
"You look a little shy: let me introduce you to that leg of mutton," said the Red Queen. "Alice --Mutton: Mutton --Alice." The leg of mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice, and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.
"May I give you a slice?" she said...
"Certainly not," the Red Queen said, very decidedly: "it isn't etiquette to cut any one you've been introduced to. Remove the joint!" And the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its place.
"I won't be introduced to the pudding, please," Alice said rather hastily, "or we shall get no dinner at all." [Through the Looking-Glass, Norton Critical Edition, 200]
Ray Travasso is a Music Therapist and has been working in children’s and adult services for 18 years. He trained at the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre, London and graduated with a Masters in Music Therapy in 2002.
He has a background in paediatric and adult palliative care and currently works part-time as a Music therapist and Team Leader at The Treehouse, East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices, Ipswich, Suffolk.
He is also Director and co-founder of Suffolk Music Therapy Services, an organisation that provides Music Therapy to children and adult care services across East Anglia. Suffolk Music Therapy Services delivers Music therapy in over 60 organisations in the region, including hospices, care homes, neurorehabilitation centres, schools, charities and private individuals.
Ray leads a team of 15 highly skilled and trained music therapists and is keen to increase access to Music Therapy to more organisations and individuals across the region.
Ray talked to Luke about the genesis of his own music therapy practice, and how he developed this into the thriving service it has become. There was also some discussion about how he and the rest of the team have adapted to lockdown, and how, in some ways, they felt well prepared for the challenges this entailed.
Links:
Suffolk Music Therapy Services Website:
https://www.suffolkmusictherapyservices.co.uk
Suffolk Music Therapy Services Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/suffolkmusictherapyservices
Episode 45 is part 2 of Luke's interview with Alex Maguire, music therapist at Broadmoor high security hospital. Alex talks in some detail about his clinical work in this episode, and some of the important theories he draws on to support his work. The episode also includes Alex's interview with Shamrat Sengupta.
Shamrat Sengupta is an Indian renaissance man - in addition to his role as a consultant psychiatrist, he is also a barrister and an actor/writer /performer with the group Eastern Thespians. He is the co-creator of the Bloomsbury Cultural Formulation Interview and is the Responsible Clinician for the mental illness admissions ward at Broadmoor.
Also included in the episode are two further excerpts from Alex's performance live at the Vortex Jazz Club in Dalston. The Vortex is a true gem of the UK jazz scene and has done well to survive through lockdown. See the website for details of upcoming gigs.
Alex Maguire is Senior Music Therapist at Broadmoor high security hospital specialising in working with high dependency and intensive care patients. He has presented his work at numerous conferences and has contributed to the books Forensic Music Therapy (JKP 2012), ‘Forensic Arts Therapies –Anthology of Practice & Research’, (FA Press 2016), ‘Working Across Modalities in the Arts Therapies: Creative Collaborations’ (Routledge 2017) and 'Violent States and Creative States; from the Global to the Individual’ (JKP 2018).
The Broadmoor Hospital choir for both staff and patients, which he co-founded, has been commended in the Arts and Health Awards, and performs widely at hospital functions, as well as providing a Christmas visiting service to the intensive care wards. Alex has presented at the IAFP Conference in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2020. He has a parallel life as an improvising jazz pianist performing and recording in Europe and further afield.
This episode includes two interviews conducted by Alex with his colleagues Dr Gwen Adshead and Dr Claire Wilson.
Gwen Adshead is a consultant psychiatrist and group analyst. She is currently the responsible clinician for a high security ward in Broadmoor Hospital for severely personality disordered patients. She has published widely and is known for her work with both offenders and victims. She is a keen singer and art lover, recently featured on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
Claire has worked in the NHS as a psychologist for over twenty years. She is currently Lead Psychologist in the Integrated Group Therapies service, which provides mental health restoration and risk reduction work for the men detained at Broadmoor. She has contributed to research articles on the prevalence of violence in institutions and on the evaluation of therapies designed to help reduce risk.
Maguire, A and Merrick, I (2012) Walking The Line: Music Therapy In The Context Of The Recovery Approach In A High Secure Hospital in Adlam, J Odell-Miller, H and Compton-Dickinson, S (eds.) Forensic Music Therapy. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Maguire, A and Robertson, C (2015) A Healthy Community Living Skills Group in a high security hospital. Mental Health Practice 19, 1, 24-27
Maguire, A and Merrick, I (2016) From Let It Be to It Must Be Love: the development of a choir for patients and staff at a high secure hospital. Arts & Health, 9:1, 73-80
Maguire, A (2018) Treat Me Nice – Music Therapy and Extreme Violence in Adlam, J Kluttig, T and Lee, B (eds.) Violent States and Creative States. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Maguire, A Guarnieri, M Mindang, M and Thomas, D (2016) The Internal Bomb in Rothwell, K (ed.) Forensic Arts Therapies. Anthology Of Practice And Research. London: Free Association Books
Maguire, A. Bose, S. Ferrito, M. Mindang, M and Ware, A (2018) Into The Labyrinth; working with Bizarre, Unspeakable and Extreme Violence in Adlam, J Kluttig, T and Lee, B (eds.) Violent States and Creative States. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Maguire, A and Mindang, M (2018) Not What It Says On The Tin; a family awareness group in a high security hospital in Colbert, T and Bent, C (eds.) Working Across Modalities in the Arts Therapies; creative collaborations. London: Routledge.
Nate Holder BA, MMus is a musician, author, speaker and music education consultant based in London. He is an advocate for decolonising music education and has been writing, speaking and consulting on the subject for the last five years.
Nate brings his passion and skill in public speaking into leading CPD training and workshops; helping address bias and underrepresentation in music classrooms, departments, hubs and boards across the UK.
His first book, 'I Wish I Didn’t Quit: Music Lessons', became an Amazon bestseller and is currently available worldwide. His second book, ‘Why Is My Piano Black and White’, was released in Sept 2020.
Nate talked about his own musical education, and what might be missing from mainstream education more generally, in particular due to racial bias. We also discuss his poem, 'If I Were a Racist', featured on his #decolonisemusiced blog, including the reactions to this, both positive and negative.
Nate also refers to his own experience of music therapy, taking a music therapy module as part of his music degree, and refers briefly to the book Hit Makers, by Derek Thompson.
Phillip Ewell's address to the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory is here, and the reference to his article on Schenker's racism is as follows:
Ewell, P. A. (2020). Music Theory and the White Racial Frame. Music Theory Online, 26(2).
Marianne Rizkallah is the Director and Head Music Therapist at North London Music Therapy, 'Music Therapy Outreach and Enterprise Tutor' for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and the Vice Chair of the British Association for Music Therapy.
Founded in 2018, North London Music Therapy provides music therapy for anyone, of any age, with a mental health condition such as stress, anxiety or depression. NLMT provides music therapy for individuals and groups, designs and delivers workshops for the corporate market, and provides further training and CPD for qualified and trainee music therapists. NLMT specialises in long-term work, and believes that therapy should be offered for as long as someone feels they need it, running counter to the prevailing therapy model in the UK.
As a music therapist, Marianne has worked with clients aged from 1 to 100, with conditions as varied as psychosis, autism, learning disabilities and dementia. For NLMT, she works with clients with anxiety.
Marianne is also a professional singer and vocal coach, and recently founded her own choir, the Nuestra Singers.
In this interview, Marianne talks about the experience of drawing up lockdown guidelines for BAMT, about the responses of NLMT to COVID-19 and how her psychotherapeutic stance has influenced her music therapy practice in this time.
Website: www.northlondonmusictherapy.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/northlondonmusictherapy
Twitter: www.facebook.com/NLmusictherapy
Instagram: www.instagram.com/northlondonmusictherapy
Luke interviewed eight colleagues from the team at Oxleas Music Therapy Service about their experiences of adapting practice during lockdown. This has inevitably included a wide range of experiences, some very positive, some frustrating, but all of them demonstrating the ability of music therapists to adapt and improvise in a crisis, keeping the children and young people they are working with at the centre of their practice. You can also find a shorter edit of this project (with a musical bonus) on the service website. Here are their biogs in order of appearance:
Sarah Hadley is the manager of Oxleas Music Therapy Service. You can see a more extensive biog for Sarah in the notes for her own episode of Music Therapy Conversations (Episode 36 from March 2020).
