When I perform research on Norwegian music therapy contexts, I also research from within Norwegian music therapy discourses. My attachments to certain traditions and worldviews are bound to affect my research process, and how I speak about music therapy. For both ethical and ontological reasons I believe that I am obliged to make transparent for the reader what these Norwegian contexts might be, and how music therapy can be understood through Norwegian discourses. I will present my understan-ding on music therapy ideologies in Norway, mostly based on my previous investigation of Norwegian music therapy discourses (Drøsdal, 2013). The recovery-perspective, which has recently been added to the music therapy discourses, fits well into the pre-vious ideologies and values of the already existing theoretical foundation of Norwegian music therapy (Solli, 2014). The recovery-perspective as part of a humanistic music therapy will be outlined below.
There is a danger in differentiating between Norwegian music therapy discourses and the rest of the world. When I do so it is not because Norwegian music therapy is necessarily something else; Norwegian music therapy is indeed intertwined within the globalized music therapy world, yet I need to make transparent what music therapy often looks like in Norway.
1.5.1 Music therapy as a socio-academic movement
In a previous study (Drøsdal, 2013) I studied the ideological foundation in Norwegian music therapy discourses through the investigation of nine doctoral theses written by music therapists in Norway, where I looked for ideological or value-laden statements (Garred, 2004; Krüger, 2012; Mohlin, 2009; Rolvsjord, 2007; Ruud, 1990; Stensæth, 2008; Stige, 2003; Trondalen, 2004; Aasgaard, 2002). Because the former research process about ideologies and values in Norwegian music therapy is an important part of my understanding of music therapy as a humanistic discipline, I will present the main findings below.
Five categories describing ontological and ideological points of view were found from the analysis of the nine theses: 1) The creative human being, 2) the social human being, 3) a broad understanding of health, 4) cultural boundaries, and 5) social change. In the following I will describe a synthesis of the results, which can be understood as a narrative about Norwegian music therapy discourses:
Human beings are active, playing, and intentionally participating beings, with the need for creative expressions; everybody (should) have the rights to access music activities. Human beings are also social in nature, with the need for belonging, communication and relationships. Health is not a binary matter of the presence or absence of symptoms; good health includes empowerment and growth, the use and development of ones different resources, and the experienced quality of life. Health is not only an individual matter; health is dependent on societal structures and are often inhibited by boundaries and health-degrading structures within our society. Attitudes, policies and cultu-ral norms inhibit participation and engagement for neglected and repressed groups in the society. Music therapy as both an academic discipline and a health profession should help to reveal such health limiting mechanisms in the society. Music therapists should thus help under-privileged service users to be heard, and fight for a societal change that benefit repressed sub-groups in the community. (Drøsdal, 2013)2
In that study I argue that the Norwegian music therapy discourses are highly influenced by the humanistic perspectives of Even Ruud (2008), a scholar who has been immensely important for the academic and professional development of music therapy in Norway (Drøsdal, 2013). Different meta-theoretical perspectives found in the investigated dis-sertations, such as resource-oriented music therapy, community music therapy, and relational music therapy, all share corresponding values and ontological perspectives found in Ruud’s overview of music therapy as a humanistic discipline (Ruud, 2008).
I believe that Even Ruud set the agenda in 1979 when he introduced his definition of music therapy as a way to enable new possibilities for action.
Community music therapy is a broad movement that overlaps the assumptions within the Norwegian humanistic perspective to a great extent (Drøsdal, 2013; Ruud, 2015a, 2015b; Stige & Aarø, 2011). Without going into all of the aspects of community music therapy I find it relevant to name seven key concepts according to Stige and Aarø (Stige
& Aarø, 2011), spelling the acronym PREPARE: participatory, resource-oriented, ecolo-gical, performative, activist, reflective, and ethics-driven. Community music therapy is in part about enabling participation for marginalized or challenges groups in society, and to build down structures that lead to exclusion and stigmas (Stige & Aarø, 2011;
Stige, 2003). One way to challenge the social and structural boundaries that limit par-ticipation in the community for challenged sub-groups, is to facilitate performance; to demonstrate the resources of marginalized participants, and to humanize the unfami-liar for the community, may help to minimize both stigmas in the community and the
2 I changed my last name from Drøsdal to Seberg in the beginning of 2019.
social constructed gaps between groups of people (Ansdell & DeNora, 2016; Pavlicevic
& Ansdell, 2004; Stige & Aarø, 2011; Stige, 2003).
I agree with Rolvsjord (2007) who sais that music therapy may be seen as a social-acade-mic movement with an ethical responsibility to promote health, in order to emancipate marginalized sub-groups, and to work for an including and just community that enables good health for as many as possible.
When I refer to music therapy as a humanistic approach further in the dissertation I apply to the sections above, and especially the narrative based on the former study on Norwegian music therapy discourses.
