Music & Life in the Field of Play
Kenny, Carolyn (2007). Music & Life in the Field of Play. An Anthology. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.
Reviewed by Even Ruud, PhD., Prof., University of Oslo, Norway.

With this anthology Carolyn Kenny has collected her main articles and books from a lifelong project of aligning the field of music therapy with her background and writings from first nations studies. The book is divided into five parts encompassing a total of twenty-six chapters, earlier published as articles in journals or as conference papers. Included are Kenny’s books The Mythic Artery and The Field of Play as well as some of her later writings on philosophy of science. Not least, the book is deeply coloured by the author’s own personal background in first nation studies, her Navajo values and experiences.

In an age of increasing globalisation, music therapy will come to meet with narratives of musical healing from a variety of musical cultures. Quite often these stories are made invisible by the more dominant western grand narratives of music therapy. As one of the few professionals with a background in two different musical and healing value systems, Carolyn Kenny is certainly the first to make a bold comparison and thus challenge some of the dominant values connected to the aesthetics as well as the ethics of contemporary music therapy.

This radical impulse can be traced back to Kenny’s earliest writings, as evidenced in the book The Mythic Artery. Originally published in 1982, this text signalizes a new direction in the post-Gaston North American positivist music therapy. When Gaston in the sixties was discoursing music therapy as a profession where social adaptation and social control were highly held values (I am here referring to the film E.Th. Gaston made about music therapy internship for the NAMT in the sixties), Kenny advocates creativity, expression and non-conformity as a true child of the new generation who opposed many traditional values. Kenny was quite early in bringing concepts of health and wellbeing into the conceptual framework of music therapy, and in her cultural critique of much therapeutic practice she speaks for the reintegration of art into our everyday life – a distinct mark of her own cultural history and identity.

This sense of wholeness and of how things are interconnected, led Carolyn Kenny to the field of systems theory, which resulted in her doctoral dissertation and later book, The Field of Play. Again we are met with a critique of dominant and simplified models of explanations within our field, such as mechanistic or mono-causal theories of “the effects of music”. Of course, Carolyn Kenny’s engaged and sometimes idealistic critique of much contemporary health practice and therapeutic work will be met by counter-critique both from positivist as well as from a more post-structuralist position. Sometimes, in her earlier writings, Kenny interprets reality much as a reflection of how things are, rather that a projection or construction of how things ideally should or could be. This longing for a lost wholeness to be healed by the arts seems to pervade much of her writings and to lead her music therapy towards an existential, cultural and social project. In that sense, Carolyn Kenny also foresees the recent movement towards community music therapy.

At the bottom of Kenny’s philosophy there seems to be a sort awareness of aesthetic qualities, a kind of mindfulness, a sense of being connected to nature and fellow beings through the everyday practice of art as informed by the Navajo life practice. In a situation where health authorities, at least in Europe, search for alternative values to guide our health performance, there is a call for humanistic health research. Not in order to oppose the natural science hegemony, but to formulate an alternative conception of our understanding of health. Kenny’s approach seems to be rich in alternative conceptions of health, resilience and coping factors: coherence – integration and strength seems to be keywords to be deduced from a life practice were the concept of “self-in-relation” is a natural way of living in a community of caring.

From Carolyn Kenny’s extended and diverse practice and research it seems quite logical that she has embraced a broad spectrum of qualitative research methods and philosophies of science ranging from phenomenology and hermeneutics to critical theory, social constructivism and narrative methodology. The book is highly recommended to everyone who wants to learn how to ”beautify the world” as well as the field of music therapy

Music & Life in the Field of Play: An Anthology by Carolyn Kenny.
Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers, 2006.
ISBN 1-891278-39-8
Reviewed by Dr. Susan Hadley, MT-BC
For the British Journal of Music Therapy (2007)

Carolyn Kenny believes that the music therapist must be an artist, a visionary, and an initiate. In this book and in her work more generally, she certainly embodies all three. She has artistically woven together concepts from diverse domains of inquiry and schools of thought, frequently interspersed with images and poetry, in order to create new alternatives in music therapy. As a visionary, the foresight and imagination that fueled Carolyn Kenny’s earliest writings is remarkable when we consider that it is only now that many of the themes that she was concerned with decades ago are being embraced. Similarly, through her work she has initiated new ways of working in music therapy.

This book also speaks to the visionary attitude of Barcelona Publishers. This is one of several books recently published by Barcelona that brings together in a single volume the writings of a seminal figure in the field of music therapy. Similar volumes include the writings of Mary Priestley (Essays on Analytical Music Therapy, 1994), Helen Bonny (Music and Consciousness: The Evolution of Guided Imagery and Music—Helen Bonny, 2002, ed. Lisa Summer), Florence Tyson (Psychiatric Music Therapy in the Community: The Legacy of Florence Tyson, 2004, ed. Michael G. McGuire), and William Sears (Music—The Therapeutic Edge: Readings from William W. Sears, 2007, ed. Margaret Sears).

In order to provide a feel for Music & Life in the Field of Play: An Anthology, I will relate some of Carolyn Kenny’s story. Carolyn Kenny was born in the mid-40s into a bicultural family. Her father is a first-generation American who parents were immigrants from Russia and the Ukrain. Her mother was a Choctaw whose mother abandoned her when she was 3 years old. Carolyn’s mother was then raised by a Caucasian family. Carolyn therefore never knew her Choctaw grandmother. However, she has a very strong connection with her indigenous culture. Indeed, she states that “After my mother, a Choctaw, died, I felt compelled to participate more and more in a cultural life which represented the rich diversity of my ancestors” (149).

This bicultural beginning is reflected in the interdisciplinary nature of Carolyn Kenny’s academic training. As an undergraduate at Loyola University in New Orleans in 1964, she majored in history and political science with a minor in philosophy and journalism. After then completing teacher training and an associate of arts degree in music therapy in the late 1960s and early 1970s, also at Loyola, she embarked on a journey in 1976 in an interdisciplinary master’s program at the University of British Columbia where she studied educational psychology, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and special education. Her master’s thesis, which I will come to later, was a blending of music therapy and Indigenous studies. Carolyn Kenny notes:

She found this connection with the Indigenous peoples of British Columbia. In 1983, she began her doctoral studies at The Fielding Institute, where the focus was on systems theory and praxis, which by its very nature is interdisciplinary. And now she is a professor of Human Development and Indigenous Studies at Antioch University while continuing to work and publish in music therapy.

This bicultural beginning is also reflected in the interdisciplinary nature of Carolyn Kenny’s understanding of music therapy theory and practice. This is seen in the five sections of this book which are organized according to themes.

Part One, A Mythic Journey, contains writings from 1978–1983, and includes her first book, The Mythic Artery, which grew out of her masters thesis. The major theme of the five chapters in this section is that “music communicates patterns and structures of tension and resolution that translate into themes of death and rebirth that can be effectively used in music therapy” (167). In this work, Kenny focuses on the death-rebirth myth as an essential aspect of healing and human development. And she shows how the patterns of tension and resolution in music reflect the letting go of (or dying) that happens inevitably in order for us to grow. Her image of music being an artery—liquid, vibrating, full of life-giving nutrients and chemicals, quenching our thirst, going to and coming from the heart, traveling through time, carrying the wisdom of the ages, restoring, recreating, cleansing, bringing us to community, giving us power, strength, and humility, recycling, purifying and transforming—is dynamic and is rich in its vitality. Throughout these writings, there is an interweaving of both Western and Indigenous worldviews. After writing her thesis, Carolyn Kenny’s mentors emphasized the responsibility she had as a Native scholar to publish her work. This mantel is one that many scholars from oppressed groups continue to carry.

