Writing Music Therapy

Autor/innen

  • Mary Helena Rykov Music Therapy Services

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v11i1.288

Schlagworte:

arts-informed inquiry, poetic inquiry, methodology

Abstract

Communicating about music therapy is problematic because discursive language fails to convey the nonverbal, embodied essence of experience. I explore the emergence of this problem in the music therapy literature. I discuss the scholarship of phenomenological writing. I provide examples of nondiscursive music therapy writing. I introduce the genre of poetic inquiry.

Poetry is the most musical form of language. Poetry and music, linked throughout history, share many characteristics. It makes sense that we use poetry to write about music therapy.

Writing is a crucial skill for music therapy professionals who must produce various notes, proposals, and reports. Writing poetically is a diminished stance compared to discursive prose writing. It is understandable that representing music therapy in experimental, tentative, and creative texts is risky. I invite music therapists to aspire towards poetry when writing music therapy to better address nonverbal, embodied, music therapy essence. I address this invitation to all writers of music therapy: undergraduate and graduate students, clinicians, and researchers.

Autor/innen-Biografie

Mary Helena Rykov, Music Therapy Services

Mary Rykov provides music therapy in Toronto, Canada, from a feminist, salutogenic stance whereby therapy is conceived to be education-about-the-self. She completed an arts-informed research project and dissertation in the Centre for Arts-Informed Research in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto in 2006; this and subsequent palliative care postdoctoral research was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society. A graduate of the first music therapy training available in Canada, Mary received a Lifetime Membership from the British Columbia Chapter of CAMT for thirty years of clinical service, professional contributions and dedicated leadership. She also lives and writes a poetic stance as associate of the League of Canadian Poets, completing her first poetry manuscript.

Veröffentlicht

2011-02-21

Zitationsvorschlag

Rykov, M. H. (2011). Writing Music Therapy. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v11i1.288

Ausgabe

Rubrik

Essays