Oonagh Jones is Principal Music Therapist at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust where she is Caseload Manager and Lead for the Under 5s service. Oonagh works in mainstream, special schools and children's centres; with a particular interest in working with children and young people who have experienced trauma.
Anthony Voelcker has worked in secondary schools since graduating from Roehampton in 2013, specialising in working with young people with learning disabilities. He currently working in two South London SEN schools, leading the music therapy team at Charlton Park Academy and working as the music therapist at Greenvale School.
Nicky O'Neill is one of the Principal music therapists. She is the Contracts Manager for the Service, with a career-long interest and specialism in children with complex needs -ASD as well as health needs.
Jimmy Lyons' musical background is in live performance, songwriting and recording. After completing a Master’s degree in music technology in his native Ireland, Jimmy moved to the UK and trained at Nordoff Robbins in London where he qualified in 2013. He currently runs a private music therapy practice (Right Note Therapeutic Services), studies Family & Systemic Psychotherapy studies at The Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust, and works for the Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust music therapy service.
Hannah Smith has worked for Oxleas NHS since 2014, initially alongside other Music Therapy posts in acute mental health, forensic mental health and as a self-employed therapist, but moving to full time from 2017. Hannah's clinical work encompasses mainstream and special education, children's centres and the core NHS service, as well as co-ordinating student placements and the service audit of clients accessing Music Therapy and the outcome measures relating to their provision.
Since qualifying as a music therapist at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Gillian O’Dempsey has worked for the NHS Borders CAMHS service and the Cheyne Child Development Service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, she currently works for NHS Oxleas with children in mainstream primary schools and special schools. Gillian taught the Introduction to Music Therapy module at Napier University, Edinburgh and now teaches on the Interactive Music-Maker training course run by Music as Therapy International. Before music therapy training, Gillian worked in education in a variety of teaching roles.
Richard Murison has worked in this team with children, young people and adults, since qualifying from Roehampton in 2008. He is a guitarist and singer-songwriter. Richard has led on several research projects for the service, including a qualitative investigation of transitions from childrens to adult services, which was awarded the poster prize at the BAMT 2016 Glasgow conference.
Amelia Oldfield feels incredibly lucky to have worked as a clinical music therapist in the NHS for 40 years. In the early 1980s she worked full-time with people with learning disabilities for six years, and then part-time with pre-school children and their families referred from a child development centre, as well as with primary aged children and their families in a child and family psychiatric unit.
In 1994, she and her colleague, Helen Odell-Miller, jointly set up the MA music therapy training course at Anglia Ruskin University, and Amelia has taught music therapy students on this course since that time. She has particularly enjoyed running workshops to enable and encourage students to develop clinical music therapy improvisation skills on single line instruments. It has always seemed very important to continue to be active clinically herself during her teaching, as her clinical music therapy work inspired her teaching, and her teaching made her think about her clinical work in a rigorous and critical way.
Over the years, Amelia has completed four music therapy research investigations (two of which contributed to her PhD, completed in 2004) and has been a consultant on two recent large music therapy randomised control research trials. She has published 8 music therapy books, some of which have been translated into Russian, Greek, Korean, Japanese and French. She has produced six training videos, two of which have won Royal Television Society Awards.
In 2017, she carried out a music therapy follow up project interviewing ten families with autistic children who received music therapy from her 16 years before. This project was made into a documentary film which was shown at the Cambridge Film Festival in October 2017 and won the Silver Punt 2017 Audience Award for Best Documentary. The film, “Operation Syncopation”, was directed by Max Thompson who received music therapy treatment with Amelia 23 years previously, when he was 3 years old.
In September 2019, Amelia officially ‘retired’ but continues music therapy supervision, research consultancy and teaching both in her role as Emeritus Professor at Anglia Ruskin University, and for other Universities, organisations, or individuals in the UK and abroad. She is also very much enjoying having more time to play the clarinet and starting most days with some yoga practice.
In this interview, we talked about Operation Syncopation, about defining music therapy, the importance of the clarinet in her clinical practice, and about Amelia's educational work in music therapy around the world.
Andrew West is a child and adolescent psychiatrist based in Oxford. He graduated from Cambridge University with First Class Honours in Natural Science, Part 1a in Law. He went on to study Anatomy at Leeds University and then Clinical Medicine at Oxford. He worked for several years in New Zealand, completing an internship in Psychotherapy and Counselling there. He completed Oxford Higher Training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 1996 and has intermediate level training in Group Therapy with Children, and Family Systemic Psychotherapy. From 2001 he worked as a consultant in Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Paediatric Liaison Psychiatry in Berkshire, including working as a specialty trainer and consultant appraiser, and for the last five years consulting to a large independent school. After over thirty years in the NHS he now holds an honorary contract as a mentor and coach for NHS staff in the Thames Valley and Wessex region. He has regularly published work in peer-reviewed journals including on ethics and uncertainty in clinical practice, and original research into fathering.
Music has always been an important part of Andrew’s life. In his teens he undertook a mini-apprenticeship with a luthier, Robert Raeburn-Smith, which enabled him to build the violin that he plays to this day. Over the last two years has been playing with the FMI collective, Oxford Improvisers. He is a project partner for the Collaborating Centre for Values Based Practice in Health and Social Care at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, where he has led and contributed to seminars on the nature of evidence, listening, and the role of improvisation and aesthetics in clinical work. His book Being With and Saying Goodbye: Cultivating Therapeutic Attitude in Professional Practice, was published by Karnac Books in 2016 and received enthusiastic reviews from the British Journal of Psychiatry Bulletin and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Andrew talks in this interview about the importance of music to him, how aesthetics can be relevant to psychiatry and psychotherapy, and about values-based practice.
More about Andrew's work and writing can be found at https://afwest.com/ and https://www.developmentalconversations.co.uk/ and he tweets as @afwesty.
Jamal J Glynn is a registered Music Therapist with the Health and Care Professions Council in the United Kingdom (HCPC). He holds a BA in Musical Arts from the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, and a M.A. in Music Therapy from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK.
He offers under the North West Regional Health Authority in Trinidad and Tobago Music Therapy to inpatients and outpatients at the St Ann’s Hospital including the Forensic ward, Chaguanas Psychiatric Clinic, Barataria Mental Health and Wellness Centre, Child Guidance Clinic. His work focuses on psychoanalytically informed approaches.
Being particularly passionate about exploring the benefits of using the steelpan in Music Therapy within the mental health setting, he wrote his dissertation on this subject in 2011. He is interested in providing a Caribbean perspective to existing knowledge of music therapy interventions and has conducted research focusing on clients living in Trinidad and Tobago. Results of his research have been published in the Caribbean Medical Journal. (Music Therapy and its relationship to Schizophrenia – A pilot study, Caribbean Medical Journal, volume 75 No. 2 December, 2013, (pg 8-13)
He is also a member of the British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT), The Association of Psychiatrists of Trinidad and Tobago (APTT) as an adjunct and the recently formed Creative Arts Therapies Collective of Trinidad and Tobago (CAT week TT). He is also a member of the Steelband Phase II Pan Groove.
In this pre-lockdown conversation, Jamal talked about his musical development and what brought him to music therapy, and there's lots about steelpan, including a clinical instrumental illustration midway through the interview. We also discussed the development of arts therapies provision in the Caribbean, both from Jamal's own perspective and more generally.
https://aru.ac.uk/graduation-and-alumni/alumni-network/alumni-stories/alumni-of-the-month/jamal-glynn
http://approaches.gr/glynn-br20190915?fbclid=IwAR33FaCjbIcqwRbDANH_MMtHOlRSj7_WTDelsvIYiTWkFShogNI1g1-D7jM
https://newsday.co.tt/2019/11/07/healing-through-pan/
http://www.whensteeltalks.net/2008slideshow/podium08summer/pdfs/Issue17-22.pdf
Irene Lo Coco and Elizabeth Nightingale from Chiltern Music Therapy talked to Luke about remote working in music therapy, including technical and online resources, as well as issues that may arise through these ways of working may bring up.