Part Two, Field Theory for Music Therapy, contains writings from 1985–2000, and includes her book, The Field of Play, which grew out of her Ph.D. dissertation. Dissatisfied with the language, concepts, and theories available in music therapy, Kenny turned to a whole systems approach and field theory in order to develop a possible general theory which would accurately reflect the music therapy process which she called The Field of Play. Again, in this work, she draws on contemporary theoretical concepts and on the ancient practices of her Indigenous heritage. A core belief that Kenny holds is that the human person is an aesthetic, a field of beauty, whole and complete. She warns that in our work we have a tendency to focus on acute or chronic conditions or symptoms or disablements which limits our sense of wholeness and beauty. Thus, she states that the role of the therapist is not to fix the person but to help the person elaborate his/her beauty, to feel his/her own wholeness, and as such engage in a process of healing. In fact, in her view, this process is one of growth for both parties in the therapeutic relationship because each is in a process of elaborating his/her beauty in relationship with the other. These two aesthetics interplay in the field of the musical space, a place of experimentation. Emanating from this more contained space is an expanded field, the field of play. In this theory, the field of play contains secondary fields: ritual, power, particular state of consciousness, and creative process. The theory is a dynamic one, with new fields being created out of relationships that are formed between overlapping fields. The dynamic nature of the theory is essential because it needs to reflect the dynamic nature of music, of the therapeutic relationship, of healing, and of life. Also important to her theory are conditions, the conditions that each human as an aesthetic brings into the field and conditions in each of the fields. Central concepts that she holds are the interrelatedness and interdependence of various systems. Included in this section are answers to questions posed about her theory of the field of play and a response to a critique of the field of play. These help to clarify aspects of her theory.

Part Three, Being Native, contains six chapters about her work with Native peoples. In this section, Kenny delineates a concept that she calls “the sense of art,” which I take to be a way of being in the world that sees the arts not as separate but as an integral part of life. This sense of art is seen in aboriginal peoples throughout the world. And it is this sense of art that is being utilized in Kenny’s more recent work (these writings are from 1997–2005) in the revitalization of aboriginal cultures through the arts. In this section, we see more of Kenny’s post-colonial discourse. An underlying theme in this section is that of beautifying the Earth by keeping the world in balance. Also, what becomes more evident is the powerful love ethic which is fundamental in her worldview. This love ethic is refreshing and in stark contrast to the emotionally distant therapist that is so often reified in therapeutic discourse. Kenny also shares in this section that Charles Eagle and William Sears, two other significant figures in music therapy also have Native American ancestry.

Part Four, The Integration: Education, Practice, Research, contains eight chapters about how her ideas relate to research, education and practice. In many of the chapters, Kenny considers culture and its relationship to music therapy and advocates for a worldview that embraces cultural pluralism. She begins by examining research cultures in music therapy and urges that we welcome complexity and create a comprehensive research culture in music therapy. While it is validating to form communities with those who share our worldviews, characteristics, values, customs, aesthetic preferences and interests, it can lead us to not really interrogate our beliefs and values. It feels safe, but as Kenny states, “Our ability to succeed in the long run depends on our ability to cross cultures, to respect our differences and to learn from them” (189) and “to assume that one approach is ‘it,’ is dishonoring the wholeness, the complexity, the richness of being” (193). Examining cultural influences on music therapy training Kenny asks the utterly significant question, how do we categorize “the other”? She shows that marginalized groups continue to be perceived as “less than” by the dominant group and that this is really evident in music therapy training programs. Questions she poses include: Are all cultural groups in the region represented in music therapy programs? Does the curriculum have one token “multicultural course,” or is the entire curriculum infused with cultural issues? Are we preparing our students to be in a position to understand group process and facilitation when “difference” is key, to truly hear the position of the other, the voices of the other? Does the curriculum emphasize world musics? Importantly she stresses an awareness and knowledge of one’s own cultural identity (far too often, we do not see our own culture because it is implied); a wide range of experience in different cultures; a high tolerance for complexity and paradox; a capacity to embrace ambiguity, resourcefulness and a good imagination. Kenny also asks us to take these ideas and apply them to our awareness and knowledge of our own culture of music therapy and how it is related to other professional cultures.

Part Five, Ecological Music Therapy, contains two chapters, one of which is a reflection on the ecology of music therapy from a native perspective, in which Kenny discusses colonization and the marginalization in relation to the dominating practices of men on the lives of indigenous peoples. As such, she brings her indigenous worldview and compares and contrasts it with feminist schools of thought in relation to her views about music therapy theory. And her final chapter is a reflection during a time of war, entitled “A song of peace: dare we to dream?”

