Greetings! My name is Devon Miller and I am a senior music therapy student at the University of Louisville under the instruction of Barbara Wheeler. I have chosen to respond to Carolyn Kenny's article Beyond This Point There Be Dragons: Developing General Theory in Music Therapy. Kenny suggests that through generalizing the concepts with which music therapists work, the professionals in this field will have a set of standards that apply to clinical practice. Although this is a fabulous idea, it is one that will take hard work from a large number of people over a long period of time and it is not something that I expect to happen in the near future. Kenny states that 'we are seeking coherence and subsequent foundational ideas' upon which to base our work. Although this is a true statement, at this time, it is most practical and acceptable for clinical practice to use borrowed ideas from other theoretical frameworks. I believe that by having the ability to explain to professionals in other fields what music therapists are doing based on already well-known theories, we are able to rationalize and explain what exactly it is that a music therapist does. In my own work as a music therapy student, I have come to borrow whatever theoretical ideas I find appropriate to the clinical situation I am working in. For example, I may be working with a child using behavioral techniques, while also incorporating humanistic ideals into what I do. This borrowing from other theoretical frameworks makes the rationale and procedures for my therapy work concrete and easily explainable.
The manner in which Kenny sets out the concepts upon which music therapists base their work is done quite nicely. Aesthetic value, intersubjectivity, empathy, uniqueness, and analogy, symbol, and metaphor as representation, are the key units that Kenny states are essentials that should be addressed in developing this theory. These concepts, however, come from other theoretical foundations and can be researched and documented as in their relationship to music therapy practices just as easily. The essentials that Kenny mentions here are extremely important in explaining what we do to others and creating a basis for our work. A general theory of music therapy would provide a firm structural foundation for research and thus make our work even more understandable to those outside of this particular field of practice. It seems to me, however, that trying to use one general theory to explain our work can be quite limiting. This is one of the challenges that Kenny talks about in her conclusion to the article. A general theory in music therapy must be all inclusive and use borrowed ideas and concepts as a basis.