Music for life

by Gary Ansdell

Creative Music Therapy is an approach whose aim is to enable a musical experience which speaks for itself. It has its origins in working with children with special needs; in the last twenty years, however, the approach has been used extensively in music therapy with adult clients with learning disabilities, chronic illness, and mental health and psychosocial problems. Music for Life is the first survey in book form of this work with adult clients. It presents: case studies of work carried out by the author and other therapists in the UK and Germany, accounts of work with clients with learning disabilities, neuro-motor damage, Alzheimer's disease, AIDS and psychosomatic problems, details of working with a coma patient and in a music therapy group, theoretical chapters, drawing on themes emerging from the case studies - on creating, expressing and meeting in music. Central to the book is the idea that music therapy derives its uniqueness from music's base as a non-verbal art form.