Destabilizing Bodies, Destabilizing Disciplines: Practicing Liminality in Music Therapy

Forfattere

  • Cindy LaCom Slippery Rock University
  • Rachel Reed Slippery Rock University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v14i3.797

Emneord (Nøkkelord):

disability studies, music therapy, passing, privilege, abelism

Sammendrag

Our project began with a consideration of how disability studies might enrich the practice of music therapy.  Originally, we were interested in how a greater awareness of disability issues might help music therapists, especially because of the often medicalized (and arguably pathologized) implications of the terms (“health” and “help”) which define their field and which frame the therapist/client relationship.  On these grounds, we argued that greater awareness of the cultural context for such implications might aid the therapist.  At the outset, it seemed straightforward enough.  But our own unstable embodiments kept disrupting our conversations.  The corporeal intransigencies of our bodies as we dealt with the symptoms of Crohn’s disease, autism and multiple sclerosis moved us beyond a critique of disciplinary purity which constructs each field as distinct to an analysis of privilege, power and passing that extends to multiple disciplines and pedagogical practices. 


In our paper, we raise questions about how the illusion of (st)able bodies can reinforce hierarchies (between therapist/client, teacher/student, helper/helped, ablebodied/disabled), especially when the person “in charge” does not have to disclose or discuss the instability of her own body.  Upon that privilege rests an array of power dynamics, and we believe that a purposeful contemplation of our own embodiment has to be more central to praxis, whether as therapists, scholars, teachers or professionals.  To do this, we must be aware not only of others’ but also of our own relationship to disability -- socially, culturally, and as a marker of identity and potential (in)access to power.

 

Forfatterbiografier

Cindy LaCom, Slippery Rock University

Cindy LaCom is a Professor of English and Gender Studies, though most of her scholarship and much of her teaching is informed by her long-time interest in and commitment to disability studies.  An avid hiker and consumer of political news, she and her partner share their lives with far too many rescued dogs and cats in western Pennsylvania.  Despite the challenges of living with Crohn’s disease, she is grateful for the patience it has taught her and the ways in which it reminds her that, try as she might, she cannot control all aspects of her world.  This is a good lesson.      

Rachel Reed, Slippery Rock University

Rachel Reed is a music therapy major at Slippery Rock University, originally from upstate New York.  She is interested in disability studies and issues of power and oppression, particularly as they affect music therapists.  She also  enjoys hiking in New York's high peaks, and plays cello and various other string instruments.  

Nedlastinger

Publisert

2014-10-20

Hvordan referere

LaCom, C., & Reed, R. (2014). Destabilizing Bodies, Destabilizing Disciplines: Practicing Liminality in Music Therapy. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v14i3.797