ABSTRACT
Despite an extensive prehistory of connections between the arts and health, the arts therapies have emerged as distinct, coherent disciplines and professions since the 1940s. In a number of countries art, music, drama and dance movement therapy have become recognised as formal disciplines and professions within existing health and care provision. The past half-century has witnessed a massive shift from a situation where there were virtually no arts therapists, with no professional identity, specific theory or established ways of practising, to one where there is a contemporary flourishing of practice, training, published research and theory with developing recognition by state medical providers in a number of countries. One of the very first academic professional trainings, for example, was established in music therapy, at the University of Kansas, USA, in 1946. The National Association of Music Therapy in the US followed in 1950. By the end of the twentieth century there were almost seventy degree courses approved by the National Association and its partner organisation the American Association of Music Therapy (Bunt, 1997:250). Now there are over 3,000 music therapists practising in the USA, with recorded music therapy initiatives occurring in over thirty countries. This is an example of the advance of the arts therapies from their comparatively recent beginnings. Part II, ‘The arts therapies: definitions and developments’, describes the different arts therapies and their aims. It looks at organisations and associations that oversee training and practice in many parts of the world, referring to arts therapists from the USA to Taiwan, from the UK to South Africa. Chapter 2 gives an overview of the process of definition, and each subsequent chapter deals with one of the main modalities: art; music; drama; and dance movement. Specific definitions of each discipline are given in Chapters 3 to 6, though examples of the ways the arts therapies are practised are also contained throughout the book. This book focuses on art, music, drama and dance movement therapy, as they are the main ways in which the arts therapies are currently offered. Other areas such as the expressive arts therapies, where all art forms are brought together, are referred to, however. The commonalities and differences between art, music, drama and dance movement therapies are described and looked at in terms of what they can offer to clients. Whilst Chapters 3 to 6 describe each discipline, Chapter 7 looks at the relationship between the different arts therapies, as well as that between the arts therapies and the arts-in-health movement.
