Saturday 14th October – afternoon

Clinical fields of music therapy  connected to social  problems

 

Orii Mc Dermott  
Senior Research Fellow. Institute of Mental Health, Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology, University of Nottingham (UK) & the Doctoral Programme in Music Therapy, Aalborg University (Denmark)

Working with the person beyond symptom management: contribution of music therapy to wider dementia care
Dementia impacts not only the persons’ cognitive and physical abilities but also communication skills and social relationships. Perceived and actual stigma attached to dementia is still common.
Music therapy research with people with dementia often targets behavioural and psychological symptoms such as agitation and depression. Although there is no doubt reduction of neuropsychiatric symptoms improve the quality of people with dementia and people around them, music therapy is not merely about symptom management. This presentation will highlight some of the clinical skills that are unique to music therapists and how these skills and insights obtained from clinical work with people with dementia can contribute to wider dementia care to provide holistic care for the unique individual. The importance of skill-sharing with care home staff and other health professionals will be discussed, incorporating the outcome of the roundtable discussion on skill sharing at the World Congress of Music Therapy in July 2017.

 

Stefano Navone
Musictherapist at “Ca’ delle ore” Therapeutic Community (Breganze,VI); Professor of Musci Therapy at Conservatory of Ferrara, Conservatory of L’Aquila and Conservatory of Mantova

MusiCare! Music Therapy and Drug Addiction; perspectives, applications and analysis of a research study
The use of Music Therapy in the field of Drug Addiction is an area of growing clinical and applicative interest. Recent studies show that Music can reach the parts of human brain that are linked to Addiction and can function as an integral part of recovery.
The author provides an overview of the main theoretical and applied perspectives of this field of study, offering also a personal application methodology that integrates the reading of Affective Attunement and the Intersubjective dimension in the group work.
Will be described at last some important clinical evidence from a recent research applied to a population of 54 patients resident in a Therapeutic Community.

 

Alessio Surian  
Associate Professor of Teaching at University of Padova and of Music Psychology at “G.Ferrari” school of Music Therapy  of Padova

Giovanna Ferrari
Head teacher;  teacher of Music Therapy at  Ca’ Foscari University of Venezia; founder of the “G. Ferrari” Music Therapy school  of Padova

Dyslexia and music training
The study presents the results of a music training course involving 8-12 years old Italian pupils affected by dyslexia.
The training makes use of the elements of the musical language to improve the process of reading and writing, as the abilities implied by this process are strictly connected to the organization of the musical language. The training has been implemented and tested with positive results both as individual and as group activity; it uses phono-rhythmical-motor elements in an interactive way, in order to make the reading/writing process easier. Rhythmical sequences are associated to colors, shapes, numbers, and movements. They are proposed to the subjects paying attention to gradually increase the level of difficulty. The level of difficulty concerns both the presentation of phonemes and gestures, as well as the relation of phonemes and gestures with different images and numbers. The training focuses on providing adequate cognitive stimulation within an educational game framework that takes into account the specificities of the daily difficulties of the subject.

 

Tina Mallon 
Music therapist for „Children for tomorrow“, Hamburg, Germany; research scientist at the Department of Primary Medical Care, Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf

Music Therapy with Refugees in Germany – theoretical framework and practical insight into a challenging work environment
In 2013, the Musiktherapie-Initiative e.V. was one of the first small associations to try and provide music therapy for refugees by offering open drum group sessions in the refugee camps. Since then several group projects have been successfully implemented. From the practical experience gained, a theoretical model has been developed. The model is a first attempt to classify the music therapeutic experience gained within the different settings: 1) open group settings, 2) small group sessions and 3) individual therapy sessions. Within these settings the aspects of “home, integration and cultural differences” have been identified as key topics in music therapy and each of the three topics shows a different quality according to the setting. Practical examples will be given to illustrate this approach.

 

Deborah Parker 
Educational coordinator for Community Music Project,  Prima Materia Association, Montespertoli (Firenze); Project manager “Music and Resilience”, Libano; project manager “MARS” (Music and Resilience Support),

MARS training: a new challenge for Music Therapy in the context of marginalised communities in and beyond Europe
What can music therapy contribute to the worldwide challenge of caring for the ever-increasing numbers of marginalised, deprived and under-resourced communities, forced to flee their homelands, leading to loss of safety and basic human rights and undermining of cultural identity? The MARS project, developed by an international partnership under the leadership of the International Music Council, Paris, with funds made available by the EU Erasmus Plus program, addresses this challenge with a formation course for music therapists, community musicians and education/health workers, drawing on extensive experience with refugee communities in many parts of the world, with the aim of increasing awareness within Europe of the potential music holds for empowering deprived people, caring for them and rediscovering their voice in advocating for dignity and rights. The presentation will focus on the necessary re-modelling of the traditional frameworks of music therapy, embracing social, political and anthropological research, in order to re-examine notions of health, culture and citizenship, and the consequences for music therapy practice outside our ‘comfort zones’.

 

Anna Vandoni 
Medical responsible of a local unit of child neuropsychiatry at “Santi Paolo e Carlo” Hospital (Milan, Italy).

Federica Galli
Clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at University of Milan

“Migrant music therapy”: taking care in a new way, through the integration of clinical work, training and research of ASST “Santi Paolo e Carlo”, Milan.
The project began in 2009, in a local unit of child neuropsychiatry, as a further support in taking care of migrant children and their parents, mostly affected by language, learning and behavioral diseases. Departments of Maternity, Mental Health and Neurology were gradually involved, in a network perspective aimed at prevention and continuity of therapy, sustained by music therapy training in a clinical setting. In the very next future, Hospital University and researchers will stand as a reference for the operators on checking results and guidelines definition, in order to promote the circulation and to reinforce the stabilization of clinical music therapy among the network of Italian Health Services