Music Therapy in Perú: A Historical Point of View
|History| |Current Developments|
History
The first Peruvian Music Therapy Association was created in 1969 in Lima (Peru), with the participation of some teachers and pupils of the National School of Music that were called during the first Latin American Music Therapy Conference that took place in Buenos Aires - Argentina, in 1968. The original proposal was prematurely ambitious since there did not exist the necessary conditions for it. In the first place, it was difficult to describe the presented experiences with a clear technical and music therapeutic criteria. Secondly, the international positions that promoted Music Therapy in our continent were not very consistent, since the scientific and epistemological background on which several works presented in the different disciplinary branches were validated, were only just beginning to establish.
The first Music Therapy paper was published in the First Congress of Psychiatry, organized by the Peruvian Psychiatry Association in 1971. It was authored by Psychologist David Jáuregui and it was called "Music Therapy experience in Hospital Obrero de Lima's Psychiatry Service", which was the first hospital where this application took place, following Rolando Benenzon in 1970.
In 1974 the Peruvian Music Therapy Society was created, gathering physicians, educators and other professionals of the country.
In 1979 Peru participates in the World Federation of Music Therapy.
Afterwards, a time of "obscurantism" developed between 1980 and 1997, in which there were no calls for any kind of meetings or events to inform about the life of Music Therapy in the country.
After 35 years, some Music Therapy institutions have developed in the country, overcoming the mentioned problems. Actually, they are three: Peruvian Music Therapy Association, Center for the Development of Therapies and Music Therapy Society of Peru.
In 1998 the Music Therapy Society of Peru, represented by the delegate and also president of the institution Liliana Choza, presented a paper in the II Latin American Encounter of Music Therapy and the First International Congress of Music Therapy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In 1999 the Music Therapy Society of Peru organized the First National Congress of Music Therapy with the presence of two highly qualified and worldwide recognized music therapists, Mt. Diego Schapira (Argentina) and Mt Ph Lia Rejane Mendes Barcellos (Brazil); there was high expectation about it and the event was very welcomed. Between 2000 and 2001, the Center for the Development of Therapies, actually called Art Therapies "Equipo" (Team) organized small art workshops including Music Therapy, having guests as music therapists Patricia Pellizzari and Diego Schapira.
The Peruvian Music Therapy Association also organized in 2001 the First International Music Therapy Course and the First National Seminar of Music Therapy. In 2002 organized the Second International Music Therapy Course and the Second National Seminar of Music Therapy, "Methodology and Music Therapy techniques" lectured by Ph MT-BC Joseph Moreno.
Current Developments
In the present time, there is a new group that has not formed an institution, because one of its goals is to join the three previously mentioned institutions in order to work together in areas of common interest as, for example, to spread new music therapy ideas and techniques in the different disciplines. This group is made up by professionals of different specialties and we have taken the theme of Music Therapy as a discipline; all the people that work in Music Therapy act only as "mediator". We want to have professionals formed in Music Therapy with solid scientific and technical basis, where he/she can be seen not only as a "mediator". There are two professional music therapists in Lima (Peru) and they are MT Carmen Bigotti and MT Silvia Villafuerte.
As it is well known, there are no professional music therapists in Peru other than the two mentioned above; there are only professionals that work Music Therapy from their own professional experience linked to music.
The people that work in Music Therapy actually work in an independent and private way, since we do not have a law that favors the opening of such specialty.
This is why, as an independent group, we gather every week to consolidate diverse ideas of our practical-theoretical Music Therapy experiences that have allowed us to develop a proposal to open a Music Therapy course in several universities, both national and private ones, among which we could mention the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos (University of San Marcos), the Universidad Nacional Federico Villarreal (National University Federico Villarreal) and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru). In these universities there is an evident interest but, however, they have provided us a document with the relevant requirements to create a course of our Specialty which includes for the professors to both have a PhD degree and be Peruvian. We are in a dead lock, but we are trying to find a way out.
From this year the Peruvian Music Therapy Association, together with its president Jessy Vargas, organized the First Music Therapy Diplomate at the Universidad Femenina del Sagrado Corazón (UNIFE - Women University of the Sacred Heart); it lasted for 6 months and has just finished. Unfortunately, the evaluation of this experience showed that there was a growing lack of interest in those who participated due to the absence of full trained teachers that can provide at least minimal experiences in the field of Music Therapy.
From 2001 to present the Music Therapy Society of Peru started introductory courses - workshops with theoretical basis in Music Therapy, but until now the fruits of their application are unknown.
There might be valuable works in the field of Music Therapy, but there are no conditions to allow the evaluation, cohesion and the development of serious approaches, due to the lack of disposition of the different disciplines that have applied it.
Music has been associated to the treatment of diseases for many centuries, and until now, in some far away cities, they still raise it as a ritual.
In the teaching field it is mainly applied in Special Education; music applies to the learning treatment, both concerning the physical acoustic elements of the sound and its qualities, and the musical elements: rhythm, melody and harmony.
In the social field, Music Therapy is considered as an integrating element among other disciplines.
The theoretical foundations that are mostly followed are:
- Behavioral, proposed by Madsen (1968).
- Psychoanalytical described by Noy (1966 - 67).
- Phenomenological (Barclay 1987) oriented to the Gestalt psychology.
- Cognitive (Bryant 1987) suggests the combination of rational - emotive therapy with behaviorism.
- Plurimodal Method, proposed by Schapira.
As the reader may see, there is still a lot to develop in the field of Music Therapy in Peru. Although the present situation may be overwhelming, there are a lot of people fighting to install Music Therapy in our country in the place where it belongs. We are open to receive suggestions that could help us along the way.
How to cite this page
Zagal, María Consuelo Rovira (2004). Music Therapy in Perú: A Historical Point of View. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 09, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=country/monthperu_january2004
