Music Therapy in Slovenia
On the sunny Side of the Alps
Slovenia is a country of many colours, landscapes, dialects, rich culture, interesting history, with a fruitful present and a promising future. It is a small country and fewer than 2 million people live here, but it lies in the heart of Europe connecting East and West, North and South. Usually you hear about Slovenia as the country that lies on the sunny side of the Alps, which we share with Austria; the country with the Adriatic Sea, which we share with Italy and Croatia; or the country at the entrance to the Balkans, which we share with Hungary. The people here are friendly and hard working, happy to share and exchange our thoughts and things, always travelling beyond our borders.
We have been an independent country only since 1991. We were the first former Yugoslavian republic, which proclaimed independency and experienced the beginning of the war in Yugoslavia. With our good diplomacy and the help from some western European countries we were lucky to avoid the next few years of devastating war, which unfortunately extended to other Yugoslavian republics. This still has an influence on us and on the region where we are, especially because we are also one of the first countries here which is already a part of the EU. We remain connected to both the history and the future, the East and West, and we are warmly accepted in both directions. This frequently makes us the bridge between cultures, establishing dialects between them, which is nice but often difficult. I consider my land as a land of peace and beauty and I wish that all people here could see how fortunate we are to be born and living here. Not only do we have a chance for a good life, but we can also help many others who don't have these blessings.
The Story of Music Therapy
This story is even younger than our independency; I can say it goes back for only the last few years. Opening our physical, cultural and mental borders to the much bigger and somehow richer Western Europe after leaving Yugoslavia also meant meeting new streams and directions in general social structures. I guess the appearance of music therapy together with other arts therapies in the country was just one of the results of this transition. I want to stress that music therapy in Slovenia is very closely bonded to other arts therapies here, and that there are only a few of us arts therapists with valid qualifications who are now working together to set up a good framework for the education and the practice of all arts therapies in the country.
The Network in the Profession
There are some people who have been practising something akin to music therapy in a few settings in Slovenia before it was known as a professional calling. On the other hand, at the moment there are still only 3 music therapists here with the appropriate education. None of us want to begin the music therapy profession in Slovenia by excluding anybody who has been working in this field before us - even without the right educational background. Instead we want to make a connection offering us a good exchange, enriched knowledge and new growth to all of us.
The most important action undertaken in this direction in 1994 was the establishment of Slovenian Association of Arts Therapists (SZUT-Slovensko združenje umetnostnih terapevtov). The association has around 37 members at present, 3 are music therapists. It unites drama, dance and movement, art and music therapy. In our last meeting we have managed to set in place important visions we have for the future, write our constitution, publish our magazine and start work on our web site. The association is highly important for all Slovenian arts therapists, enabling us to meet regularly, have multi-disciplinary debates, professional exchanges, share new ideas and especially resolve the upcoming problems concerning our profession, of which there are many. At the moment the most import action concerns the official registration of our profession in the country. And last but not least - like all Slovenians we just like to socialize a lot.
I believe we have a good atmosphere in the association with all members being very enthusiastic and hard working with lots of ideas about what to do to expand our membership and to have a quality arts therapy profession in Slovenia. We are aware that this can only happen with a good education for the future therapists, who have been able to study arts therapies at the postgraduate level at the Pedagogical Faculty in Ljubljana (http://www.pef.uni-lj.si/) for some years. The aim of this training is to generate not only newly qualified therapists but also more Slovenian lecturers, which could in turn bring down the tuition fee for students and therefore open the doors to a larger number of interested students.
I am very pleased with all that has already happened in our country for music therapy. Presently, with all our hard work, interest in music therapy is rising and many new doors are opening through which we can continue and expand our work.
My Work in Slovenia
I studied music therapy in the postgraduate program in Cambridge, UK. After I graduated in 2005 I decided to return to Slovenia and try to work in different music therapy areas at home. This was not an easy decision because I had no idea how I could work as music therapist here, but on the other hand I was motivated to take on a challenge and do something new. For me it was, and still is, an adventure; one that I enjoy and which always surprises me.
I initially decided to focus on three areas. The first was to find people who are also music therapists or who work somehow closely with music therapy; the second was to find possibilities for seminars and workshops about music therapy in institutions or associations who might potentially be interested in running music therapy groups; and the third was to practice music therapy. These were all difficult ideas to put into practice, but I have been very lucky and many doors just opened for me. One ongoing challenge has been balancing a full time job as a music teacher with being the leader of a professional music-dance ensemble and the manager for music therapy projects in EAMTS (European Association of Music Therapy Students; www.eamts.org).
Luckily I have managed to give seminars for the Slovenian Nurses Association, two days of workshops about music therapy at a big summer music course in Maribor, a weekend music therapy seminar for music therapy in Kranj, as well as publishing articles in many magazines and an article about music therapy in a book released in 2006 for the Integration of children with special needs in main stream schools. Most important of all were the 3-day long seminars about music therapy and renaissance music and dance in the four biggest Slovenian cities in 2006, which I co-led with a professional musicologist and dancer Lidija Podlesnik. These seminars were aimed at teachers or other professionals who work with children in different settings and age groups. The topic of the seminary was 'How to enhance the creativity in work with children?'. The project was supported and funded by European Social Fund and made it possible for me to buy important music therapy literature, which previously didn't exist in Slovenia (all music therapy literature is now placed in Musicology Library at Ljubljana Philosophic University) Some of the money helped me enrich my instrument collection for music therapy and I was also able to publish a small booklet about music therapy in the Slovenian language. While all these seminars were attended by approximately 200 people, the word about music therapy spread to many important areas for our profession.
I also realize how vital it is for me as a therapist to work within music therapy settings as well. Therefore I run music therapy groups in a day centre for adults with mental problems, in a day centre for adults with learning disabilities and in a house for women and children who are victims of domestic abuse. I like the diversity of my work and have a special interest in bringing these groups out of their closed, hidden places into the broader public arena - when possible of course, bearing in mind the music therapy borders which are specific for each client group. In Slovenia, the institutions and workers often have very open and free opinions about expanding the borders within therapies, which gives me a lot of freedom and flexibility in my work.
The last thing I want to mention in this article is the connection which has existed for three years between EAMTS and Slovenia. One of the services that this association offers to music therapy students includes humanitarian music therapy projects. Three such projects have taken place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I took the role of manager of these projects over the last two years and so Slovenia was the country which hosted the selected team of music therapy students as they prepared for their travels to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Welcoming so many enthusiastic music therapy students from all over Europe enriched our country, whilst giving me the opportunity to have a strong and good connection to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which used to be in Yugoslavia as well. It is also a country where music therapy is young and we can help each other.
I am hoping to organise a similar project again this year in Bulgaria with the cooperation of the Bulgarian Arts Therapists Association. I consider these links between the countries in the Balkans where music therapy is in its infancy very important and stimulating for all of us.
Aout the Style
All these experiences of work in and around music therapy in Slovenia are what we have to explore here at the moment. And because it is a new and fresh, undiscovered place for music therapy we are somehow free to improvise and have our own style. Just what this style will be, will emerge in the future - the time that I am looking forward to!
Aknowledements
I would like to thank Claudia and my friends Sharon and Wei Ming for helping me with this article.
How to cite this page
Knoll, Spela Loti (2007). Music Therapy in Slovenia. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=country/monthslovenia_february2007
