Notes on notes: A critical reflection on clinical writing in music therapy practice

Abstract

Therapeutic encounters are swathed in writing from referral and consent forms, clinical and process notes, evaluations and assessments to reports. However, there has been very little research into the broader meaning, function and context of writing in music therapy. In this article, I hope to encourage music therapists to think critically about the writing they produce and use in clinical practice. I draw on guidance from professional bodies, theories of memory, phenomenology, existentialism, the psychoanalytic perspectives on language of Lacan and Kristeva and post-modern ideas around the meaning and contextual understanding of a text through the writings of Foucault, Barthes and McLuhan. I encourage more reflexivity regarding the role of the music therapist’s self and intersubjective elements within the writing. I ask what influence the act of writing itself exerts on clinical practice and reflect on the role of language and its adequacy for describing the music therapy encounter. I further explore how music therapists contextualise the writing they produce, speculating on some of its functions in relation to the therapist, client and institution. In conclusion, I argue that clinical writing in all its forms potentially has a powerful impact on the therapy process as a whole.