Voices ResourcesA website for the worldwide community around the journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

About Colombia

Colombia is a country on the left upper tip of South America. Our neighboring countries are Panama, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. Our geography ranges from beautiful mountains, to rain forest, plains, islands and coastal regions. The weather also varies a lot depending on your location. And the character of people also changes according to the region they come from.

In terms of cultural influences there have been three historical groups: the Europeans that came to America as "conquerors", the indigenous populations and the Africans who came as slaves for the Europeans and after slavery was abolished stayed here. The three cultures together, and the struggles between them, are the main "ingredients" that make Colombians who we are today. In addition to the general cultural variance between the different regions of our country, these three cultural groups also determine specific differences such as dialect, musical rhythms and general musical styles.

There are also musical styles from other Latin American countries (and the cultures tied to these styles) which though not necessarily Colombian, are closely related, and have had a large impact on us. Our population is very influenced by the rhythms of salsa (Cali is consider the world capital of salsa), merengue, tango (with a very strong influence in Medellin), bolero, ranchera; and of course more recently pop, rock and in the past few years reggaeton (which has had a strong influence on our youth).

As you can see then, although we share a general "Colombian culture" we also have a very strong cultural identity with the specific region we come from, the generation we belong to, and our social status. Awareness of these features of the diverse Colombian cultural identity is crucial for our work as music therapists.

Some Music Therapy History

To be able to talk about the development of music therapy in my country, we would have to go back to the 70's when the "first wave" of music therapists began their work. Back then there was a group who worked really hard for recognition of the discipline and the profession of music therapy.. At that time pioneers such as Reyes, Amaya, Correa, Benjumea and Vargas-Rodriguez brought lecturers from different parts of the world, and also traveled abroad to present at international music therapy congresses.

As a result of their efforts, a proposal for an undergraduate training program at the University of Cauca in Popayan was undertaken. Unfortunately this initial program dissolved after a few semesters due to administrative issues. However, some of the music therapy students were able to continue their thesis projects within the Music Education program. This maintained an interest in music therapy at an academic level for a number of years (Reyes, Amaya, and Lara (1993).

In 1991 the first National Music Therapy Symposium was held in Bogotá. Around that time, the music therapy association that had been created by the aforementioned music therapists was dissolved (Reyes et al (1993). This marked a period from 1991 to 1998 when music therapists continued to work, but unfortunately no formal mediums for discussion and the development of the discipline were created.

In 1998 and 2001 the "Corporación Sonido, Arte y Ciencia" along with the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, organized the Music Therapy Colombian sessions. These events were organized as symposiums of music therapy and gathered a great deal of participants including music therapists and professionals from other disciplines. Recognized music therapists such as Clive Robbins, Diego Schapira, Monica Papalia, and Suzanne Bauer were invited to lecture at these events. Their success proved once again that there was interest and momentum for the development of Colombian music therapy practice and professional development. For more information on these sessions refer to Blanco (2002).

During these years and the ones to follow, others studied music therapy abroad and returned to Colombia bringing back with them knowledge, specific music therapy schools of thought and a great deal of enthusiasm.

The Creation of the Master of Music Therapy program

In 2004 a graduate program of music therapy at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia was created. It began as a Specialty diploma program, but quickly evolved into a Master in Music Therapy program. This was very important as it created an academic forum for the development of the discipline. Students from different disciplines such as music education, medicine, physio and occupational therapy, psychology, sociology and social work are currently enrolled in the program.

The master's is a 4-5 semester program which includes clinical practicums and a thesis project. Currently some of the placements for the practicums include hospitals, geriatric homes, student psychological development programs, neuro-rehabilitation sites and schools.

The program has also served as a forum for invited music therapists from abroad to share their experience. To date we have benefited from the teachings of Gabriela Wagner, Lia Rejane, and Mónica Papalía. Since 2005, the program also has been in inter-institutional partnership with the music therapy program at the Universidad de Chile.

The program utilizes various music therapy perspectives with European, American and Argentinean being the strongest influences. We consider this one of our programs strengths as students are exposed to different perspectives and make decisions for themselves about what fits for them and whether to integrate different approaches or not. At the same time it forces us faculty to be very clear in our teaching while assisting students in their struggle with these decisions. This has pushed us to work together as a group with regard to managing our similarities and differences on theoretical and practical viewpoints.

Another of our programs strengths is that we have instructors from different fields teaching for us. This way, the faculty who are music therapists can focus on those competencies and the other professionals who teach in the program can introduce students to competencies from their related disciplines.

There are a number of challenges for us here in Colombia. These include feeling somewhat isolated from the rest of the music therapy world, and having to constantly search for different practicum experiences for our students. It is also quite challenging to deal with such a diverse population of students, and try to give them what they need in relation to the knowledge and experience they bring to the program. The balance can be hard to find, but with our ongoing experience, more and more we are finding it.

The Current Situation

Since 2002, when the original text about our country was written for Voices by Edgar Blanco, until now, the number of music therapists working in our country has increased and we work in different cities such as Bogota, Cali, Medellin, Cartagena, and Bucaramanga.

