PLASTICITY AND ELASTICITY: QUALITIES OF THE MUSIC THERAPY ROOM

Abstract

This article presents two qualities of the music therapy room,
exemplified by two clinical vignettes. The vignettes also demonstrate the creative cycles that occur through interventions involving technology with a specific group of eight young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In regular music therapy dynamics, therapists identify the group’s needs and intervene musically in the here-and-now. The produced musical material, then, can be arranged outside the music therapy room with or without the presence of the clients. The arranged clinical composition or soundtrack is brought back to the group’s process which responds to the intervention, in this way restarting the creative cycle. This therapeutic dynamic enabled me to experience the fact that the music therapy room can have two very powerful qualities: its plasticity (it can be transformed in something else, musically; a train station) and its elasticity (it can be stretched, meaning that an intervention can occur in an extra place as an extension of the music therapy room; a music studio). In saying that, I am also stating that the musicking can be broader, more collaborative, and more social.