Developmental Music Therapy

Abstract

Developmental music therapy provides the integration of multiple theoretical perspectives through which practitioners and researchers seek to understand the context in which the challenges faced by the client and their family or social network are experienced and enacted. The model draws on three main theoretical orientations: (1) Theories of stress, coping, and adaption; (2) Human life span development including stage models; (3) Ecological perspectives such as Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model of development, along with cultural and family theories. DMT can be described as eclectic and opportunistic in terms of its wider theoretical breadth. That is, where an approach from outside the field of music therapy has resonances with these three theoretical pillars it can be incorporated into the developmental practitioner's approach, for example narrative therapy (White and Epston 1990). Boxill is the music therapist who most consistently termed her approach developmental music therapy (Boxill 1989). The traces of developmental perspectives can also be found in many descriptions of clinical work where clinicians use developmental theory, or aspects therein, to elaborate and explain the rationale for their practice.