Music Therapy and Group Work: Sound Company - Paperback

by Amelia Oldfield (Contribution by), Julie Sutton (Contribution by), Tessa Watson (Contribution by)

The fascinating and diverse descriptions contained in this text begin the process of developing indigenous understandings of music therapy in group work and alert the reader to issues for future exploration. A fascinating text, describing a range of clients - I highly recommend it.'

- Nordic Journal of Music Therapy

Group music therapy has been widely practised for many years, especially within institutional settings, and features substantially in training, yet there has been no publication devoted to the discussion of this area of therapy. Music Therapy and Group Work fills this gap by bringing together the experiences of group music therapy practitioners who work with diverse client groups in various settings. Whilst acknowledging that the practice of group music therapy incorporates many theoretical and practical issues in common with those of mainstream group work, the editors emphasize that this field needs to develop some further theoretical discourse of its own, primarily because its main contrast from regular group work is that it draws on a non-verbal medium alongside the ordinary verbal exchange.

The book combines clinical examples with theory to provide a comprehensive introduction to group music therapy. Practitioners not only of music therapy, but also those working in related disciplines, will find this to be an informative and stimulating read.

Author Biography

Alison Davies is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with a background in mental health work for an NHS Trust. Eleanor Richards is a senior music therapist in the Service for Adults with Learning Disabilities, Lifespan NHS Trust, Cambridge. She is currently training as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Both authors have been involved in introducing music therapy into the St Columba Group Therapy Centre in Cambridge.