E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

Wheeler, Barbara: WMFT Proceedings of the Education Symposium
MUSIC THERAPY TRAINING PROGRAMS – EUROPE
1 st report: 4 th E.M.T. Congress (Leuven)
2 nd report 9 th Congress of the W.F. M.T. (Washington)
History
Chava Sekeles, OTR, RMTI
The David Yellin College, Israel
The subject "Developing European Training Standards for Basic
Competencies," already has a history:
One. Tony Wigram first addressed the topic at the 1992 Cambridge Music Therapy
Congress.
Two. Denise Erdonmez-Grocke summarized and evaluated the WFMT questionnaire
at the 1993 World Congress in Spain.
Three. Tony Wigram held a round table session on the topic at the Aalborg congress
in 1995, in which he proposed a minimum number of hours based on a full-time threeyear
program.
Four. Chava Sekeles brought at the Lisbon EMTC seminar in 1997 another proposal
which most members felt was too extensive.
Five. After the above-mentioned seminar, Sekeles distributed a questionnaire to the
participants in order to gain further insight into the organizational and therapeutic
philosophy of the different European Music Therapy Courses. The results of this
questionnaire were brought to the E.M.T. Congress in 1998 in Leuven and now again
at the W.F.M.T. Congress in 1999 - Washington.
This last questionnaire addressed the therapeutic philosophy,
acceptance criteria, program framework (duration of program, certificate
awarded, institutional setting), curricular content/ total hours (music,
medicine, psychology, special education, music therapy integrative studies,
supervised internship), and specific topics. The general idea was to establish
a common standard that will enable and facilitate free movement of music
therapists within EMT countries.
After reviewing and summarizing the programs sent to me, I would
like to point out the following issues without mentioning the name of any
specific program, which I feel would be irrelevant.
Criteria for Acceptance
Some programs only accept candidates with previous academic degrees. Specific
background fields may vary, for example:
1. A Bachelor's degree in musicology and psychology/ a Bachelor's degree in music,
and a course in developmental psychology.
2. University training either in music or in a health care profession + a reasonable
level of proficiency in music.
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