ABSTRACT
IN the previous chapter we concluded that a non-medical or extra-medical foundation is necessary for community music therapy; practices involve issues that are simultaneously private and public and which typically require transformation that includes both personal and social change. One implication is that community music therapy involves working with attitudes and assumptions in order to increase people’s prospects for social participation. Ruud (1980, 1998) presented a similar argument, when he linked music therapy to efforts for increased possibilities for action. Such possibilities are not solely defined by the individual’s preferences and performances but by the relationships between individual and community, including the material, psychological, and socio-cultural forces that keep some people in marginalized roles.
