Music Therapy Conversations

Luke talks to Helen Odell-Miller about music therapy and psychoanalysis, group work in adult mental health settings, research into music therapy and dementia, and many other things.  Dr Helen Odell-Miller OBE is a Professor of Music Therapy, and Director of the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Helen has lectured widely, and has been a keynote speaker at many national and international conferences in Europe, Australia, Asia and the USA. She has worked with parliament and the government advising on music therapy.  Most recently she was one of the Commissioners for the Music and Dementia Strategy in the UK, produced by the International Longevity Centre, and launched at the House of Lords in January 2018: What would life be? Without a Song or Dance, What are We?  Helen is co-editor and an author for the books Supervision of Music Therapy (Jessica Kingsley 2009), Forensic Music Therapy (Routledge 2013) and Collaboration and Assistance in Music Therapy Practice

Episode 13 is Luke's interview with Claire Flower. Claire trained as a music therapist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.  Over the years she has worked in a wide range of settings, as well as running a supervision practice, teaching and examining.  She currently works within the Music Therapy team in the Child Development Service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, where she is joint team lead with Juliet Wood. At present, she is completing her doctoral studies at Nordoff-Robbins.  Her practice-led study is an investigation of ways of working with children and parents in a healthcare context.   References: Bortoft, H. (2012) Taking Appearances Seriously: The Dynamic Way of Seeing in Goethe and European Thought.  Edinburgh, Floris Books.  Flower, C., 2014. Music therapy trios with child, parent and therapist: A preliminary qualitative single case study. Psychology of Music, 42(6), pp.839-845. Blogs: http://musictherapyblog.co.uk/   https://www.musiconmymind.co.uk/ http://dariuszgalasinski.co

In episode 12, which coincides with World Music Therapy Day, Luke Annesley talks to Becky White. Becky teaches clinical improvisation at the University of South Wales and works as an associate lecturer in music therapy at the University of the West of England. She is undertaking PhD research into learning experiences through improvisation of music and music therapy students. The study is arts based, employing qualitative phenomenological interviews combined with improvisations and transcribed with hand-drawn graphic scores. She is a member of the inter-model and inter-disciplinary improvisation research network Concurrent, based at the University of Edinburgh. During this interview Becky refers to a number of papers, including her recent Concurrent study on Voices, which is here. She also references the following: Ferrara, L. (1984) Phenomenology as a Tool for Musical Analysis. The Musical Quarterly, 70(3), pp. 355-373.  Wilson, G.B., and MacDonald, R.A. (2016) Musical choices during group free improvisation

Episode 11 is the recording of the panel discussion from the BAMT AGM in October 2017. The panel members were Joy Gravestock, Anna Maratos, Simon Procter, Alexia Quin and Ben Saul, bringing experience from freelance work, the third sector, and the NHS. The discussion, chaired by Luke Annesley in front of an audience of BAMT members,  encompassed rates of pay, surviving in the 'age of austerity' and communicating constructively with commissioners and funders. The audience participated fully in the developing conversation.

In episode 10 Luke talks to Dr Stella Compton Dickinson about working in forensic settings. Stella is a London-based music therapist, professional oboist, lecturer, UK Council for Psychotherapy registered Cognitive Analytic Therapist and accredited supervisor. She is author of The Clinician’s Guide to Forensic Music Therapy (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) and she has her own private practice and twenty years' experience in the National Health Service as a clinician, Head of Arts Therapies and Clinical Research Lead. Her research was awarded the 2016 Ruskin Medal for the most impactful doctoral research.  Stella’s PhD thesis can be found here, and her website is here.

In part 2 of Luke's conversation with Dean Beadle, Dean talks in some detail about his experiences of music therapy, going on to talk more generally about the importance of music in his life, both when he was growing up, and today, and ending with some helpful and inspiring advice for the UK music therapy profession.

The release of this episode, November the 15th, coincides with European Music Therapy Day. The focus this year is on ‘Hearing Your Voice’. Appropriately, this is the first interview in this series with a music therapy service user.  Dean Beadle has toured the UK for a number of years sharing his experiences of life as an autistic person. He has also spoken in Denmark, Belgium, Guernsey and Ireland as well as undertaking four annual seminar tours of Australia and New Zealand. Through his humorous and insightful speeches Dean outlines his positive outlook on his diagnosis. You can see a clip of Dean in 2011 on YouTube. Dean had music therapy as a child in SE London with music therapist Judith Nockolds, which he talks about in part two of this interview, out next month.  Part one has a focus on perceptions of autism, including Dean’s own feelings about his diagnosis, and some of the challenges he faced as a child coming to terms with various aspects of his identity. He also draws interesting parallels between au

Luke Annesley talks to Anna Maratos. Anna started her career as a music therapist in adult mental health in 1997, and gradually moved into increasingly senior management positions, culminating in her current post as Head of Arts Psychotherapies in Central and Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust. She talks about her changing strategy towards research, as well as instigating a move towards mentalisation based practice at CNWL. Anna delivered a keynote at the 2014 BAMT conference in Birmingham, in which she attempted to identify common ground between different theoretical perspectives towards music therapy. We discuss whether she still sees divisions within the UK profession, three years on.

Luke Annesley talks to Julian O’Kelly about his current research, as well as his doctoral studies at Aalborg University with people with severe head injuries. Julian has published widely on music therapy in palliative care and neuro-disability, and has now ventured in to mental health, co-ordinating a major NHS funded feasibility study on music therapy for chronic depression with East London NHS Foundation Trust. There’s a chance coming up to hear Julian explore the challenges and opportunities for music therapy offered by neuroscience in his forthcoming open lecture at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability on Thursday 14 September 2017, 4.30-5.30pm, and he has recently co-edited an ebook, that’s free to download, on the same subject, which you can find here.

Luke Annesley talks to Mercedes Pavlicevic, author of many important music therapy texts and Head of the Scientific Committee for the BAMT 2016 conference. Mercedes talks about how the music therapist relates to their environment, including social and political contexts, and possible future directions for the profession. She also talks about research, including her own relationship to empirical positivist approaches, and how research can, and perhaps should, grow out of practice. 

In Episode 4 of Music Therapy Conversations Luke Annesley talks to Auriel Warwick about her substantial experience of working with children with a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder, as well as about the challenges of working in schools, and how to communicate effectively with other professionals about music therapy. But before that, she describes her very first encounter with pioneering music therapist Juliet Alvin…

Luke Annesley talks to Dr Catherine Carr about music therapy research in general, and some of her own research in adult mental health in particular. They discuss the relationship between research and training and some of the challenges that the music therapy researcher faces. Is research inevitably reductive, or are there ways of doing research in music therapy which meet the requirements of evidence-based practice, whilst also capturing the essential details of the work? Perhaps most importantly, what can and should clinicians do to stay up to date with the latest research developments?

Luke Annesley talks to Leslie Bunt, Professor of Music Therapy at The University of the West of England, author, clinician, and trainer and supervisor in Guided Imagery in Music, about integrative approaches to music therapy, the inherent risks in clinical work, and liminality.

In the first episode of this new podcast from the British Association for Music Therapy, trustee, music therapist and jazz musician Luke Annesley, is joined by Dr. Rachel Darnley-Smith, a music therapist, researcher and lecturer, in conversation to discuss all things music therapy.