Coming back to Carolyn Kenny’s status as a visionary, I am going to illustrate this with a few pertinent examples. In the 1970s Kenny was fueled by questions including: What are inherent processes in the musical experience that can be applied to music therapy? What are unique characteristics about music therapy? Can music therapists create new designs in research to accommodate music therapy instead of directly applying designs created for other disciplines? What part of the client is sacrificed to achieve the goals of therapy? And, why increase the number of therapies that, whatever their definition, usually do not emphasize creativity and take power of decisions about healing away from the clients? In the early 1980s she was critiquing the medical model and advocating for an approach where the therapist attends to the other in a way that “implies a mutuality” (12), and in which “the individual must have total freedom of choice and the right to self-determination” (16), which is resonant with feminist practices in music therapy; the illusion of predictability that was seen in medicine and the behavioral sciences and which was sustained by the widespread use of statistics (18-19), and advocated for qualitative (especially phenomenological) approaches to music therapy research; that the mind-body separation was on the wane (24); that people can manipulate their environment and often do so without considering the consequences in terms of survival and that nature is not only that which can be observed, but a vital force which somehow manages to keep the elements in balance and harmony and must therefore have wisdom far beyond our knowledge (27); and introduced ideas of a whole systems approach and field theory to music therapy, ideas which are only now becoming much more accepted. More recently she has brought a critical discourse to issues of professionalism, colonialism, and multiculturalism. And many of her views are congruent with the growing field of disability studies (156, 174, 179).

Given that this book is a collection of writings from 1978 to the present and that her ideas have continued to evolve, there are several times when key themes/paragraphs return as if in Rondo form. Such is the nature of this kind of book. While some may view these passages as unnecessary redundancy, I found that with each return came an enriched understanding of the concepts and a feeling of returning home. As Kenny states in a different context, “Narrative forms are produced repetitively until the eidos is discovered, shining through as the common elements in all the stories” (199).

Carolyn Kenny believes that there is interdependence amongst elements in nature and she is committed to restoring balance in our world. This balance is on multiple levels, in individuals, communities, nations, the environment, the world community. Thus, by helping individuals to elaborate their beauty, she is by extension, helping to beautify the world.

Finally, at one point in her writings, Carolyn Kenny states that “Throughout history, creative people are seldom recognized for their opinions and products within their lifetime” (15). Let us not fall prey to this pattern. It is my hope that those music therapists who are not already intimately familiar with Carolyn Kenny’s writings take the time to immerse themselves in her work, let it run through their veins, and nourish their understanding of the nature of music and life in the field of play.

Book Review
in
Canadian Journal of Music Therapy, 2008
of
Kenny, Carolyn (2006). Music & Life in the Field of Play: An Anthology.
Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.
by
Martin Howard, MA, RCC, MTA. Instructor, Music Therapy Program, Capilano College. Co-editor, Country of the Month, Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, www.voices.no

This book came into being after Barcelona publishing approached Carolyn Kenny about putting together an anthology of her music therapy writing over the years. This is a testament and tribute to the enduring presence and impact of a true music therapy visionary.

The book is divided into five different parts or sections, each with a number of chapters. The five parts are representative of the journey that Kenny’s life of scholarship within music therapy and indigenous studies has taken. This gives a narrative feel to the book which is inviting to the reader. In addition, each of the five parts opens with a newly written introduction by Kenny which further thickens the narrative thread and serves to contextualize the material of each section.

Upon receipt of the book I was pleased by its feel and format. It’s great that they were able to run this first edition in soft cover; despite the inclusion of two previous books, journal articles, edited book chapters and a variety of conference keynote addresses, it is lightweight and easy to handle and pack around. The larger page size keeps it to 247 pages and allows for a very readable two columns of text per page. The best part is that we now have all this rich material in one place. My Kenny material was spread through various stuffed files entitled music therapy research, music therapy theory, cultural awareness, systems theory, and general music therapy. I now see that my collection was incomplete and that I was unaware of a number of her writings.

