Moving towards anti-oppressive practice in music therapy

Abstract

It is a privilege to be invited to contribute an Editorial to this issue of the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, which maintains and advances the momentum which Thompson’s (2022) call for respect-focused writing set in motion at the end of last year. It is a period of noticeable growth within the profession, with disability studies-informed and social justice-oriented perspectives emerging from theoretical and philosophical works initially, through to examples in practice, research, pedagogy, and increasingly in publications. There is an increasing acceptance that respectful, anti-ableist practice is everyone’s responsibility and not a specialist approach or focus, with ever-increasing dialogue about how to nurture, facilitate and achieve antioppressive aspirations in the profession. This welcome paradigm shift demonstrates the potential of music therapy as an evolving discipline to respond to multifaceted challenges and opportunities, and for antioppressive perspectives (Baines, 2021) to offer practitioners a valuable lens through which to develop and orientate their work. Through working toward dismantling the inaccurate historical binary and power dynamic between music therapy participants and music therapists, expertise by experience is increasingly understood and valued (Swamy & Webb, 2022). Several of the articles in this issue offer landmark examples of these ideas and signal a shift in the trajectory of research and practice in music therapy. In this issue, Marie Strand Skånland asks whether participation in music therapy, offered through flexible assertive community treatment (a Dutch model of communitybased, recovery-oriented mental health care) can contribute to social recovery (p. 290). This recovery-oriented position shifts emphasis from a pathologizing model to recognition of personal and social recovery, with potential for music therapy to optimise the participant’s health. Skånland proposes that the relational experiences shared in the research may add to the service users’ feelings of being met as equal human beings: