The Influence of the Creative Class

Abstract

Last week I heard an interview with the American playwright Edward Albee. His award-winning play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, is enjoying a second time around on the New York stage. In the course of the interview, Albee made a comment that confirmed my own belief about the arts. He said: "To put us in greater contact with our possibilities. . . this is the function of art." This idea of "possibilities" has always shaped the core of my beliefs about the nature of Music Therapy. It's a recurring theme. And in the increasingly inhibited parameters of clinical notions, represented by the likes of evidence-based decision making under the influence of the Cochrane Collaboration, it's good to remember the art of our work.