After qualifying as a music therapist, Elizabeth gained clinical experience with adults with neurological disorders and worked with children with a range of needs including developmental delay, behavioural difficulties, and trauma. She later trained as a Neurologic Music Therapist and MATADOC assessor and continues to acquire specialist experience in brain injury and neurodisability through providing NMT and MATADOC assessments for medico-legal cases. She has had her work and research published in the Brain & Spinal Injury Handbook, Journal of Dementia Care, and the British Journal of Music Therapy. She holds the role of Neuro Music Therapy Services Manager for Chiltern.
Irene qualified as a Music Therapist in 2007 and has specialized in Neurologic Music Therapy. Her clinical experience includes brain injury neuro-rehabilitation as well as working with children, adolescents and adults with learning disabilities, ASD, behavioural difficulties and complex medical needs. She has also worked in maternity care and adult mental health, among a variety of settings in the UK and abroad. Irene has a passion for evidence-based research and a background and personal interest in neuropsychology and psychodynamic approaches. Her practice, therefore, has a broad vision and the resources to adapt to clients' needs. Irene holds the role of Neurologic Music Therapist and Music Technology Lead at Chiltern Music Therapy.
Resources
ETHICS/GDPR CONCERNS
BAMT
Support and guidance documentation for COVID-19 (regularly updated)
https://www.bamt.org/about-british-association-for-music-therapy/covid-19-useful-information.html
HCPC
Includes info on standards of ethics for remote working and remote consultations as well as safeguards for patients
https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/standards-relevant-to-education-and-training/standards-for-prescribing/high-level-principles/
ONLINE PLATFORMS
Zoom
Technical support: getting started on Zoom
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/categories/200101697
Adjusting audio or video settings in Zoom
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362623-Changing-settings-in-the-desktop-client-or-%20mobile-app
Using ‘original sound’ (ie. ‘Music Mode’) in Zoom and other handy hints
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50NoWIiYECA
Security guidelines collated by Ray Travasso from Suffolk Music Therapy:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jJB4wqWUEen76pcediQlbHrSa0PokDU5IL72kozJILA/edit?usp=sharing
Further info on Zoom and also Doxy.me (courtesy of Martin Lawes)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oS9xqKmJA9XiA9whAX4Fw9hImMBLxVJBYaOXOe3ItwY/edit?usp=sharing
Skype
Technical support: getting started on Skype
https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA11098/how-do-i-get-started-with-skype
Advice and considerations as shared by BAMT (courtesy of Chroma)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NVKyNWlnQO9QvGQQrRNZvJnvPvmFWIYdYVsmEpSNZUM/edit?usp=sharing
Download the ‘PDF Skype - info from the Association for Counselling and Therapy Online (ACTO)(BAMT shared)’ from https://www.bamt.org/about-british-association-for-music-therapy/covid-19-useful-information.html
Google Hangouts
Tutorial Guide pdf
https://www.austincc.edu/ITdocs/google/documents/Google_Hangouts_Tutorial.pdf
INTERNET SPEED
Confirm your internet speed here (important for identifying suitability for live streaming)
https://www.speedtest.net/
Info on suitable bandwidth for video conferencing:
https://conferenceroomsystems.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000641283-what-is-the-ideal-bandwidth-for-video-conferencing-
STORAGE
Google Drive vs DropBox for storing and sharing pre-recorded videos:
https://conferenceroomsystems.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/5000641283-what-is-the-ideal-bandwidth-for-video-conferencing-
ONLINE RESOURCES
Collaborative songwriting: you can create lyrics and add chords with other people remotely, among using other features available on https://songcraft.io/
Demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQ7OUOMImw&feature=youtu.be
MAKING MUSIC have compiled a useful list of links for making music in groups https://www.makingmusic.org.uk/resource/covid-19-staying-connected
Also in BAMT guidance document
- Apps and other online resources (with particular thanks to Irene LoCoco and Liz Coombes)
- KORG has made the iKaossilator free for a limited time: Website | App Store | Google Play
- Moog has made the Minimoog Model D Synthesiser free for a limited time: App Store | currently
- not available on Android
- BandLab: Website | App Store | Google Play
- Fingertip Maestro: App Store | currently not available on Android
- NodeBeat: Website | App Store | Google Play
- SoundForest: App Store | currently not available on Android
- Blocs Wave: Website | App Store | Android
- Bloom (paid): App Store | Google Play
ARTICLES
Aaron Jeffrey Lightstone, S. Kathleen Bailey & Peter Voros (2015) Collaborative music therapy via remote video technology to reduce a veteran's symptoms of severe, chronic PTSD, Arts & Health, 7:2, 123-136, DOI: 10.1080/17533015.2015.1019895
Baker, Felicity and Krout, Robert (2009) Songwriting via Skype An online music therapy intervention to enhance social skills in an adolescent diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, British Journal of Music Therapy Volume 23, No 2
Fuller, A.M., & McLeod, R.G. (2019) The Connected Music Therapy Teleintervention Approach (CoMTTA) and its application to family-centred programs for young children with hearing loss, Australian Journal of Music Therapy Vol 30
| App Name | Description | Client Group | Associated MT Clinical Goals | Useful tips | Compatibility | | Fingertip Maestro | Intuitive piano or guitar, with visual stimuli | It has proven effective with the elderly, clients with dementia or brain injury. The colourful screen and its simplicity encourages quick engagement and good support for musical interaction between therapist and client | Awareness of cause and effect / Sustained attention | You can record the creation and share with client’s family Each colour square plays a note, play a few together for a chord, or swipe for melodies. Use the scroll bar for more notes. | Requires iOS 6.1 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. | | AirHarp Bongos Guitar Tabla (among many more) | Virtual instruments | All | Finger dexterity / Social interaction / Self-expression | Therapist can change the instruments key. In Guitar screen can be rotated for L/R hand use. | | Singing Fingers | Fingerpaint with sound. Make a sound while moving your finger to record a sound-drawing. Touch the drawing you just made to play the sound back | Paediatric | Hand-eye coordinatinon / Multisensory stimulation / visual tracking / finger dexterity | To play the sounds back out its better to spread the recording across the screen instead of holding the finger still | Requires iOS 10.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. | | Sound Forest | Music making app with attractive visuals that allows you to compose animated songs. | Paediatric, Young adults, Brain Injury | This app has proven useful to work on executive functions such as Choice making / organization and planning / attention skills | Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch | | Jam Looper | Featuring smart automatic looping, multiple tracks, volume control and track effects. | All | Voice awareness, interactive music making, cause and effect | Use headphones to avoid echo during recording. You can add effects to each loop. | Requires iOS 10.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. | | Bloom | Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom's innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. | Paediatric / PMLD / BI | cause and effect / specified localized movement / increase attention / multisensory stimulation / turn taking | Shake screen to clear. Adjust delay to give time for multiple activations from clients You can choose from LISTEN or CREATE options You can link to Skoog for joint music making You can customize mood, mode, timer, delay of touch, among other settings. | Requires iOS 11.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch | | Cove | Expression of emotions through music | Mental Health | Relaxation / mood awareness | Interest use is to create a new track each session with client, and then listen to the musical journey after a given time. Or at the beginning and end of session. | Requires iOS 9.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. | | FingerBeat | Sampler, drum-machine & field recorder | Teenagers and adults | cause and effect / sustained attention / organisation and planning / choice making | Import/export feature to icloud/email/itunes | Requires iOS 7.1 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. | | Musyc | Touch turns into music. Draw shapes and listen to your piece of music while viewing sounds bouncing on the screen | BI / Paediatric / Teenagers and Adults / Older Adults | visual tracking / EF | Requires iOS 9.1 or later. | | Endless | Multiplayer music making app | All | Collaborative music making | | Songcraft | Collaborative real-time song-writing platform | All | Collaborative music making | Write lyrics, chords, or tabs from any device. Record or upload your audio files and organize your songs into collections |
In episode 36, Luke talks to his manager at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, Sarah Hadley. Sarah trained at Nordoff-Robbins in 1984 where she feels privileged to this day to have experienced a structured and focused training in how to use music to tap into her clients' fundamental "music child"; namely that innate communicative musicality we all possess, which provides the platform for powerful therapeutic inter-relationship though which sustainable outcomes can be achieved. From the outset Sarah has always been intrigued by the other Music Therapy trainings which she feels create multi- dimensional perspectives and rationale to clinical practice and within her team Sarah has consistently sought to recruit across professional trainings.
