Music Therapy and parent infant bonding

Edited by Jane Edwards

The first book to explore and describe the important role that music therapists can play in helping ensure successful attachment between mother and infant - in vulnerable populations
Includes case studies, offering a personal account of how music therapy can help those vulnerable populations
Provides an international perspective, exploring how music therapists across the world are helping improve the lives of parents and infants

Music Therapy and parent infant bonding

Edited by Jane Edwards

Description

Music therapy is an internationally recognised field of professional evidence-based practice. Qualified music therapists use the engaging, non-verbal aspects of music to create relationships in which therapeutic goals can be pursued and needs of clients addressed.

This is the first book to focus specifically on the ways that music therapists provide support for the development of the special and necessary bond between parents and their infants, where some vulnerability is experienced. In the book, music therapists from four countries, Australia, Ireland, the UK and the US describe their practices with reference to contemporary theory and research. Throughout, the chapters are illustrated with engaging case material. Many of the authors are the world leaders in the area of music therapy to promote parent and infant bonding. Others are having their first opportunity to describe their work publicly in print. The focus in each chapter is on the need for this work, the theoretical underpinnings of the practice, and the music therapy practice itself.

The book is arranged in 3 sections. The first section covers work in therapy sessions with children and their parents. The second section describes programmes where the music therapist leads a group of parents with their infants, such as the renowned Sing & Grow in Australia. The final section presents work with medical patients and their families including in the neonatal intensive care unit, and for cancer patients.

The book will be valuable for music therapy practitioners and students, and more broadly for all those in the field of infant mental health.

Music Therapy and parent infant bonding

Edited by Jane Edwards

Introduction, Jane Edwards
1. Music therapy and parent infant bonding, Jane Edwards
2. Becoming in tune: The use of music therapy to assist the developing bond between traumatised children and their new adoptive parents, Tiffany Drake
3. 'The first time ever I saw your faceL': Music therapy for depressed mothers and their infants, Alison Levinge
4. Parents' perceptions of being in music therapy sessions with their children: What is our role as music therapists with parents?, Amelia Oldfield
5. Evaluating parent-child group music therapy programmes: Challenges and successes for Sing & Grow, Kate E. Williams, Jan M. Nicholson, Vicky Abad, Louise Docherty, and Donna Berthelsen
6. The benefits of music sessions for very young children with their parent or carers through the eyes of a music therapist, Margareta Burrell
7. Supporting attachments in vulnerable families through an early intervention school-based group music therapy programme, Karen Kelly
8. Music therapy to promote attachment between mother and baby in marginalised communities, Joanna Cunningham
9. Extending group music therapy to families in schools: A reflection on practical and professional aspects, Alison Ledger
10. Music therapy to support mothers who have experienced abuse in childhood, Toni Day and Helen Bruderer
11. Translating 'infant-directed singing' into a strategy for the hospitalised family, Helen Shoemark
12. Music therapy for hospitalized infants and their parents, Joanna V. Loewy
13. Music therapy supports parent-infant attachments In families affected by life threatening cancer, Clare O'Callaghan and Brigid Jordan

Music Therapy and parent infant bonding

Edited by Jane Edwards

Author Information

Professor Jane Edwards is a qualified music therapist with expertise in research, theory and practice with families and young children. Originally from Australia she directed the first music therapy courses at the University of Queensland before coming to Ireland to lead the development of music therapy training and research at the University of Limerick. She is the inaugural President of the International Association for Music & Medicine. She is the director of the Music & Health Research Group at the University of Limerick.

Contributors:

Vicky Abad, Sing and Grow Playgroup Queensland, Australia and School of Early Childhood, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Dr Donna Berthelsen, School of Early Childhood, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Helen Bruderer, Social Worker Advanced, Maternity and Paediatrics Units, Nambour General Hospital, Nambour, Queensland, Australia
Margareta Burrell, Coram Community Campus, UK
Joanna Cunningham, Music Therapist and creator of 'The SMARTS - an early intervention arts based behavioural support programme for 4 - 7 year olds
Toni Day, National Director, Sing and Grow Project, Playgroup Queensland, Australia.
Louise Docherty, Children's Cancer Centre, The Royal Children's Hospital, Australia
Tiffany Drake, former Head of Music Therapy, Coram, London, UK (maternity leave)
Professor Jane Edwards, Music and Health Research Group, University of Limerick, Ireland
Dr Brigid Jordan, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Karen Kelly, Milford Care Centre, Limerick, Ireland
Dr Alison Ledger, Leeds Institute of Medical Education, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Dr Alison Levinge, Private Clinical Practice and Clinical Supervision with mothers
Dr Joanne V. Loewy, The Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine, USA
Associate Professor Jan M. Nicholson, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and Queensland University of Technology, Australia and Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Dr Clare O'Callaghan, Department of Medicine, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Dr Amelia Oldfield, Anglia Ruskin University, UK
Dr Helen Shoemark, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute; The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Australia
Kate E. Williams, Playgroup Queensland, Australia and Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Music Therapy and parent infant bonding

Edited by Jane Edwards

Reviews and Awards

"Music Therapy and Parent: Infant Bonding builds on the groundbreaking work of 20th century attachment theorists and researchers (Bowlby, Ainsworth, and others) and on musical responses of infants, as well as on musical relating between parents and infants. Toward the end of the 20th century and continuing to the present time, work in early intervention and early childhood has been gaining increasing importance and prominence in the field of music therapy. In Music Therapy and Parent: Infant Bonding Edwards and all the chapter authors are very successful in communicating the fact that clearly music therapists can be very influential in facilitating the attachment process. It is hoped that there will be a follow-up work to continue to add to this important area of music therapy concentration." -- Ronna S. Kaplan, PsycCRITIQUES

Music Therapy and parent infant bonding

Edited by Jane Edwards

From Our Blog

Musical ways of interacting with children

By Professor Jane Edwards As a music therapy scholar, teacher, and practitioner for more than 20 years, I have been able to learn from many sources about the crucial role our early years play in our lives. The ability to reflect on challenges experienced in our adult lives by linking back to childhood experiences is an essential aspect of the way that many music therapists practice. Rather than using descriptions of family histories to apportion blame, the therapist tries to understand the current experience of the patient and their worldview through the lens of past experience, to see if there is some way to make sense of self-destructive behaviours, or difficulties experienced in creating meaningful and satisfying relationships with others.

Posted on December 3, 2012

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