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

The events of the last days were significant for me personally, but most of all for the development of music therapy in Poland. They showed how much can be done thanks to so few people. They also proved the importance of friendship and international cooperation. Now you probably wonder what exactly happened lately?

Three friends - music therapists - met and that meeting became an inspiration for organizing a conference which gathered students and adepts of music therapy from all over Poland, but also from France and Ukraine.

May 12, 2008 at Maria Curie Sklodowska University in Lublin (an academic town in eastern Poland, which also happens to be my hometown) the music therapy conference and workshops took place. The honor guests were Clive Robbins from New York University and Simon Procter, Director of the MMT Training Programme, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Center in London.

Clive Robbins gave a two-hour lecture on the history of creative music therapy and his clinical work in different therapy centers all over the world. All of the attendants were fascinated by his words. Not only the facts that he mentioned were important but also the way he verbalized them – full of engagement, warmth, care about all the audience, but most of all great concern for the children he was talking about.

The workshops on music therapy were held by Simon Procter, who is just like Clive – always open for people and ready to help. In the workshops everyone could find something for himself – for some it was a new way of listening to music, for others a kind of self-discovery, experiencing a new outlook on what seemed to be familiar and obvious.

Despite the fact that music therapy is present in Poland for over 35 years, what seems to be the biggest problem is the lack of professional music therapists. Poland is not the only country which has to face this problem, there are many other places that are trying to cope with it. However we have to remember that making the society aware of what music therapy really is and what positive effects it can bring is as important as training new specialists. The media are one of the best possible means of directing people’s attention to that subject. Unfortunately, it often happens that because of lack of realizing what powerful a tool music can be, the media are not interested in spreading information about music therapy. Thus, how can we interest the media with the advantages of the real music therapy, when the news about cows that can give more milk thanks to Beethoven music is more interesting for the public. Every single event seems to be more important than music therapy conference or workshops.

I have to admit that it is not an easy task and if not for the presence of the well-known guests from abroad it could have turned out to be impossible. It took plenty of time and effort to invite the media to take a part in what was happening at the University (meaning the conference). When I finally managed to appear on air, given the opportunity to talk about the whole event for a few minutes in the regional TV, it was suddenly revealed that a great number of people can find music therapy very interesting. The first interview resulted in another one, after the short presentation in the regional TV – a bigger feature appeared on the national channel. This is how slowly but gradually small pieces of information about the therapeutic possibilities that music gives are smuggled into the consciousness of the society.

As I mentioned before, such media actions cannot be undervalued. They build up people’s awareness and as a result of that the group of people interested in music therapy – both as a profession and as a form of therapy worth knowing – grows.

This is exactly the field in which our more powerful, well-known music therapists from countries, which are far ahead of us, can help those countries that are just beginning their adventure with music therapy. Thanks to the support of the famous specialists from all over the world who agreed to visit Poland and in this way attracted the media’s attention, our local communities were given the chance to show their work. Now we have a chance to prove that Polish music therapists are not just a group of naïve enthusiasts who try to do what for others seems to be as obvious as strange. Music therapy is something much bigger and more important, it is an international community of specialists and young adepts working together and supporting each other. This supporting and mutual understanding gives more strength than even the greatest effort made by one person.

I have a great luck to meet unusual people. That people do not often realize how much good they can do. Those individuals, who are the precursors of on-coming changes in Poland are my friends. They often visit our country, give lectures, presentations, do workshops. Many of them collaborate with Voices. The one who most often comes to Poland is Simon Procter. He supports Polish music therapist whole-heartedly, he even managed to learn Polish and now he speaks this complicated language fluently. Two years ago Nicole Allgood, a wonderful music therapist working with autistic children, visited Poland. Today Clive Robbins – a man of great name but even greater heart - joined this group of people. His book Therapy in Music for Handicapped Children has just been translated into Polish and soon will be available in bookshops. Barbara Wheeler, Leslie Bunt, Francis Goldberg, Michele Forinash also announced their willingness to visit Poland. I strongly believe that in their case it will be the same as in Nicole, Simon and Clive’s – their first visit to Poland will just be a foreshadowing of the next ones.

Thanks to the cooperation we build not just the friendships, but most importantly an international community of music therapists. Let’s continue our way hoping that our efforts will give music therapy and music therapists a chance to succeed and reach every person in need in every country.

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How to cite this page

Stachyra, Krzysztof (2008). Towards Co-building the World of Music Therapy. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2008-towards-co-building-world-music-therapy