Sarah draws on nearly 35 years practice within the NHS working within multi-professional, inter-disciplinary and transdisciplinary teams, and not least the Oxleas Music Therapy Team itself. Sarah has also had a 20 year working relationship with the charity Music as Therapy International which has taken her on numerous trips to Romania, initially in 1999 10 years post the downfall of the Ceausescu regime, to provide skill-sharing training for staff teams within orphanages and specialist children's centres.
Her professional and strategic focus as lead of the Oxleas Music Therapy Service is on embedding practice strategically, operationally and clinically within the organisation and the community believing in the added value of integrated music therapy intervention for children/ young people and their families.
Sarah talks about her training at NR, including a shocking revelation about what happened in the loft, but also in some detail about the musical and theoretical elements of the course. Luke and Sarah go on to discuss attachment theory, affect attunement, interactive music making, and Oxleas Music Therapy Service.
Details for the Inside Out/Outside In Symposium are here.
Dr Katrina Skewes McFerran is Professor of Music Therapy, Director of Graduate Research in Creative Arts Therapies, and Head of the new Masters of Creative Arts Therapies (Dance/Drama) at The University of Melbourne. She is a registered music therapist with the Australian association, and Commissioner for Research and Ethics of the World Federation of Music Therapy, as well as being an Editor of the open-access, online forum for music and health – Voices.no. She is also creator of the free-access MOOC – How Music Can Change Your Life – which is full of videos, podcasts and other educational resources for non-music therapists. Her career as a music therapy researcher has largely been focused on young people across a range of health, community and education contexts, and she has written numerous books, chapters and published more than 90 refereed journal articles on this topic. Her most recent publications include a critical review of the music therapy and adolescent literature (McFerran, K.S. (2019). Adolescents and Music Therapy: A Reflective Review with Recommendations for Research and Practice, Music Therapy Perspectives, online first, doi: 10.1093/mtp/miz014) as well as a book on beginning music therapy research (McFerran, K.S. & Silverman, M.J. (2018). A Guide to Designing Research Questions for Beginning Music Therapy Researchers. Washington: American Music Therapy Association Publishers.), as well as co-editing an Oxford University Press Handbook with Phillipa Derrington and Suvi Saarikallio (McFerran, K.S., Derrington, P. & Saarikallio, S. (Eds.) (2019). Oxford Handbook of Music, Adolescents and Wellbeing. Oxford. UK: Oxford University Press.)
In this interview Luke talked to Katrina about music therapy as an intervention for psychological trauma, including some of her recent research which raises questions about whether we can reliably predict music therapy outcomes in this area of practice. Also, is 'emotional regulation' a beneficial therapeutic aim? And some handy tips on how to make your presentation look more 'scientific' than it really is!
Natasha Thomas, PhD is a Board Certified Music Therapist (MT-BC) currently serving as Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). She received her undergraduate degree in music therapy from the University of North Dakota (UND), holds a masters degree in special education (also from UND, with an emphasis on visual impairment), and recently completed her PhD in expressive arts therapies from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. Natasha has served on the Midwest and Southeastern Regional Boards of the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) in various committee positions, including the Diversity & Multiculturalism Committee. She is currently serving on the steering committees of the Black Music Therapists Network and a National Music Therapy Faculty Forum. Natasha is the creator of two online continuing education courses: “Music Therapy with the Blind and Deaf,” and “Music Therapy and Human Rights Ethics,” both of which are offered through MusicTherapyEd.com, an online resource for music therapists. Her current research focus is on the relationship between social identity and the music making choices of youth from limited resource communities, as well as the experience of marginalised music therapists and creatives in general.
Luke talks to Natasha about training in the US, the musical skills needed for music therapy, her experiences as a BAME music therapist and researcher, and the process of decolonisation.
Additional links:
Article with Susan Hadley: https://academic.oup.com/mtp/article-abstract/36/2/168/5049722
Healing through Creative Arts: http://www.ahf.ca/downloads/healing-through-creative-arts.pdf
The Black Music Therapy Network: https://www.blackmtnetwork.org/
In episode 33 Luke talks to an old friend of his, the conductor John Wilson. John was born in Gateshead and studied composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music, where in 2011 he was made a Fellow. Back in 1994, he formed his own orchestra, the John Wilson Orchestra, dedicated to performing music from the golden age of Hollywood and Broadway, and with whom he has appeared regularly across the UK, including at the BBC Proms annually since 2009. In March 2019, John was awarded the prestigious ISM Distinguished Musician Award for his services to music.
He is now in demand at the highest level all over the world, working with some of the finest orchestras and opera houses. In the UK, he performs regularly at festivals such as Aldeburgh, Glyndebourne and the BBC Proms with orchestras such as London Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony and City of Birmingham Symphony. Elsewhere, he has conducted the Royal Concertgebouw, Budapest Festival, Swedish Radio Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony orchestras amongst others. He made his opera debut in 2016 conducting Madam Butterfly at Glyndebourne Festival Opera on their autumn tour and has since conducted Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at English National Opera and returned to Glyndebourne Summer Festival to conduct Massenet’s Cinderella. John has a large and varied discography which includes a series of discs with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra exploring the works of Richard Rodney Bennett, with the BBC Philharmonic devoted to the symphonic works of Aaron Copland and numerous recordings with the John Wilson Orchestra. In 2019 Chandos released his first recording with the Sinfonia of London which features Korngold’s Symphony in F Sharp.
In this conversation we discuss John’s earliest musical experiences, then explore some big topics, such as the idea of artistic perfection, why songs are central to John’s musical world, the importance to him of community music making, and whether you can listen to Ewartung while brushing your teeth (Boulez thinks you can’t).
After completing a degree in music, specialising in composition, electronic music and piano performance, David trained firstly as a Music Therapist and subsequently as a Psychotherapist. He worked in Mental Health Services in Cambridge as a Music Therapist and as a Clinical Team Lead for an Arts Therapies Service from 1985 to 2016.
During the 90s David trained at the British Association of Psychotherapists and gained membership of the British Psychoanalytic Council in 2000. He joined The British Psychoanalytic Association in 2011 and subsequently became a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association and The European Psychoanalytic Federation.
In his clinical work he tended to specialise in treating people with significant and chronic conditions that had not responded to previous treatments. His long experience in mainstream mental health contributed importantly to his work in private Psychoanalysis.
He also works as a Community Musician running a community project, running a Community Music Project - The Recovered Mkii. He also works as a church organist and jobbing musician with various Jazz and covers bands.
This conversation had its genesis in a recent Facebook discussion on the role of psychoanalytic theory in music therapy. We discuss theories of Freud, Winnicott and Bion. Along the way, an important distinction is drawn between Winnicott’s theory of holding and Bion’s container contained, and David makes an interesting link between Bion’s beta and alpha elements and musical expression.
John, D. (1992). Towards music psychotherapy. Journal of British Music Therapy, 6(1), 10-12.
John, D. (2014). Getting better: Some thoughts on the growth of the therapist. In Supervision of Music Therapy (pp. 95-112). Routledge.
The link to the 'Music As Therapy' donations page is here.
Sarah Metcalfe is CEO of Playlist for Life, the music and dementia charity founded by writer and broadcaster Sally Magnusson. Under her leadership Playlist for Life has established a growing UK network of community Help Points and was recently awarded £1.6million by the National Lottery to scale up playlist-use across the UK. Sarah was a Commissioner on the ILC Commission on Dementia and Music and is one of the steering group advising on BBC Music Day. She has been a speaker and advocate for the power of playlists at events including the NHS Innovation Expo, the International Palliative Care and Dementia Conference and on radio and TV. Prior to Playlist for Life she worked in policy, campaigns and community organising. She lives in Glasgow with her husband Jim and children, Rosa and Ally. Her playlist includes Baby Beluga and the Brandenburg Concertos.
Luke and Sarah consider the overlaps between Playlist for Life and the work of music therapists, including exploring concepts such as 'musical relationship' and 'musical identity' as they relate to the processes of working with a person on their playlist. They also discuss whether playlists are dependent on technology such as iPods and music streaming, and whether they are necessarily an interactive or receptive intervention.
For more information on Playlist for Life, training for health and care professionals or how to make and use a playlist, please visit www.playlistforlife.org.uk
In podcast 30, Cathy Warner has a conversation with Luke about music therapy clinical supervision.
