Culture Centered Music Therapy

humans cannot escape culture culture provides the tools humans need to deal with the challenges of everyday life and with the symbolic artifacts they depend upon to communicate and construct their life histories culture thus permeates the personalities of therapists and clients a fact that hardly has been given the attention it deserves in music therapy theory culture centered music therapy explores the implications of taking culture inclusive perspectives for practice theory and research part one outlines premises for the argument examining basic concepts such as culture humankind meaning musicking and the nature nurture debate part two highlights how culture centered music therapy may be practiced the scope varies from community music therapy aimed in part on cultural change in the community to ecological music therapy focusing on communication at micro and mesosystem levels to individual music psychotherapy considering the individual in cultural context in part three implications for describing and understanding music therapy are discussed including a chapter on how to define music therapy as practice discipline and profession a culture inclusive model of the music therapy process is also proposed part four suggests approaches to music therapy research within a culture centered context a call for increased reflexivity the ability to reflect upon one s social and cultural position is at the heart of the discussion along with a continuing theme of this book the relations and tensions between local and more general perspectives on music therapy 2002 isbn 1 891278 14 2 28 brynjulf stige is the first coordinator of the music therapy education program at sogn og fjordane university in sandane norway where he is an associate professor with diverse experiences as a music therapist using a community based approach stige has written numerous articles and books on music therapy and music education he is editor in chief of the nordic journal of music therapy and co editor wi