Music therapists use music to help communicate with people “for whom words may not be the best place to start” (from the Mission Statement of the Arts Therapies Department, Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge).
A music therapy session will usually have a variety of percussion instruments available, so the client does not have to have musical skills to be able to participate. The music therapist will be proficient on at least one instrument such as the piano or violin, and may play this or a percussion instrument. The therapist will respond to how the client plays, to engage them in a musical ‘conversation’ and facilitate their emotional expression. The music is improvised between the therapist and the client.
Music therapists usually work in a clinical settings (e.g. hospitals, care homes, special schools) and clients may be adults or children with a learning disability or mental health problems. Other specialities include children with behavioural problems, people with brain injury, or dementia, or personality disorder.
Music therapy is a state-registered profession (i.e. it’s illegal to call yourself a music therapist without having done an approved training). The Health Professions Council holds a register of all allied health professionals, including music therapists.
The music therapy training is currently a 2 year postgraduate course, leading to an MA. Trainees undertake placements in the main clinical fields, take part in music improvisation workshops, and attend lectures on psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, and music therapy theory. They write a dissertation in the second year of the course, based on a field they choose themselves. They also undergo their own personal therapy, as it is important for a therapist to know themselves well and understand their own emotional reactions, to be able to help a client.
If a client is verbal, there may be a talking component to the therapy. Music therapists use their chosen theoretical model in approaching talking therapy. Many feel that analytic ideas such as transference fit well, but others use models such as self-actualisation, from Carl Rogers (see for example Rogers et al. (1989)).