Cathy is a music therapy trainer and practitioner. As both an improvising and classical musician she’s a cellist and pianist and has orchestral and choral conducting experience mainly of classical repertoire. She has been the Course Leader for MA Music Therapy at the University of the West of England in Bristol for 5 years, developing the part time training Leslie Bunt established in the early 90s. As a music therapist she’s particularly interested in group work and has facilitated music therapy community groups for people with severe mental health needs for a number of years. This follows an earlier career in music therapy neurorehabilitation and NHS work with adults with learning disabilities. Cathy has a long standing interest in participatory research methods, and used action research to involve people with learning disabilities and no spoken language as active researchers in her PhD project. More recently she has been involved in two European funded ERASMUS+ projects, the LINK and STALWARTS projects, which together with other partner countries have developed ways that teachers and social educators can use ethical and practical frameworks to incorporate music into teaching to support emotional and relational health, particularly for marginalised young people affected by early trauma. From this she has helped develop two CPD distance learning modules that will train teachers and health professionals to establish the ethical and practical frameworks to incorporate musical into a more relational style of teaching any subject.
Continuing professional development is an area of great interest to Cathy, and six years ago she established a bespoke supervision training for music therapists which runs yearly, and is designed for working music therapists, requiring attendance just one day per month over 8 months. The focus is on the use of music within the supervision process itself. Cathy has concerns about the lack of supervision infrastructure within the profession. She is particularly keen on the under-used benefits of peer supervision. Cathy leads quite a busy life with two teenage sons, and finding the reflective space to deeply reflect on therapeutic processes is of central importance to her.
Link to CPD course:
https://courses.uwe.ac.uk/USPKJD30M/supervision-training-for-music-therapists
In Episode 29. Luke talks to music therapist and GIM practitioner/trainer Martin Lawes.
Martin qualified as a music therapist in 1999. Since then his work has been in special needs education, in adult mental health (including eating disorders, acute and forensic psychiatry) and in palliative care. He is a BAMT registered supervisor and has been visiting lecturer on several of the music therapy MA trainings.
Martin is additionally qualified in Guided Imagery and Music, GIM. He is a former chair of both the Education and Training Committee, and the board of the European Association of Music and Imagery, EAMI. Martin is also an approved GIM trainer and founder of the London based Integrative GIM Training Programme which is delivered by a team of experienced GIM trainers and researchers from the UK, Europe and the US. Martin’s aspiration is that GIM will gradually become as established in UK music therapy as it is in some other European countries, with therapists equipped to use a range of research-based GIM and simpler Music and Imagery, or MI methods, that complement their existing ways of working and extend what they have to offer clients.
Martin has published a number of articles. One is about the evaluation of music therapy with children with autism. Others are about the application of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking to music therapy and about GIM. Martin currently has an article in press in the BJMT about the therapist’s use of reverie, or ‘dreaming in music’ as he calls it, in improvisation-based music therapy.
Luke and Martin talk about the music experience which led Martin to train in music therapy, about GIM and MI, and about ‘dreaming in music’.
Information about GIM
Information about GIM and training in it can be found at: www.integrativegim.org
Publications
Lawes M (2001) Aesthetic Experience and the Healing Process: The story of a Therapist's Rediscovery of Music. British Journal of Music Therapy, 15(1).
Lawes M (2002) Beauty, Emotion and Music: Aesthetic Encounter in the Therapeutic Process. In J. Fachner & D. Aldridge (Eds.), Dialogue and Debate - Conference Proceedings of the 10th World Congress on Music Therapy, Oxford, England (pp. 1040-1068). Witten, Germany: MusicTherapyWorld.Net. Available at: http://www.wfmt.info/WFMT/2011_World_Congress_files/Proceedings%20Oxford_2002.pdf
Lawes M (2012) Reporting on outcomes: An adaptation of the ‘AQR-instrument’ used to evaluate music therapy in autism. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 4(2), 110-120. Available at: http://approaches.gr/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Approaches_422012_Lawes_Article.pdf
Lawes M (2013) Meaning, dreaming, relating and levels of consciousness in music psychotherapy: a psychoanalytic, developmental and transpersonal paradigm. Journal of Music and Meaning, 11: 85-132. Available at: http://www.musicandmeaning.net/articles/JMM11/LawesJMM11.pdf
Lawes M (2016) Perspectives on the real, the imaginary and the music in GIM. Journal of the Association for Music and Imagery, 15, pp. 93-124.
Lawes M (2017) Music as dynamic experience of unfolding wholeness in Guided Imagery and Music (GIM): A psychoanalytic, musical, transpersonal and trans-scientific paradigm. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, Special Issue 9(2): 275-299. Available at: http://approaches.gr/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/8-Approaches-9-2-2017-lawes-a20171222.pdf
Lawes M (in press) On Improvisation as Dreaming and the Therapist’s Authentic use of Self in Music Therapy. British Journal of Music Therapy.
In episode 28, Luke talks to Simon Procter.
Simon works for Nordoff Robbins, based in London, as its Director of Music Services responsible for oversight of its education, research and public affairs activities.
Simon is a pianist, accompanist and improviser who trained as a music therapist with Nordoff Robbins in London from 1995 to 1997. He has since worked in a wide range of settings, most recently within adult mental health services, as well as in the training of music therapists. His commitment to the Nordoff Robbins approach stems from his own experience of music as fundamental to what it is to be fully human. As part of the sociology of the arts group led by Professor Tia DeNora at the University of Exeter, his PhD project was an ethnography of music therapy within a community mental health setting.
As a practitioner, he views music as a potent force for social action as well as for the fulfilment of personal potential. As a researcher, he is an ethnographer committed to attention to the detail of the apparently mundane, in musical interaction as in life more generally: this means attending to the nitty-gritty detail of the work people do when they make music together in order to learn about the musical dimensions of health and wellbeing and in particular the craft skills required of music therapists so that their work can be as useful as possible. Similarly, as a trainer he emphasises the importance of developing acute musical-personal awareness coupled with practical musical means not just of responding to people but of actively and imaginatively helping them to flourish.
Luke and Simon talk about the craft of music therapy, differing theoretical stances, how musical cultural background relates to the work, and whether Simon is, as Gary Ansdell claims, a 'contrarian'.
In Episode 27, Luke talks to free improvising trombone player, educator and music therapist Sarah Gail Brand.
Born in London in 1971, Sarah Gail Brand began playing the trombone in 1979 and qualified as a Music Therapist in 2001. Since qualifying, she has worked in special needs education and adult psychiatric and learning disability services in the NHS and currently runs a private music therapy practice.
Sarah is a professor of Improvisation at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, where she trains music therapists on the MA Music Therapy programme and teaches in the Dept. of Jazz Studies. Sarah also lectures at Canterbury Christ Church University on Music, Health and Well Being.
Described by The Wire magazine as ‘the most exciting trombone player for years’, Sarah has performed on the international Jazz and Improvised Music scene for over 25 years. Sarah has recorded for many artists and has released 5 records under her own name. Sarah also works as a session player and brass arranger. As well as collaborating with musicians, Sarah has worked with a variety of performers including writer and comedian Stewart Lee.
Sarah is in the final year of her PhD at Canterbury Christ Church University, where she has undertaken practice-based research on the impact of ensemble interrelationships in performances of Improvised Music.
For more info: http://www.sarahgailbrand.net/
References
Bailey, D. (1980). Musical improvisation: its nature and practice in music. Prentice-Hall.
Bruscia, K. (1987) Improvisational Models of Music Therapy. Springfield Publishers.
Toop, D. (2016). Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Pauline Etkin trained as a teacher at the Witwatersrand Teachers Training College in Johannesburg, Rep of South Africa. She became head of Music and early childhood didactics and was always interested in how music could help the many children that she came across who were struggling to fit in socially or educationally. Pauline has been a major influence in the development of music therapy both in the UK and internationally. She trained as a music therapist in 1982 and her first passion will always be as a music therapist having worked in this role for 25 years working for a year in South Africa with children with life-threatening illnesses and in Soweto with children and teachers there. In 1986 she returned to London and worked as a music therapist and tutor becoming Sybil’s Deputy Director in 1988. Pauline took over from Sybil Beresford-Peirse as Director of the new Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre in North London in 1991, and then as Chief Executive Officer of Nordoff-Robbins from 2002 to 2013. When Robin Howat, Head of the Post-Graduate Training course moved to Australia, Pauline undertook the additional role of Head of Training from 1993 until 2003, developing it together with her team into a two-year Master of Music Therapy Degree course in 1996 validated by City University.
