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At the end of March, I am leaving my three-year term of office for board director of Japanese Music Therapy Association (JAMTA) 2004-2007 fiscal year. During this period JAMTA held 101 councilors and 23 directors, and they were the first election-selected board members. The board members of the 2001-2003 fiscal year term were selected through internal negotiation, due to the founding time of the association. Here is the rough comparison between the director lineups of the two terms. (For convenience I call the 2001-2003 as the first term, 2004-2007 as the second term.)

As seen easily, comparing to the first term that the medical doctors were the majority of the directors, the professional music therapists who actually engage themselves in practice increased substantially in the second term. It was to be a fresh lineup to represent the music therapy practitioners out in the field.

Historically JAMTA originates from the two different music therapy associations; one founded by musicians/music therapy practitioners (Japanese Association of Clinical Music Therapy) and the other founded by medical doctors (Bio Music Association). From this background, these medical doctors mainly directed the founding period of JAMTA, to support and organize the music therapists who were unsteady in their social status.

As a result, the management of the first term board tinged with "directive" and "authoritarian" colors, and its emphasis was on building up the political hardware, by expediting the important proceedings such as selecting of board directors, certifying music therapists, and spreading the education systems. It was efficient, but there was a tendency that many decisions were made by a small number of leaders who were not necessarily familiar to the realities of professional music therapy practice. And in this "top-down" system, the decision process was not always open to the ordinary members under the leaders’ consideration "to avoid a confusion." As an extension of it, they also started negotiating the "state certification" on their own authority, whose procedure created a great controversy later. Overall, the scale of the association grew remarkably (approx. 6000 members) during the first term, but the ordinary members did not have enough information and the occasions to speak up for the management of this newly founded association.

When the second term of the board directors meeting started, it caused a conflict. Many of the new directors were the practitioners and the educators directly engaged in the field, young in their generations, and some of them were educated abroad. These directors, from their thinking system developed in their own education and daily work, required democracy and disclosure of information to the board of meeting. In particular, they naturally assumed that the main activity of the association should not be only establishing the political hard ware but also pursing academic/professional matters.

This split first became evident around the "controversy on implementation of state certificate." I do not describe the detail of the discussion here, but the main point of the new directors was "to take time to proceed such an important theme by disclosing information to the whole members of the association, and by deepening the discussion on the professional being of music therapist," and that of the directors from the first term was "to minimize the liaison that can act promptly in order to realize the low for the social status, compromising with the rapidly reality of the society. " This controversy broke out at the very beginning of the second term, but the both parties continued not being able to understand each other positively for the whole term. Instead, the conflict got complicated, until the term finally ended without growing out of the first split. Consequently, in any agendas other than state certification, the two parties were almost always set for a hard-on confrontation. Rather than developing mature discussion, the behind-the scenes maneuvering and the personal attacks often took place, distrust and anger increasingly manipulating the meeting.

This split led to the unfortunate result to lose the trust from the ordinary members, and I had an impression that an image was created that the new directors had caused the confusion. In fact, most of these directors who acted for openness and academism lost their seats in the new (the third) board of directors from 2007. The effort they made for the revision of the agreement for information disclosure, the projects for the professional/academic aspects of music therapy, and the establishment of time-taking democracy for consensus shall be retrogressed for a great deal.

At the end of the three-year term, I feel powerlessness as well as desires for something new wiggling in me. This hard experience brought home to me how difficult the conflict between the two methodologies: "authoritarian/directive organization" that aims at the efficient pyramidal management, and "democratic/equal organization" that aims at individual liberty and autonomy. It must be one of the permanent issues human societies have repeatedly questioned. Especially in Japanese society there is a strong faith that the prosperous and secure living has been achieved under the umbrella of "authoritarian/instructive organization," symbolized by, but not limited to the government. In Japanese language we have a saying "Nagai mono niwa makarero (If you encounter a long thing, let your body be swaddled = Don’t kick against the pricks.) " It represents our cultural feeling that one should obey to an authoritarian organization even by pretending, from government, schools, companies, to resident meetings, while fulfilling personal feelings and desires in some other covert ways, as it is the fastest way to get every best thing after all.

Opposing to it, the new culture is also growing in the recent decades not to accept this Japanese conventional system. Especially the younger generations who have social and academic experiences in other countries started to criticize the older system and to look for the new and realistic ways of organization and cooperation should take. However, as it is still premature as a social force and has not established its own methodology yet, the younger people trying to live with a new attitude tend to gradually give up on it when they need to survive in the mainstream of the society with economic reward. Especially in the last decade, reaction of the conservative mood is distinctive due to the collapse of the "bubble economy."

Japanese music therapy scene is progressing in a pretty similar way. Music therapy has been very popular from the late 1990’s to the first half of the 2000’s, drawing a great attention from the general public, but now in the second half of the 2000’s it is on a decline. The professional positions around music therapy are actually decreasing as if they were merely "bubbles," and the music therapists tend to protect their positions rather than to pursue ideals.

However my main concern is not on which parties would win, "the conservatives" or "the revolutionary." Rather, I am concerned that while the two parties are crashing and wasting time on counterproductive conflict, many of the ordinary members lose their interests in both and in association itself, growing the introspective mind-set in their work and interpersonal relationship. In fact, many of the music therapy professionals I personally respect confess such a feeling in the private conversations, and to be honest, I myself am tempted to be that way. This situation will bring Japanese music therapists back to the fragmented beings of individual all over the nation.

What is the key to make heterogeneous concepts to meet productively, not destructively? Reacting to one force with other force only increase injures and armors on the both sides. Even the majority rule becomes a pretense democratic means as long as the voters try to defeat each other with hostile feelings underneath.

Although I have been trying to be fair in my writing standpoint so far, it seems obvious that I am a person who cannot help but thinking in a "revolutionary" way. However I am willing to understand those who have different ideas from mine, to understand, to influence, and to cooperate each other in good ways. And it was through music therapy that I learned this kind of interpersonal relationship. In music therapy sessions, I often feel and actually make use of the power of music that can convert the distance between people to the field of their meeting and creating new things. Stige (1998) writes:

It is no disaster if the client and the therapist have different values and aesthetic perspectives. In many ways this can make the interpersonal communication richer and more colorful. To be able to stimulate such polyphonic dialogues, by sharing own values and show respect and interest for those of the client, must therefore be an important element of the therapist's competence.(p. 133)

Why then, in the board meeting for visioning the future of music therapy, the whole atmosphere was to laugh off this kind of attitude as a fantasy? Unfortunately we do not play music in the meeting, but there must be a way to make "positive conflict" happen, by minimizing bruising and maximizing openness to each other. It is a big assignment left in my heart as a music therapist.

References

Stige, B. (1998). Aesthetic Practices in Music Therapy. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 7(2),

How to cite this page

Ikuno, Rika (2007) At Ending my Term for Board Director of Japanese Music Therapy Association - Converting a Conflict in Music Therapists’ Meeting to a "Musical" Dialogue-. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 10, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2007-ending-my-term-board-director-japanese-music-therapy-association-converting