Understanding and Challenging Music Therapists’ Resistance to Critical Disability Studies Perspectives on Normalcy and Diversity Through Consciousness Raising

There are many examples throughout music therapy practice, literature and research where deficit-based perspectives on disability are prominent and pervasive. This has been challenged in recent actions and publications which seek to advocate for increasingly asset-oriented interpretations of disability, often framed from social justice or disability studies perspectives (Leza, 2020; Pickard et al., 2020). Despite this, there is a lingering resistance to challenging ableist discourse in the profession, with anecdotal examples of these affirmative positions being contested and challenged. This paper offers a framework for understanding these resistances and seeking to challenge them, through an aspirational, forward looking agenda. Giddens’ (1984) three-levelled theory of subjectivity is utilised as a theoretical lens for understanding music therapists’ potential resistance or ambivalence in confronting issues of ableism in the profession. This theory discusses three levels of consciousness: discursive consciousness, practical consciousness and the level of the basic security system (Giddens, 1984; cited in Young, 1990, 2011). This model provides opportunity to understand therapists’ purported commitment to inclusivity agenda at a discursive level of consciousness, but in reflecting on the deeply ableist practices and stereotypes that are so widespread in culture and society, offers a rationale for continued perpetuation of ableist practices and perspectives at the deeper levels of consciousness and thus in the music therapy profession. A response to these unconscious attitudes, “dwelling in the everyday habits and cultural meanings of which people are, for the most part, unaware” (Young, 1990: 124) is an anti-oppressive pedagogy (Kumashiro, 2000; Beckett, 2015) which facilitates consciousness raising through critical disability studies informed perspectives. A social connection model of responsibility (Young, 2006) is proposed as a forward looking framework for facilitating change and progress in the profession, inviting a shared responsibility for inclusivity and accessibility by stakeholders at all levels and in all roles (Pickard, 2020).