Pauline became aware of the huge resources of the centre, including its library and conference facilities and made sure that the developing profession in the UK, in addition to therapists working within the Nordoff-Robbins approach, could benefit from such facilities. Conferences and meetings were held regularly at the centre.
Pauline was also instrumental in linking with governmental departments in helping to set-up the formal registration of music therapists in the UK. She served on many national groups, for many years chairing committees on supervision and training and education. The BAMT awarded Pauline a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ in 2013 and she was awarded an OBE ‘for services to music therapy’ in the 2013 Queen’s New Year Honours. For more information about Pauline’s extensive career in music therapy see her autobiography in Volume 2 of John Mahoney’s compilation (2017) and the two histories of the evolution of Nordoff-Robbins by Fraser Simspon (2007, 2009).
In this interview Pauline talks about her own experiences of training, with particular reference to Sybil Beresford-Peirse and Clive Robbins. There’s also some discussion on what it might mean, from her perspective, to be a music-centred music therapist, and on the evolution of music therapy in the UK, with tributes paid to the various pioneers identified by Pauline, who have contributed so much to the profession.
Philippa Derrington leads the MSc Music Therapy course and is a Senior Lecturer within the Division of Occupational Therapy and Arts Therapies at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. She is one of the editors of the British Journal of Music Therapy, and passionate about promoting and developing the music therapy profession through research, practice and teaching.
In this interview, Philippa talks about her music therapy work with adolescents at a social inclusion centre, attached to a mainstream secondary school. Although the work was primarily with young people in the centre, which became The Centre School in 2009 – a school for young people with social, emotional and mental health needs – she developed provision to a full time music therapy post and worked with students across both the mainstream and special schools. Press coverage of this work featured in The Times Educational Supplement and The Guardian.
Philippa also talks about her PhD at Anglia Ruskin University, which set out to investigate the effectiveness of music therapy for young people at risk of underachievement or exclusion, and hereby acknowledges the support and enthusiasm of her supervisors, Amelia Oldfield, Tony Wigram and Helen Odell-Miller, as well as The Music Therapy Charity who funded the three-year study.
Philippa continues to practise as a music therapist in a school for young people with complex social emotional and behavioural needs and since moving to Edinburgh in 2013, has led the MSc Music Therapy course through some major changes. Together with the Head of Division, Brendan McCormack, who is internationally recognised for his person-centred practice development and particular interest in the use of arts and creativity in healthcare research and development, Philippa is incredibly excited about the interdisciplinary potential within the School of Health Sciences and furthering new research opportunities for Music Therapy at QMU.
References
McFerran, K. Derrington, P. and Saarikallio, S. eds. (2019). Handbook of Music, Adolescents, and Wellbeing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tomlinson, J. Derrington, P. and Oldfield, A. eds. (2012). Music Therapy in Schools: Working with children of all ages in mainstream and special education. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Joy is a self-employed music therapist in private practice. Prior to her music therapy training, she was clinical lead for a Nottinghamshire NHS Trust, (in adoption services, CAMHS, Nottinghamshire), having worked previously within the field of adoption for many years. She was also a member of both Nottingham and Leicester County’s Adoption Panels, offering both her professional and personal experiences to panel. Now as a specialist music therapist in adoption practice, Joy is an identified lead therapist for Adoption Services in the East Midlands, as well as retaining links with “CORAM” Leicestershire, and working extensively with individually referred cases funded by the Adoption Support Fund (which came into being in 2015 to enable adoptive families to gain access to psychotherapies). Joy works with adoptive families where longer-term placements are deemed “at risk of breakdown”, when ostensibly difficulties result from the placement of older children who are described as having significant “attachment (and other) disorders”. She also works with families at the beginning of new placements when it is thought likely that traumatic material will impinge upon the adoption placement.
She is currently working with adopted children with complex physical and learning disability, where often a disability discovered at birth led to the relinquishment of a baby. Joy developed her interest in how the impact of findings from neurobiology impacted on adult verbal psychotherapy, and what this might mean for music therapists trying to give meaning to what is emergent in the therapy room.
Her PhD research explores how relational attachments may be enhanced by moments of attunement (which might be explained partially in terms of their neurobiology) occurring within a music therapy relationship. She has written the BAMT literature on adoption which is available to anyone perusing the website with a request about music therapy in adoption. She has presented her work on music therapy, adoption, and the significance of attunement at numerous conferences over the past 5 years, and in 2017 presented at the World Congress Of Music Therapy in Japan and at “EcArte” (the Eurpoean Arts Therapies conference) in Poland. She also regularly presents work to adoption agencies, and consults to groups and service users within the adoption community. She is an author, supervisor, and lecturer at Derby and Nottingham Universities.
Luke talks to Joy about her work with adoption and how this relates to her own life experiences, her development as a music therapist, and her current PhD research.
References.
Bettelheim. B. 1950. Love Is Not Enough. Collier Books Edition Eighth Printing 1969.
Fonagy. P. 2001. Attachment Theory And Psychoanalysis. Karnac.
Verrier.N 1993. The Primal Wound: Understanding The Adopted Child. Gateway Press.
On Music And Psychoanalysis etc.
Ammaniti. M. and Gallese. V. (eds) 2014. The Birth Of Intersubjectivity: Psychodynamics, Neurobiology and The Self. Norton.
Rose. G. J. 2004. Between Couch And Piano: Psychoanalysis, Music, Art and Neuroscience. Routledge.
Searle. Y. and Streng. I. 2001. Where Analysis Meets The Arts: The Intergration Of The Arts Therapies With Psychoanalytic Theory. Karnac.
On Relationality.
Jaenicke. C. 2008. The Risk Of Relatedness: Intersubjectivity Theory In Clinical Practice. Aronson.
Trondalen. G. 2016. Relational Music Therapy: An Intersubjective Perspective. Barcelona Publishers.
Mitchell. S. A. 2000. Relationality: From Attachment To Intersubjectivity. Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis.
..and research..
Finlay. L and Evans. K. (eds) 2009. Relational-centred Research For Psychotherapists: Exploring Meanings and Experience. Wiley-Blackwell.
On Winnicottian Presence.
Wilberg. P. 2013. Being and Listening: Counselling, Psychoanalysis and The Ontology Of Listening. New Yoga Publications.
On Attachment.
Gerhardt. S. 2004. Why Love Matters. Routledge.
Music. G. 2019. Nurturing Children: From Trauma To Growth Using Attachment Theory, Psychoanalysis and Neurobiology. Routledge.
On Wounded Healers.
Kuchuck. S. 2014. Clinical Implications Of The Psychoanalysts Life Experience. Routledge.
- This has the chapter referred to in the podcast about an adoptee who describes her lived experience as a therapist with lived experience of adoption.
Rippere. V. and Williams. R. 1985. Wounded Healers: Mental Health Workers Experiences Of Depression. Wiley.
Sedgwick. D. 1994. The Wounded Healer: Countertransference From A Jungian Perspective. Routledge.
…and research…
Romanyshyn. R. 2013. The Wounded researcher: Research With Soul In Mind. Spring Journal
On Micro Moments Of Attunement (or similar!).
Webber. A. 2017. Breakthrough Moments In Arts-Based Psychotherapy. Karnac.
On The Idea Of The Third.
Ogden. T. 1989. The Primitive Edge Of Experience. Aronson.
Benjamin. J. 2018. Beyond Doer and Done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity, and the Third. Routledge.
Episode 23 is all about therapeutic songwriting. Luke speaks to Jane Lings and Bob Heath.
Jane Lings works freelance as a music therapist, supervisor, and educator. She has extensive clinical experience in palliative and bereavement care having worked for 15 years in an adult hospice. She has worked in many different clinical areas with children and adults, most recently a successful music therapy pilot project in a women’s prison. She was Senior Lecturer at UWE on the MA music therapy for 14 years and continues as associate lecturer. She is involved in lecturing and running workshops in many contexts
including medical humanities. She runs a community choir and is involved in a regular music session for ex-offenders.
