Gilbertson, S. & Aldridge, D. (2008). Music Therapy and Traumatic Brain Injury: A Light on a Dark Night. London: Jessica Kingsley. 159 pages. ISBN: 978-1-84310-665-4. $35.95

Abstract

Gilbertson, S. & Aldridge, D. (2008). Music and Traumatic Brain Injury: A Light on a Dark Night. London: Jessica Kingsley. 159 pages. ISBN: 978-1 -843I 0-665-4. $35.95The shock of an accident that causes a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can be devastating for the victim as well as his or her family and friends. In most cases, the immediate aftermath of an accident that leads to a traumatic brain injury is only the beginning of a lifelong process of healing and rehabilitation. After the initial phase of stabilizing cognitive and physical functioning, emotional and psychosocial needs often develop, and the need for integrative rehabilitation arises.Simon Gilbertson's and David Aldridge's book, Music and Traumatic Brain Injury: A Light on a Dark Night, speaks to me both as a music therapy clinician who has worked with unreachable clients in many settings and as a family member of one who has suffered a traumatic brain injury. The book investigates how music therapy can meet the needs of people who have experienced TBI. Ultimately, the authors find the language to help music therapists working with traumatic brain injuries explain the question why music? to health care professionals, to family and friends of the victim, and to the community as a whole. The authors encourage the integrative, holistic aspects of music therapy, emphasizing that music interventions in music therapy can meet not only the functional cognitive and physical needs of a patient but also the psychosocial and emotional needs that no doubt arise in a hospital setting.The authors use a mixed-methods research design called Therapeutic Narrative Analysis to examine how music therapy can be used to rehabilitate people who have experience TBI. Music and Traumatic Brain Injury: A Light on a Dark Night contains three case studies of people who have experienced TBI. Each case study is unique, but together these create a strong argument for how music therapy can be used to help individuals in the early stage of neurorehabilitation. The word, narrative, within the title of Therapeutic Narrative Analysis may be misleading, and the reader should not expect an in-depth description of each person presented in the case studies. Instead, because the music therapy focus is on the improvisational aspects of a Creative Music Therapy approach, the music provides a rich narrative of the therapeutic communication and interaction that occurs within the temporal context of the music improvisations.The authors have written a book that provides a balance of evidence-based research with humanistic narrative that is voiced with an effective blend of medical, musical, and personal language. I found the mixed-methods used in this study, including the rep-grid analysis, hermeneutic interpretation, music transcript analysis, and clarification of the narrative in light of the results of the analysis, to be rigorous and trustworthy. The durability of the findings, the usefulness of the study to the field of music therapy, the comprehensibility of the results, and the aesthetic depth of the case studies underscore how vital qualitative research can be for the field of music therapy.Chapter 1 helps to orient the reader within the context of the study by first establishing the need for and limitations of neurorehabilitation research and then provides definitions of TBI and rehabilitation. The authors infer that research on music therapy and neurorehabilitation has limited its focus to the cognitive and functional needs of patients and stress that an integrative approach to research is needed so as not to exclude patients' emotional and psychosocial needs as these are important aspects of the rehabilitative process. The authors then give detailed, medically based definitions of both traumatic brain injury and rehabilitation. These definitions not only clarify the researchers focus but also continue to illuminate the need for an integrative research approach to understanding how music therapy can best be utilized in the rehabilitation of people who have experienced TBI. …