Music Therapy Application Overview & Instructions
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PROGRAMME DETAILS 2004-2005
Music Therapy
NUMBER OF PLACES: Full Time: 6
COURSE DURATION: MSc - 3 semesters (4 days a week)
START DATE: tbc
COURSE LOCATION: tbc
FUNDING SOURCES: Mostly Self-Funding (Bursaries available on application)
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS:
Candidates are expected to have a degree in Music, but other subjects
are considered where music skills are demonstrably sufficient.
A professional standard of proficiency on an instrument or with the voice;
some keyboard skills are required where piano is not the first study.
The emphasis is on expressive musical qualities, especially within improvisation,
and a maturity of personality compatible with training as a therapist.
It is necessary to have had experience of relevant client groups and work
settings.
Consideration is given to mature students with alternative professional
qualifications and/or experience.
Initial selection is made from a submitted cassette and short essay, but
a personal interview is always required before a place can be offered.
PROGRAMME CONVENER: tbc
GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION:
Music Therapy is a medium in which people may take steps developing their
skills and abilities by virtue of relating, primarily in a non-verbal
way, with others. Improvised music is viewed as a manifestation of personality
and interpersonal relatedness. The therapist facilitates the individual's
move towards increased well-being. All parts of the programme contribute
to an underlying emphasis on understanding the therapeutic relationship
from a psychodynamic point of view.
KEY AREAS OF STUDY
o Music Therapy Theory and Practice
o Clinical Studies in Related Disciplines
o Musical Skills - Expansion and Application
o Personal Development
o Clinical Casework or Placement
AIMS: This programme aims to:-
o Enable students to gain a thorough grounding, from an analytically-informed
viewpoint, for the practice of music therapy while relating this to treatment
models in music;
o Enable students to understand clients' disabling conditions by means
of clinical studies in related disciplines;
o Extend music skills and enable students to gain an understanding of
how these can be used to meet the therapeutic needs of clients;
o Enable students to experience clinical settings and be supervised on
work there within the programme;
o Enable students to work in an environment which encourages self-development
appropriate to work as a therapist.
o Enable students to make an original contribution to music therapy theory
and/or practice.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: Students who successfully complete the programme
will:-
o Acquire observational and analytical skills;
o Have a secure theoretical base and the ability and flexibility to put
this into practice as a qualified music therapist within the health, education,
social services or private sectors;
o Have gained an understanding of relevant diagnoses and disabilities,
together with an appreciation of the effects of the environment and the
role of the institution on a client's well-being;
o Develop and extend expressive, technical and interactive elements of
music improvisation skills;
o Recognise the need for self-knowledge, personal development and on-going
supervision while practising as a therapist;
o Develop presentational skills and the confidence to explain orally and
in writing the practice and processes of music therapy.
INDIA MUSIC THERAPY
Finance
Financial Support for Postgraduate Music Therapy Students
The Otakar Kraus Music Trust
The Otakar Kraus Music Trust runs a national scheme of postgraduate scholarships open to students studying music therapy.
Further information is available from:
The Otakar Kraus Music Trust
3 Twining Avenue
Twickenham
Middlesex TW2 5LL
United Kingdom
Tel. 020 8894 2007 Fax 020 8898 5084
E-mail: okmtrust@aol.com Website: www.okmtrust.co.uk
Application Form to The Otakar Kraus Music Trust
I wish to apply for a scholarship …………………………
Yes/No
I do not require financial support ………………………..
Yes/No
for the Postgraduate Music Therapy training course.
Please explain why this funding is required.
Signature: …………………………………………………………………………..
Date: ……………………………………
Address: …………………………………………………………………………
..
…………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………..
INDIA MUSIC THERAPY
Guidance notes on the application/selection procedure
TRAINING
Music therapy training believes that the process of relating rather than the musical product is essential to therapy and all therapists use primarily improvised music. This syllabus can be put under five headings: Music Therapy Theory and Practice, Clinical Studies in Related Disciplines, Music Skills, Personal Development and Clinical Casework (practical placements).