Bob Heath has worked extensively in Palliative and Bereavement care both as a clinician and a lecturer/teacher and also has many years of experience working in Mental Health and Special Educational settings. He has published work in various books and journals and continues to work as a therapist and supervisor in End of Life Care, Community Mental Health and private practice. Bob has presented his work at a wide range of events including The Hay
Literature Festival and Medicine Unboxed and continues to offer and facilitate training courses and workshops for therapists and health care practitioners.
Over the last 15 years Bob and Jane have worked together to help promote the use of therapeutic songwriting in music therapy practice. They continue to develop and offer a range of workshops in the UK and Europe and have recently delivered the UK’s first academic therapeutic songwriting module at The University of The West of England.
Luke speaks to Jane and Bob about their approach to therapeutic songwriting, including their own processes of incorporating these techniques into their music therapy practice. Why did this seem, initially, an unusual, even controversial, way of working, and why does songwriting continue to be somewhat neglected in music therapy practice?
Ann Sloboda is Head of Music Therapy at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She is a registered psychoanalyst (British Psychoanalytic Council) and music therapist (HCPC). She studied music at Oxford University, and qualified as a music therapist from GSMD in 1985. Between 1985 and 2005 she worked as a music therapist in the NHS, in adult learning disability, eating disorders, general and forensic psychiatry. She has undertaken research in music therapy with PTSD. A past chair of the Association of Professional Music Therapists, she was Head of Arts Therapies at West London Mental Health Trust for 10 years.
In this interview Luke talked to Ann about her personal development as a music therapist and, later, psychoanalyst, as well as about the development of the training course at the Guildhall School. Ann also encouraged Luke to reflect on some of his own experiences as a trainee, which led to some interesting shared reflections on the nature of training, including personal motivations for embarking on a therapeutic career. Ann discussed her own very particular experience of music therapy as a client, with the pioneering analytic music therapist Mary Priestley.
In episode 21 of Music Therapy Conversations Luke Annesley talks to Andy Lale. Andy has worked as a music therapist for twenty years. He has been employed by CNWL NHS Trust, in this capacity, since 1999. He manages a team of arts psychotherapists for South Westminster and specialises in music psychotherapy with psychotic states. His clinical work, with this client group, focuses on transference and insight. His MA dissertation on Countertransference Enactment is available in the Tavistock Library. He has taught on the MA in Music Therapy at Roehampton University and now supervises other clinicians in this compound intervention. He also contributes to the ICAPT evening lecture series. Andy has created a series of online videos explaining the key ideas of this way of working. This study is an attempt to encourage interest more widely, in psychoanalytically informed music psychotherapy, for psychosis. Andy presented this study at the BAMT conference, 2018.
In this interview, Andy talks about the origin of the term 'psychodynamics', and in some detail about how he applies psychodynamic theory to his work as a music psychotherapist with psychotic patients. What is the relationship between music and psychodynamic theory? We also discuss the anti-psychiatry movement, and the difficulties of research and evaluation of music psychotherapy with this client group. And what about 'music psychotherapy' itself? Why is there not yet a well-established post-qualification training in music psychotherapy in the UK?
Joanna Eden is a jazz singer and singer/songwriter based near Cambridge in the UK. She has shared stages with Jamie Cullum, the Buena Vista Social Club & The Blockheads. She mentored a young Sam Smith for nine years and released her 4th album 'Truth Tree' this October. Joanna's career is all about finding a balance between performing, creating and sharing skills and experience.
In this varied and exploratory conversation we talked about music education, including some of Joanna’s problematic experiences in her own musical upbringing, what it’s like being a singer fronting a band, and her own song writing process.
Jo was a judge on the TV talent show ‘All Together Now’, and she found this a tricky experience for various reasons, which we discuss. She recently took part in a community project for people with dementia, working with music therapists from Anglia Ruskin University, called ‘Together in Sound’. She describes her experience of this project, including how she related to the music therapists, and her perceptions of music therapy as a profession. She also talks about Sam Smith, and what it was like teaching someone who was incredibly motivated right from the start.
You can see Joanna perform at:-
Cadogan Hall, London 20 November 2018
The Other Palace, London 22 November 2018
The Stables, MK 29 November 2018
Ronnie Scotts, London 2 December 2018
For more dates go to www.joannaeden.net
https://saffronhall.com/togetherinsound/
Liz Coombes is the course leader of the MA Music Therapy course at the University of South Wales, Newport. Since qualifying as a Music Therapist in 2000 following a BMus degree at Royal Holloway College, University of London, she has specialised in working with children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties as well as asylum seekers and refugees. She uses psychodynamic thinking to underpin her work and utilises her considerable experience in community music-making. She has worked on skill-sharing therapeutic music projects since 2009 in Palestine, and in the UK. She has a particular interest in how sharing these skills with non-musicians such as teachers, social workers and carers can enrich their professional practice. She has recently completed her training in Guided Imagery in Music.
We talked about Liz’s experience as a community musician, how this links to her music therapy work, what skills music therapists need to develop in training, and working cross-culturally.
Coombes, E. (2011, February). Project Bethlehem-Training educators and health workers in the therapeutic use of music in the West Bank. In Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy (Vol. 11, No. 1).
Coombes, E., & Tombs-Katz, M. (2015). Interactive therapeutic music skill-sharing in the West Bank: An evaluation report of project Beit Sahour. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 9, 67-79.
Professor Gary Ansdell has been a music therapist for thirty years, working mostly in the area of adult mental health in the last decade, and currently in late-life care settings. He has been involved in a wide range of areas of music therapy practice, and in developing the Community Music Therapy movement. Gary has also been active in training and research, developing new Masters and PhD programmes for Nordoff Robbins, where he was Director of Education (2008-15). He has published widely in the areas of music therapy and music and health and is author/co-author of seven books on music therapy, the latest of which include How Music Helps: In Music Therapy & Everyday Life (2014) and with Tia DeNora Musical Pathways in Recovery: Community Music Therapy & Mental Wellbeing (2016). His longterm collaboration with the music sociologist Tia DeNora has led to their joint editorship of the new book series Music and Change for Ashgate Publishers.
Gary currently works as an independent music therapy practitioner, consultant and scholar, and is an Associate of Nordoff Robbins, UK, where he is Convenor of the MPhil/PhD programme. He is also an honorary Professor in the department of sociology, philosophy and anthropology at Exeter University and Adjunct Professor in Music Therapy at the University of Limerick.
Gary talks about Mercédès Pavlicevic in this interview. He also talks about different approaches to music therapy, and we address some controversies, including Gary’s much discussed concept of the ‘consensus model’ in music therapy, and the perceived dichotomy between music-centred and psychodynamic music therapy.
Luke talks to Julie Whelan, the CEO of Nordoff Robbins.
Julie has had extensive experience of senior roles in education, local authority services, government and the charity sector.
Her most recent roles were as founding CEO of the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust and in her seven years there she established the charity, it was recognised with a charity excellence award and it supported over 200,000 young people with mentoring programmes.
She joined Nordoff Robbins in 2015 and since her arrival the charity has already met its overarching goal to increase by 100% the number of people it can support with its life-changing music therapy. Julie is now leading the trustees and executive team into the next strategic planning process for 2019 -2024.
In this interview Julie talks about some of the challenges she has faced in her new role, her personal perspectives on the music therapy profession, the importance of accountability, and lots more.
Josephine Davies is a jazz saxophonist, composer, existential psychotherapist and lecturer. She studied classical and jazz at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and more recently trained at Regents’s University and the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling. Though she is not a music therapist, Josephine is greatly interested in how therapies of all orientations can help people to access and express their creativity in their own unique ways. She is also deeply influenced by Japanese and Buddhist philosophies that celebrate the qualities of imperfection, impermanence and unity. Marrying these with various existential ideas underpins her view of the person, creative outlook, and more general lifestyle.
You can still read Josephine’s Facebook post, which we refer to during the interview, and you can find more examples of her recorded work, as well as gig listings, on her website.
Luke talks to Daniel Thomas about his process of moving from being a music therapist into running an arts therapy business. This includes to interesting discussion on the nature of 'brands', as well as reflections on how we communicate the subtle nuances fo therapeutic work to other professionals.
