Proceedings, Oxford, UK (2002) - World Federation of Music Therapy

In this condition, a variety of rehabilitation programmes are provided to
meet the elderly people’s individual needs, and music activities have
come to be taken in as one of the choices. Enjoyable sing-along and
listening to music in old days are just two of the typical activities there,
but most musical activities prevailing so far do not seem to have clear
therapeutic point of view nor any theoretical basis. The fact holds true of
any other settings for any other populations, such as for people with
mental illness and children with special needs. Sometimes it seems to be
that music activities are taken place for the activity leaders’ own sake,
and that they tend to feel self-satisfaction through the activities. It seems
urgently important that sincere music therapists should be brought up so
that music activities designed in clinical settings can be appreciated as
genuine therapeutic work.
On the other hand, the actual situation in Japan is that music therapy has
not yet been well established as one of the paramedical occupations.
Therefore, most music therapy students who have finished their training
do not have opportunity to play an active part as professional music
therapist. Nonetheless, there are more and more college students who
want to learn music therapy. What does this phenomenon tell us? How
can we respond to such a demand? One of the answers to be found is that
the training for music therapist is sure to be the basis of all the
occupations involving helping people, as well as the basis of all the
occupations related to music.
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