Music Therapy Theory and Practice: This is studied through twice-weekly seminars illustrated by video and audio examples of casework. Work from other areas of the programme is drawn together to provide a coherent framework for approaching clinical work. As in psychotherapy trainings, students undertake a mother-infant observation in which, whilst learning the value and difficulties of being a non-participant observer, they experience the intensity of infantile affective states. Presentations and discussion in seminars focus on a psycho-analytical interpretation of observed events.
Clinical Studies in Related Disciplines: these include courses in Child Development (normal and abnormal), Human Communication and Language Disorders, Psychiatry.
Music Skills: Because all students must already have professional competence on an instrument, these are primarily concerned with the expansion and application of existing skills. Group improvisation, clinical use of music, voice, percussion and composition workshops provide for this.
Personal Development: Personal therapy is a mandatory requirement for Music therapy professionals. Therefore we provide a training group for which attendance is a requirement and the cost of which is covered in the fees. This gives opportunities for increased self-awareness and examination of personal and group processes. Personal individual therapy has to be found outside the course and paid for by the student. Guidance and introductions to appropriate sources of therapy are provided.
Placements: After visits to a variety of potential workplaces, students undertake individual and group work in two contrasting settings. Small-group supervision on these emphasises the central nature of this experience to the programme as a whole.
Useful references:
(books listed)
MUSIC THERAPY - INDIA
The Music Therapy practised in Great Britain is almost entirely based on improvisation - the music being the shared, spontaneous creation of client and therapist, and we are introducing this same process to India. This is the case both for groupwork and for individual therapy, both of which are practised across a wide range of client groups and in diverse works settings. However, the value of having a primarily non-verbal medium with which to work has led to a high proportion of those referred being those whose language is limited whether through disability, profoundly handicapping conditions or severe mental and emotional disturbance.
Essential to Music Therapy is the relationship between client and therapist. This develops within a safe and consistent environment in which a variety of musical instruments, including voice, can be used to create sounds and silences - to make music. However spare or disorganised these sounds and silences may be, they are the raw material for the music and, through making this together, client and therapist get to know each other and construct a language for communicating and sharing which is uniquely their own,
The music is the medium through which a relationship is formed, but it is in the relating that the potential for change lies. We have chosen to base our Music Therapy training programme on the use of psycho-analytical ideas to help us understand the therapy process and the ways the client uses the space, the therapist and the music. Within this theoretical framework, music is thought to acquire meaning through the context in which it arises and it is charged with a significance which is personal to each particular therapeutic relationship: it is not generally considered that particular kinds of music have intrinsic properties which make it possible to prescribe them to alleviate specific conditions, as would be the case if a more medical approach were adopted.
The emotive and non-verbal aspects of music are particularly powerful in evoking the earliest emotional experiences and re-awakening fundamental patterns of behaviour and relating. It seems important therefore for those working with music in therapy to understand how these continue to exert their influence in later life and may contribute to all kinds of problems and difficulties. For this reason a great deal of attention is paid to studying the first relationship - that between mother and infant. This is liked at from both developmental and psycho-analytical points of view and is also helpful for finding techniques and ways of structuring musical improvisation in therapy.
Observation and research has shown that far from teaching the baby the foundations of language, mothers in fact take their cues from their baby's innate predisposition to make communicative sounds and gestures and to elicit a response. The music therapist will take this fundamental mothering role and use her musical skills to reflect, affirm and assign meaning to the sounds and movements of each client. The way in which this music is responded to, the quality of participation or lack of it, are considered to be offering insight into habitual ways of behaving and relating which may be unconscious and deep-rooted but nevertheless susceptible to new experiences. Thus within the boundaries of a therapeutic relationship new ways of feeling and relating can provide insight and offer hope of increased well-being and the potential for change and growth.
Please post your completed application form to
Programme Convener, Otakar Kraus Music Trust
3 Twining Avenue, Twickenham
Middlesex TW2 5LL, United Kingdom.