Editorial

What do Music Therapists talk about when they get together? I found it fascinating hearing diverse conversations during my inspiring week at the 10th European Music Therapy Conference (EMTC) in Vienna in July. The outgoing President of the EMTC, Hanne Mette Ridder, wrote in the EMTC 2016 programme book of ‘music therapy as an interdisciplinary science characterised by creativity and thoughtful insight; an integrative profession formed in the melting pot of resource driven approaches to human psychological needs expressed in music’ (10th EMTC, 2016). The presentations at the conference were indeed varied and creative and so was the conversation.

Perhaps because of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, it seemed particularly significant to be part of broader European thinking about music therapy. This is a time of uncertainty about international agreements, collaborations and research in Universities and healthcare (see McKenna, 2016). In a statement following Brexit, Ben Saul, Chair of British Association for Music Therapy, wrote:

BAMT remains fully committed to working together with all European colleagues, to share and develop the art and science of our practice. Our links with other professional bodies, and our members’ individual links with clinical, academic and allied colleagues across the continent, are hugely beneficial. While the future is uncertain, we can be certain that our interest in maintaining community will continue, and we can rely on the unity of our profession and discipline in this regard. (British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT), 2016)

I was privileged to present the nomination for Jean Eisler’s EMTC award at the opening ceremony of the conference and to thank her for her contribution to the profession in the United Kingdom and Europe. Jean, now 100 years old, is an important figure for the European music therapy community, providing many years of clinical input and teaching inspiration in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, as well as other European countries. Jean has said of her career:

Music and me are one and the same thing really. When I was four or five I used to retreat into music – it was a direct link with the inner me … and then into music therapy. I’ve always felt that music could be so expressive of everything that’s in me … and then to find that it could also meet so directly whatever was there in the children I worked with. The music lives between us, and the development of the child flows from this. (Verney and Eisler, 1999: 48)

We are grateful to our UK pioneers. They include Juliette Alvin who started the British Society for Music Therapy and set up the first UK course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1968. Professor Tony Wigram, Professor Helen Odell-Miller and Dr Rachel Darnley-Smith negotiated and worked with key stakeholders in the 1980s and 1990s to lay down the groundwork for State Registration (now with the Health and Care Professions Council). In the United Kingdom, music therapy training is thriving with seven Masters-level training courses (and a course in Limerick, Southern Ireland) and regulation on a par with other health professions. Our position may be seen as a success story, but it is only one journey. Being able to value new and different ways of working and developing is perhaps the sign of a mature and healthy profession. Pioneers often operate on the margins of theory and practice; ‘only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go’ (Eliot, 1931: ix). One hot evening in Vienna, I sat and talked with my European colleagues about the differences and similarities in UK, European and worldwide practice. One of the dialogue sessions, led by European Music Therapy Congress country representatives, considered the professional development of European music therapy and how it is situated in different countries. Another focussed on music therapy and economy where Christian Kock, in dialogue with Brynjulf Stige, told us that, since the economic crisis:

public financing of health care has made it more difficult to maintain one of the cornerstones of European societies, the principle of access to health care for all, independent of income or other factors … relatively diminishing public funds will increase competition of different methods to gain access to public moneys. (EMTC, 2016: 48)

In this edition of British Journal of Music Therapy (BJMT), it is timely to include Stephen Sandford’s essay, from his BAMT key note conference presentation in Glasgow, April 2016 (see Aravinth et al., 2016). Sandford provides a current perspective on the state of music therapy and arts therapies professions in the United Kingdom. From the unique perspective of a manager of over 50 arts therapists, he explores ways of creating visibility and profile, of designing care pathways and interventions to meet current pressures and needs.

In Vienna, over coffee one morning, I talked with colleagues about the work they were developing within schools and communities and their interest in the way that systemic approaches were drawn into the conference paper we had just enjoyed. In this issue, Steve Cobbett, a Music Therapy and Family and Systemic Psychotherapist, explores this perspective in depth, considering the way in which the theoretical and practical aspects of a systemic approach are used in his work with young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. His article gives a thorough and useful explanation of the idea of behaviour as arising from the systems of relationships in which people are embedded, and how narratives, often creative and musical, can be used to help families and other systems adjust and develop to support the young person. Cobbett illustrates his work with clinical examples from his practice, writing that ‘the music was an important part of the systemic work in a number of ways but in particular as a social interaction that could act as a source of difference, resource and ritual’.

Another strand of within the EMTC 2016 dialogue sessions was that of music therapy and neuroscience. Here, Wendy Magee and Stefan Koelsch spoke and dialogued about neuroscience and neuromusicology (available here; http://www.mdw.ac.at/mdwMediathek/EMTC-2016/). Magee has written that ‘we need to understand why and how music works and refine interventions’ (Magee and Stewart, 2015). In this edition of BJMT, we are pleased to include an article on music therapy work in this developing area; music-assisted relaxation in ventilation procedures with people with motor neurone disease. Davies et al. present four case studies. They conclude that music therapy intervention could promote both distraction and relaxation during this procedure, and they suggest that music-assisted relaxation programmes could be used more widely in this area.

One of the considerations of editors is the way in which we might inspire students, new graduates and early career Music Therapists to write and submit their ideas for publication, and I was pleased to be part of the international music therapy journal editors’ meeting, where this topic among others was the subject of fruitful discussion. The Tony Wigram essay prize, named in honour of a great pioneer and champion of music therapy in the United Kingdom and worldwide, is one of the BJMT initiatives that contributes to nurturing new writers. We are pleased to include Bethan Fitzsimons’ winning essay for the 2015 competition in this edition. This essay was inspired by a placement in Rwanda during Bethan’s training. She looks further at considerations when practising cross culturally within a developing country, writing that ‘music holds various meanings and roles in different settings and it is therefore important to understand the role of music within the culture in which one works’. Her writing speaks not only to UK Music Therapists but also to the international community. The essay provides ideas about cultural perspectives in our practice, about our role and the re-framing of this role, whether in our home country or abroad. We congratulate Bethan on her achievement. The Tony Wigram student essay prize will take place again in 2017, and details will be published in the journal.

This edition also includes four book reviews, of both UK and international publications, ranging from Barbara Wheeler’s (2015) US handbook, the topic of Guided Imagery and Music Imagery (Grocke and Moe, 2015), Goodman’s (2015) international picture of music therapy education and training and an overdue review of Ansdell’s (2014) publication How Music Helps. We hope that these reviews will provide readers with inspiration for their own reading.

As we see from these diverse articles, essays and book reviews, we all have our own areas of interest which prompt us to write, to present and to choose the papers that we will attend at conferences. At the BJMT new writers workshop in Vienna, 14 people sat together and thought about writing, finding focus and telling their stories through a journal article. We made time to write, and it was time well spent. Being involved in several writing projects at the moment myself, I am well aware of the different stages that an author may experience; the inspiration of an idea, finding a way to conceptualise it as a whole picture, the slog of the background work, the magic moments during writing and the slow process of editing. The Editorial Team does not underestimate the effort and care that goes into writing, and we thank all those who submit to BJMT and those who work with the Editors to review and provide essential feedback and suggestions.