The Changing Role of Music at various stages of Music Therapy with the Mentally Handicapped

Abstract: The paper begins by describing music therapy as it is practised in a hospital for mentally handicapped people. The importance of a multidisciplinary approach is underlined. Although the aims of the music therapy sessions are different for each patient, the music therapist goes through four stages with all patients: getting to know the patient; finding out where the patient is musically, setting clear objectives and working towards those objectives. Music plays a different role in each of the four stages and as each stage is explained different examples of ways in which music is used are given. The role of the music as a form of nonverbal dialogue is especially emphasised. This paper is available from the BSMT Price ú3.

Keyword(s): role, mental-handicap, change, aims, objectives, nonverbal-assessment, treatment, multidisciplinary-approaches.

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