This is great because it means that more of the population has access to music therapy services, but it also creates one of the problems we face which is that we have very little communication between therapists from these different cities and so we don't know much about each others work and are not really operating as an integrated group. We do this more easily in our capital Bogota where most of the work has centralized, but as a country we are not an established group yet. It is my belief that we need to focus on breaching this gap.

In terms of employment music therapists in Colombia work in a variety of settings including hospitals, schools, special education centers, addiction recovery centers, geriatric homes, music stimulation programs and institutions for neuro-rehabilitation. Some therapists are working with issues very unique to Colombia's situation such as with refugees living in the big cities or military personnel injured in the field. A problem that arises with music therapy being rather recent in our society and with our music therapists working in isolation is that each therapist ends up developing their own programs from scratch. As a consequence, it is difficult to fund projects, and it requires a great deal of commitment and energy on the part of each music therapist to develop a program.

However, it is also evident that we have made a lot of progress. The existence of the Master's program and the intense work of each music therapist has brought us to a state of better (although far from optimal) understanding of the discipline and the profession amongst colleagues of other health and education disciplines. More and more we are being invited to participate in different projects or to give lectures on music therapy in different settings.

It is with great pride too that I can announce through this column that the first group of students defended their thesis projects last semester and so we will be graduating the first "Made in Colombia" masters in music therapy soon. The themes of their projects ranged from descriptive case studies, to experimental research projects working with populations such as adolescents, geriatrics, children with ADHD, and kidney failure patients.

Currently faculty of our Master's program is also working on a project that arises from every day teaching experience. As we all studied music therapy in different places, we all have different ideas on what music therapy is, and what and how it should be taught. This has generated a very interesting dynamic between diverse schools of thought in music therapy that in time has developed into an organized group discussion. Currently we are working on generating a model of music therapy education which is culturally appropriate, and also on describing the process of creating a music therapy identity and culture in our country. Part of this work was presented at the CLAM (Latin-American committee of Music Therapy) congress in Chile in July 2007.

A Look Into the Future

As much as we have evolved I still feel there is a lot to do. We still have a long way to go to give music therapy the standing it should have in our society. We still have to educate people. This needs to be done so that people can have access to quality music therapy services. We have to help our society to understand what we do. I suspect the education process will never end.

One of the upcoming steps is the creation of the Colombian Music Therapy Association. This would help us find a solution to the isolation of therapists in our different cities in contrast to the concentration of educational and working opportunities in the capital. A national association would also help create standards of practice, mechanisms of registration, solve legal issues, increase the number of educational programs etc. It is a step that we are looking forward to take and that it is felt as a need for all of us no matter our theoretical orientation or our area of practice.

I believe that the recognition granted by the creation and functioning of a national association could improve the current working situation for music therapists in Colombia. As a consequence it would encourage Colombian music therapists living in other parts of the world to return here to practice.
"The more the merrier" is a colloquial way to put it, but I do feel that in the future, as music therapy gains more recognition, as the number of graduates from the current music therapy program increases, as more educational programs are created (hopefully at least one at the undergraduate level), and as Colombian music therapists working abroad return, there will be more employment and education opportunities for all. It is a cycle.

It will also follow that with the creation of a national association links will be forged with other countries associations, and with organizations such as the World Federation. I consider this a vital step as we have to seek integration with the rest of the world. We should not be isolated and left out of the developments around us. Ultimately the important step of creating a national association will take us closer to the goal of increased recognition of music therapy as a discipline and a profession in our country.

To enhance our integration with the music therapy community world wide, we plan to attend the World Congress in Buenos Aires next year with as many presenters and participants as we can. We feel this is very important for us as professionals and for our future Colombian music therapists. For both students and professionals it will help us to keep up with the current trends in music therapy, to communicate the work we do to others, and to create links with other countries. An additional benefit for the students will be to realize that music therapy is more than what we can teach them in a classroom.

Taking responsibility for the organization of the next CLAM congress in Colombia in 2010 will also be a huge step towards our goal of connecting with the broader music therapy scene. We are very appreciative of this gesture of confidence toward us. We are ready to take on this challenge and to welcome music therapists from all over our continent.

I hope through this brief journey of the past, present and future of music therapy in Colombia you have come to know us better. Music therapy exists here in Colombia, and our group of professionals are proud to be music therapists and are very committed to the development of music therapy in our Country.

Links

Universidad Nacional de Colombia

References

Blanco, E. (2002). Music Therapy in Colombia [online]. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved August 23, 2007, from http://www.voices.no/country/monthcolombia_feb2002.html

Reyes, M., Amaya, A., and Lara, G (1993). Music Therapy in Colombia. In C. Dileo (Ed), Music Therapy International Perspectives (pp. 175-182). Pipersville, PA: Jeffrey Books

How to cite this page

Eslava, Juanita (2007). Music Therapy in Colombia. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=country-of-the-month/2007-music-therapy-colombia