1.5.2 The recovery-perspective
In recent years the recovery-perspective has been more or less integrated into the Norwegian music therapy discourses, especially through the works of Solli, Rolvsjord, and Borg (Solli, 2014; Solli & Rolvsjord, 2014; Solli, Rolvsjord & Borg, 2013). I support the recovery movement, and I will in the following argue that the branch of recovery perspectives in music therapy is connected to the stem of the whole humanistic music therapy discourse. Even though the recovery movement rises from activism by service users and user organizations, the person-centeredness that is an important part of recovery today, can be viewed as a continuation of the humanistic psychology started by pioneers such as Carl Rogers in the 1940’s (Hummelvoll et al., 2015). It is perhaps not so strange that ideals within the recovery movement correspond with humanistic traditions.
There is no complete or one-sided definition of recovery, but an overarching principle of recovery in mental healthcare is hope, and the belief that it is possible to ‘regain a meaningful life, despite persistent symptoms’ (Jacob, 2015, p. 118). According to Solli (2014) we can recognize many recovery-like elements in the music therapy literature:
Although the recovery perspective has been peripheral in the theory and rese-arch of music therapy, a rather large amount of the theoretical underpinnings of recovery has been elaborated upon in previous music therapy texts. This includes empowerment (Procter, 2002; Rolvsjord, 2004), well-being (Ansdell, 2014; Ansdell & DeNora, 2012; DeNora, 2013), social capital (Procter, 2004, 2011), anti-oppressive practice (Baines, 2013), resource orientation (Rolvsjord, 2010; Ruud, 2010), agency (Ruud, 1998, 2010; Rolvsjord, 2013, Stige & Aarø, 2012), and last but not at least, community orientation and community music
therapy (Ansdell, 2002, 2005, 2014; Jampel, 2007; Stige, 2002, 2012a; Stige
& Aarø, 2012). (p. 15)
Accordingly, there is reason to believe that music therapists and supporters of the reco-very movement in general stand on the same side; recoreco-very- and music therapy-per-spectives seem to share a common ontological understanding about health, and about the individual needs that follow from being cultural human beings.
Hummelvoll, Karlsson, and Borg (2015) propose four important aspects that health professionals should pay attention to in regards to implement a recovery-oriented mind into relevant mental healthcare practices:
• Realising the radical change involved in placing the person at the centre • Acknowledging mental health problems as both personal and social
• Recognising and using knowledge embedded in the lived experience of service users, family members and practitioners
• Paying genuine attention to the spiritual process of recovery (Hummelvoll et al., 2015, p. 1)
From these four points we can recognise ideas presented above regarding music therapy as a humanistic approach; service users are complex human beings with individual strengths and resources, living in cultures that are not always fit to maintain health and well-being of their citizens. The relationships between the service users and the community will be outlined further in chapter two.
A systematic review by Leamey, Bird, Le Boutillier, and Williams (2011) found five key features prominent in the literature about recovery in mental healthcare, which form the acronym CHIME; connectedness, hope and optimism about the future, identity, meaning in life, and empowerment. These key features mentioned are part of my understanding of the content of recovery processes.
In Solli’s (2014) PhD thesis he presents a model that describes how music therapy may be understood from a recovery-perspective. Participation in music therapy may help the participants without necessarily targeting challenges and symptoms. Instead a positive spiral from music therapy participation that help facilitate recovery through several steps; episodes of well-being may lead to an improved sense of self, which may lead to agency, which may lead to symptom alleviation, which may lead to hope, which may lead to well-being, etc. I support this view on thinking about music therapy within
mental healthcare. In order to integrate the recovery-perspective into music therapy, Solli (2014) suggests that:
[…] Music therapy as recovery oriented-practice can best be understood as the affordance of a therapeutic and social arena in which people with mental health difficulties can work on their process of recovery through musicking, rather than a process of systematic diagnosis-specific interventions. (Solli, 2014, p. 57)
This short description of a recovery-oriented music therapy as suggested by Solli reminds me of Ruud’s (1990) classic definition of music therapy mentioned above, that music therapy is a way to enable new opportunities for action. Music therapy can be many different things, and perhaps the most important things are not about what we do in music therapy, but also how we do it, for whom we do it, and why.
According to the recommendations from the Norwegian Directorate of Health (2013) regarding healthcare for service users with schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like disor-ders, fundamental notions found in music therapy correlate with national expectations [my translation]:
Early discovery [of psychotic disorders] and early efforts with knowledge-based effective interventions increase the possibilities for recovery. The interventions needs to be individually adapted, take into account the individual’s resources and contribute to increased mastery and participation in the community.
(Preface)
In the very preface of their recommendations, it seems as though the Norwegian Health Directorate indirectly welcomes a resource- and recovery-oriented, humanistic com-munity music therapy.