(from the Barcelona Publishers website)

Humans cannot escape culture. Culture provides the tools humans need to deal with the challenges of everyday life and with the symbolic artifacts they depend upon to communicate and construct their life histories. Culture thus permeates the personalities of therapists and clients, a fact that hardly has been given the attention it deserves in music therapy theory. Culture-Centered Music Therapy explores the implications of taking culture-inclusive perspectives for practice, theory, and research.

Part One outlines premises for the argument, examining basic concepts such as culture, humankind, meaning, “musicking,” and the nature-nurture debate.

Part Two highlights how culture-centered music therapy may be practiced. The scope varies from community music therapy (aimed in part on cultural change in the community), to ecological music therapy (focusing on communication at micro- and mesosystem levels), to individual music psychotherapy (considering the individual in cultural context).

In Part Three, implications for describing and understanding music therapy are discussed, including a chapter on how to define music therapy as practice, discipline, and profession. A culture-inclusive model of the music therapy process is also proposed.

Part Four suggests approaches to music therapy research within a culture-centered context. A call for increased reflexivity, the ability to reflect upon one’s social and cultural position, is at the heart of the discussion, along with a continuing theme of this book: the relations and tensions between local and more general perspectives on music therapy. (2002, ISBN 1-891278-14-2;$28).

Brynjulf Stige is the first Coordinator of the music therapy education program at Sogn og Fjordane University in Sandane, Norway, where he is an associate professor. With diverse experiences as a music therapist using a community based approach, Stige has written numerous articles and books on music therapy and music education. He is editor-in-chief of the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, and co-editor (with Carolyn Kenny) of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.