Introduction

This book, drawing on the author’s 26 years as a music therapist, explores experience and evidence in music therapy. It asks which experiences count, why, and what is revealed of the cultures of music therapy when some experience is regarded as evidence and some is not.

Shared Musical Encounter

At the heart of music therapy lies a nonverbal phenomenon: shared musical encounter. Those involved can recognise it and respond without words, as ‘insiders’. However, what this experience is, and how it relates to evidence, is not widely explored in music therapy practice and research. Furthermore, the investigations which do exist tend to be verbal, even when participants are nonverbal.

Arts-Based Encounters

As an alternative, this autoethnographic book honours the arts-based encounters fundamental to music therapy by offering the reader their own arts-based experience through poems, images, and more. Through them, the reader (or ‘Collaborator’) is invited to consider the other knowing which comes from arts-based encounter, and its value.

Theoretical Approaches and Implications

Using phenomenological and Aesthetic Critical Realist approaches, this work argues that relational, musical experience central to music therapy is valuable on its own terms as musically mediated, therapeutic evidence of personhood. This challenges the professional status quo which privileges verbal knowledge-creation and evidence measured by outsiders.