Daniel qualified as a music therapist in 2002. His past clinical work focused on children and families, especially supporting attachment, bonding and resilience. Daniel has worked in prisons, mental health settings and in special and mainstream schools with children with a range of brain injuries and other conditions He certified in the APCI assessment in 2014, and as a Neurologic Music Therapist in 2017. He is also the Joint Managing Director of Chroma. Daniel is passionate about the business of arts therapies, believing that the economics of therapy is as important an ethical issue for therapists as is the quality of their practice. Working with Dr Vicky Abad, and colleagues from around the world including Aalborg University, Denmark and Lesley University, USA, Daniel co-authored and edited “The Economics of Therapy” published by JKP.
Luke talks to Helen Odell-Miller about music therapy and psychoanalysis, group work in adult mental health settings, research into music therapy and dementia, and many other things.
Dr Helen Odell-Miller OBE is a Professor of Music Therapy, and Director of the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Helen has lectured widely, and has been a keynote speaker at many national and international conferences in Europe, Australia, Asia and the USA. She has worked with parliament and the government advising on music therapy. Most recently she was one of the Commissioners for the Music and Dementia Strategy in the UK, produced by the International Longevity Centre, and launched at the House of Lords in January 2018: What would life be? Without a Song or Dance, What are We?
Helen is co-editor and an author for the books Supervision of Music Therapy (Jessica Kingsley 2009), Forensic Music Therapy (Routledge 2013) and Collaboration and Assistance in Music Therapy Practice (2017). She has published widely in national and international peer reviewed journals and authored many book chapters. She is a pianist, violinist, and a singer in Cambridge Voices chamber choir.
References:
Odell-Miller, H., 2001. Music therapy and its relationship to psychoanalysis. Where analysis meets the arts, pp.127-152.
Wilson, S. ed., 2017. Music—Psychoanalysis—Musicology. Routledge.
Episode 13 is Luke's interview with Claire Flower. Claire trained as a music therapist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Over the years she has worked in a wide range of settings, as well as running a supervision practice, teaching and examining. She currently works within the Music Therapy team in the Child Development Service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, where she is joint team lead with Juliet Wood. At present, she is completing her doctoral studies at Nordoff-Robbins. Her practice-led study is an investigation of ways of working with children and parents in a healthcare context.
References:
Bortoft, H. (2012) Taking Appearances Seriously: The Dynamic Way of Seeing in Goethe and European Thought.Edinburgh, Floris Books.
Flower, C., 2014. Music therapy trios with child, parent and therapist: A preliminary qualitative single case study. Psychology of Music, 42(6), pp.839-845.
Blogs:
http://musictherapyblog.co.uk/
https://www.musiconmymind.co.uk/
http://dariuszgalasinski.com/blog/
http://jazztoad.blogspot.co.uk/
In episode 12, which coincides with World Music Therapy Day, Luke Annesley talks to Becky White. Becky teaches clinical improvisation at the University of South Wales and works as an associate lecturer in music therapy at the University of the West of England. She is undertaking PhD research into learning experiences through improvisation of music and music therapy students. The study is arts based, employing qualitative phenomenological interviews combined with improvisations and transcribed with hand-drawn graphic scores. She is a member of the inter-model and inter-disciplinary improvisation research network Concurrent,based at the University of Edinburgh.
During this interview Becky refers to a number of papers, including her recent Concurrent study on Voices, which is here. She also references the following:
Ferrara, L. (1984) Phenomenology as a Tool for Musical Analysis. The Musical Quarterly, 70(3), pp. 355-373.
Wilson, G.B., and MacDonald, R.A. (2016) Musical choices during group free improvisation: A qualitative psychological investigation. Psychology of Music, 44(5), pp. 1029 - 1043.
Episode 11 is the recording of the panel discussion from the BAMT AGM in October 2017. The panel members were Joy Gravestock, Anna Maratos, Simon Procter, Alexia Quin and Ben Saul, bringing experience from freelance work, the third sector, and the NHS. The discussion, chaired by Luke Annesley in front of an audience of BAMT members, encompassed rates of pay, surviving in the 'age of austerity' and communicating constructively with commissioners and funders. The audience participated fully in the developing conversation.
In episode 10 Luke talks to Dr Stella Compton Dickinson about working in forensic settings. Stella is a London-based music therapist, professional oboist, lecturer, UK Council for Psychotherapy registered Cognitive Analytic Therapist and accredited supervisor. She is author of The Clinician’s Guide to Forensic Music Therapy (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) and she has her own private practice and twenty years' experience in the National Health Service as a clinician, Head of Arts Therapies and Clinical Research Lead. Her research was awarded the 2016 Ruskin Medal for the most impactful doctoral research. Stella’s PhD thesis can be found here, and her website is here.
In part 2 of Luke's conversation with Dean Beadle, Dean talks in some detail about his experiences of music therapy, going on to talk more generally about the importance of music in his life, both when he was growing up, and today, and ending with some helpful and inspiring advice for the UK music therapy profession.
The release of this episode, November the 15th, coincides with European Music Therapy Day. The focus this year is on ‘Hearing Your Voice’. Appropriately, this is the first interview in this series with a music therapy service user.
Dean Beadle has toured the UK for a number of years sharing his experiences of life as an autistic person. He has also spoken in Denmark, Belgium, Guernsey and Ireland as well as undertaking four annual seminar tours of Australia and New Zealand. Through his humorous and insightful speeches Dean outlines his positive outlook on his diagnosis. You can see a clip of Dean in 2011 on YouTube. Dean had music therapy as a child in SE London with music therapist Judith Nockolds, which he talks about in part two of this interview, out next month.
Part one has a focus on perceptions of autism, including Dean’s own feelings about his diagnosis, and some of the challenges he faced as a child coming to terms with various aspects of his identity. He also draws interesting parallels between autism in a social context and other social issues such as gay rights.
Luke Annesley talks to Anna Maratos. Anna started her career as a music therapist in adult mental health in 1997, and gradually moved into increasingly senior management positions, culminating in her current post as Head of Arts Psychotherapies in Central and Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust. She talks about her changing strategy towards research, as well as instigating a move towards mentalisation based practice at CNWL. Anna delivered a keynote at the 2014 BAMT conference in Birmingham, in which she attempted to identify common ground between different theoretical perspectives towards music therapy. We discuss whether she still sees divisions within the UK profession, three years on.
Luke Annesley talks to Julian O’Kelly about his current research, as well as his doctoral studies at Aalborg University with people with severe head injuries. Julian has published widely on music therapy in palliative care and neuro-disability, and has now ventured in to mental health, co-ordinating a major NHS funded feasibility study on music therapy for chronic depression with East London NHS Foundation Trust. There’s a chance coming up to hear Julian explore the challenges and opportunities for music therapy offered by neuroscience in his forthcoming open lecture at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability on Thursday 14 September 2017, 4.30-5.30pm, and he has recently co-edited an ebook, that’s free to download, on the same subject, which you can find here.
Luke Annesley talks to Mercedes Pavlicevic, author of many important music therapy texts and Head of the Scientific Committee for the BAMT 2016 conference. Mercedes talks about how the music therapist relates to their environment, including social and political contexts, and possible future directions for the profession. She also talks about research, including her own relationship to empirical positivist approaches, and how research can, and perhaps should, grow out of practice.
In Episode 4 of Music Therapy Conversations Luke Annesley talks to Auriel Warwick about her substantial experience of working with children with a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder, as well as about the challenges of working in schools, and how to communicate effectively with other professionals about music therapy. But before that, she describes her very first encounter with pioneering music therapist Juliet Alvin…
Luke Annesley talks to Dr Catherine Carr about music therapy research in general, and some of her own research in adult mental health in particular. They discuss the relationship between research and training and some of the challenges that the music therapy researcher faces. Is research inevitably reductive, or are there ways of doing research in music therapy which meet the requirements of evidence-based practice, whilst also capturing the essential details of the work? Perhaps most importantly, what can and should clinicians do to stay up to date with the latest research developments?
Luke Annesley talks to Leslie Bunt, Professor of Music Therapy at The University of the West of England, author, clinician, and trainer and supervisor in Guided Imagery in Music, about integrative approaches to music therapy, the inherent risks in clinical work, and liminality.
In the first episode of this new podcast from the British Association for Music Therapy, trustee, music therapist and jazz musician Luke Annesley, is joined by Dr. Rachel Darnley-Smith, a music therapist, researcher and lecturer, in conversation to discuss all things music therapy.