Developing post-ableist music therapy: An autoethnography exploring the counterpoint of a therapist experiencing illness/disability

Abstract

<p>This PhD examined a therapist’s experience of illness/disability to see if any new light could be shed on music therapy whilst also finding ways to navigate disability as a practitioner. There has not been adequate research attention given to the experiences of music therapists who have an illness/disability. The position is often negotiated in isolation with minimal tools and resources. An arts-based autoethnography was used to determine how the close examination of one’s personal experience with illness/disability can impact on practice, how the work can be negotiated, and to uncover any new practical or theoretical meanings. Furthermore, it looked to determine what arts-based autoethnography could offer one’s practice. A poststructural lens was used that drew on social constructionism, feminism, and the work of Michel Foucault. Data generated from a music therapist’s practice, experiences of illness/disability, literature, and professional documents were analysed using Foucault’s “critical ontology of ourselves” (Foucault, 1984b, p. 47). Hidden processes of problematic ableism were found within the practice examined as well as in some educational and professional encounters. These regimes of ableism were supported by universalising and dichotomising discourses, namely humanism, western normativity, limited observable understandings of disability, and the enforcement of able/disabled divide through many binaries. The methodology provided the tools to reposition the practice to politicise disability and address ableism. Addressing ableism was found to be more complex than simply incorporating disability issues into existing contemporary frameworks. The analysis led to the development of Post-Ableist Music Therapy (PAMT). PAMT extended the relational ethic beyond what was present in the prior practice by drawing on aspects of posthumanism, agonistic plurality, and increasing the visibility of disability studies and crip theory. Therefore, PAMT offers a different lens to the critical orientations’ apparatus: a social justice practice not based on empowerment and humanism but on agonism and posthumanism instead. As there is a lag in the theorisation of ableism, PAMT provides an alternative framework that can be applied to current approaches to increase our professional consciousness of ableism. By repositioning the practice and exploring alternative subjectivities, the professional and personal narratives of a therapist experiencing illness/disability became more integrated, working with–not against–each other in a shared activism. The methodology fostered an increased ethical care of the self; offered tools that critiqued what we are; experimented with going beyond the limits imposed on us. The use of such tools could have wider application in the everyday practices of therapists. The findings have significant implications for practice and training, as the challenges people and societies face cannot be adequately dealt with without tools to explicitly uncover and address normalisation and ableism.</p>

Postmodern Music Therapy

“…(It is worth noting that dependent/independent is one more false duality, like normal/abnormal.)". Shaw (2019) further comments on dualism. She points out that dualist delineations are made from "specific socializations, social expectations, and ideological constraints (p.…”

“…By contrast, Lewis (2006, p. 63) claims that postmodern theory "frees [modernist practices] from enslavement to Method and Objectivity, and it allows more humane perspectives and approaches to emerge as valued and respected." If the move from superstition to science is a modernist advancement, the move from science to humanism (or better yet, posthumanism, as Carolyn Shaw [2019] would suggest) is as much a postmodern advancement. Postmodern ideals do not require a regressive embrace of woo-woo; however, they do rather require an admission of the political and subjective structures surrounding the collection of evidence.…”

“…Finally, Carolyn Shaw's work (2019) on post-ableist music therapy must be mentioned. Shaw's ambitious Ph.D. dissertation envisions a world in which "voices that are often silenced" are heard, (Shaw, 2019, p. 7), and in which the viewpoints of the practitioner-patient (PP) are valued (Shaw, 2019). Shaw (2022) furthermore deploys a posthumanist lens to critique the humanist value of individualism and independence to which disabled people are often coerced to aspire.…”

Music as Critical Social Theory: Developing Intersectional Feminist Praxis Through Music in Aotearoa (New Zealand)

“…139 With respect to where this project is oriented, both the multifaceted exploitation of marginalised peoples, and the multifarious crisis of care 137 See the ASTR website for further information and resources: https://asians4tino.weebly.com/ 138 Naming all these groups in the same sentence is not to imply that their views, perspectives and experiences are necessarily similar, or can be conflated, but rather to highlight the wide range of marginalised views not represented in this project. 139 For recent writing about music and chronic illness/disability in Aotearoa see Shaw (2019).…”

Creating space to grow: Exploring the concept of 'safe space' through music therapy practice in a residential service for people with neurological disabilities.

“…In Cycle Two, I responded to the findings about the relationships between people and place from Cycle One. Having read a wide range of literature about disability, 'safe space' , community music therapy (Boom, 2017) and post-ableist music therapy (Shaw, 2019), I landed on the idea of interdependent musicking. This means making music in such a way that people are both required and empowered to work together.…”