A Holistic, Humanistic Perspective on Music Therapy: Integrating Carl Rogers' Person-Centred Approach

There are a wide ranges of approaches to music therapy theory and practice, including psychodynamic, music-centred, neurologic and behaviourist informed perspectives. This poster will consider a humanistic perspective on music therapy (Ruud, 2010) and the potential of Carl Rogers’ ‘necessary and sufficient conditions’ as a foundation for this approach (Rogers, 1959, cited in Wood, 2008). It will be considered whether Prouty’s approach to pre-therapy is transferable to music therapy, enabling a focus on the first condition of ‘ establishing psychological contact’ (Prouty, Van Werde and Pörtner, 2002). The person-centred approach is a human one, emphasising that if clients are “responded to in fundamentally positive, respectful and empathic ways… Rogers observed that individuals grew in a positive, prosocial direction” (Bohart, 2013, p. 94). Informed by a non-normative, social model of disability; parallels will be drawn between pre-therapy, the core conditions and music therapy approaches, to demonstrate the potential of informing music therapy with a humanistic, holistic framework – engaging the body & soul, heart & brain.