The Music Therapy Interactions of One Session with a Physically Disabled Boy

Abstract

This paper looks in detail at the events of one individual music therapy session with a physically disabled boy aged seven years. In the context of his case history and his music therapy sessions up to that point, it describes the content and quality of therapist/child musical contact as it changes over the three sections of the session. Musical notation illustrates key passages. Aspects of the development of the physically disabled child are considered and related to the vision the child gives to the music therapist of his predicament. Musical events are conceived of as expressing and as having potential for resolving the child's difficulties in relating to a key figure, and to the environment they share.