Music therapy in everyday life, with "the organ as the third therapist"

Abstract

Music therapy in mental health care usually unfolds over a limited time and in a limited space, often through weekly sessions which last for a certain period during a person’s stay at an institution. Nevertheless, music therapy is inevitably situated in a broader social, cultural and political context, and to various degrees will the engagement in music therapy involve levels of interaction with other contexts in turn, such as the client’s everyday life context. In this text I will explore the interaction between music therapy and the use of music in everyday life contexts. The empirical basis for this exploration is interviews with a client and her music therapist. This is in turn linked to a multiple case study aiming towards more understanding of client’s agency in the process of music therapy, that is, what clients do to make music therapy work. The study is situated within a resourceoriented perspective of music therapy practice in mental health care, and combine theoretical perspectives from contextual models in psychotherapy and recovery. The text provides an individual narrative of how music therapy is intertwined with and a part of everyday life uses of music. The main focus will be the client’s agency in linking experiences and pursue goals across various contexts.