Memories from the 3rd World Scientific Congress of Music Therapy
The 3rd World Congress of Music Therapy was held in San Juan, in July, 1981. This Congress was organized by the Psychologist Dr. Rafael Rivera Colon, who was the president of Puerto Rican Music Therapy Association, created in 1975 by professionals from different areas, having Dr. Colon as the first president.
Many professionals from different countries where music therapy was already been done presented their papers. Those papers discussed mainly aspects from clinical practice, since music therapy training programs were just beginning in many of the countries which were represented there.
Maybe the most important issue discussed there was a proposal presented by the Argentinean psychiatrist and music therapist Rolando Benenzon. He proposed and presented the “first seeds” for the creation of a World Federation of Music Therapy. From this debate was organized a commission with the goal of discussing the beginnings of this Federation.
As I was, at that time, the president of the Brazilian Music Therapy Association (Rio de Janeiro), I ask some papers presented in the Congress and permission from the authors, in order to publish them in our Brazilian Journal, named Boletim CientĂfico de Musicoterapia (Scientific Journal of Music Therapy). Then, the Brazilian Association of Music Therapy published in March, 1982, a special issue (Boletim Especial n. 2), only with papers presented in Puerto Rico. In the Editorial we can read “This Special Journal has the goal to divulge some papers presented in the 3rd World Scientific Congress of Music Therapy (the true name of the Congress), which was held in Puerto Rico, July 1981.”
The papers published there are:
- Barcellos, Lia Rejane Mendes (Brazil). Music therapy in the treatment of amusia with a patient with previous musical knowledge. (pages 1 – 13). (This paper was published also in Germany and Argentina).
- Cieslinski, Miguel (Brazil). Music therapy in psychiatry. (pages 14 – 18).
- Fridman, Ruth (Argentina). Protoritmos: from the non-verbal to language and musical acquisition. (pages 19 – 37).
- Jablanczy, Laszlo (Canada). The sound effect on the individuals – neurological response to the musical stimuli. (pages 38 – 61).
- Schmölz, Alfred (Austria). The training and scientific research in music therapy in Viena. (pages 62 – 69).
- Speiser, DiCesare (Italy). Music therapy in Nervous anorexia. (pages 70 – 79).
Many more papers were presented by music therapists from some countries as Grain Britain, France, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela and the initial discussion about the creation of the World Federation, which started there, resulted in the installation of this Federation in the following world congress, held in Rio de Janeiro, in 1990.