Part one, A Mythic Journey, features, Kenny’s entire first book, The Mythic Artery: The Magic of Music Therapy, which was originally adapted from her Master’s thesis. There are also four other papers (chapters) which in a similar vein boldly call for music therapists to recognize and embrace the broader and deeper resonances of a musical experience. Kenny extols that meeting and traveling together in music represents not only an intimate encounter between people, but at the same time the music connects us “…to the mainstream of humanity – past, present and future… as a constant reminder of the ongoing process of life.” (p.67) Of course, fundamental to the ongoing process of life is death – literal or symbolic - and much of this early work emanates from Kenny’s use of the Death – Rebirth Myth. This is a symbolic framework, identified by Kenny as the healing agent in music which, when applied to the therapeutic music endeavor is analogous to transformation, growth and change. As any experienced therapist knows, these things - the very goals of therapy - are often faced with fear and uncertainty. By acknowledging and utilizing such contradictory feelings the Death – Rebirth Myth, in the context of Kenny’s broader Mythic Artery conceptualization, provides a framework that encompasses this therapeutic paradox. The Death – Rebirth Myth, which as Kenny points out is so apparent in musical process, is communicated analogously through the structure of music’s continual tension and resolution (p.6).

Revisiting Kenny’s early work, as reflected in the Mythic Journey section of this book, took me back to my music therapy training when I was first introduced to her writing. I was in my early twenties and remember being both captivated and somewhat lost by her writing. Captivated by her daring to highlight and plunge headlong into the mysterious, the “magic” in music. While this was something I had experienced in music and was in large part what led me into music therapy in the first place, I also had a limited engagement with the ideas as I did not yet have the conceptual scope to fully entertain them. As well, the poetic turn that Kenny had found to articulate that which is so elusive via the written word was lost on me at the time. Hence, I remember finding her writing obtuse. It was actually not until I began practicing Tai Chi and consequently became acquainted with Taoist and Zen philosophical traditions that I could then look back at these writings with a perspective broad enough to contain the paradoxes and the uniting of the opposites that this work demands. (I had also gained a lot more life and music therapy experience!) Then I got it. If there is a “Tao of Music Therapy”, this is it.

Part Two of the book, Field Theory for Music Therapy, covers the next phase of Kenny’s scholarship. In Part One there is clearly a synthesis at work between Kenny’s Native background, Native scholarship and music therapy - indeed this is a great theme throughout the whole book. In Part Two Kenny situates her music therapy approach in relation to broader psychological and philosophical academic traditions including but not limited to field and systems theory, existential phenomenology, hermeneutics, consciousness, aesthetics, and the topic of theory building. In keeping with the structure of Part One this section contains Kenny’s second book, The Field of Play: A guide for the theory and practice of music therapy, her music therapy model which was developed as her doctoral dissertation.

Kenny’s model arose out of her wish to convey what she felt was really happening in her music therapy sessions, her awareness of a lack of language with which to accurately do this, and her desire to create a music therapy model – one of many possible – which was comprehensible and even useful for other health care professionals. Kenny found her answer through an articulation of the qualities and conditions for the creation of the space in which music therapy occurs. In doing so she not only outlined her own model, but laid a possible groundwork for the formulation of other models. Hence, Kenny’s model doesn’t map out what happens in a stage-like process that therapists can follow, so much as it elucidates elements that unfold and develop as therapist and client come together in a therapeutic encounter or field. Namely these are the inherent conditions and qualities contained within seven opening and closing smaller and distinct fields.

In their subtlety these qualities and the operation of the fields are easily obscured by our “doing” mindset and our need to strive and/or keep pace with current clinical trends dictated by the dominant paradigms of the day. Indeed, Kenny’s theory is more about being and allowing than doing and making. When there is an inherent knowledge of, and respect for, something profoundly healthy in the varying patterns of musical sound and associated imagery, as well as in the very act of creating such a forum with a person or people, sometimes the Therapist needs to get out of the way. As such, two core constructs (among many) inherent in Kenny’s approach are beauty and love. The former is no trifle in Kenny’s view, but is held in the grandest and gravest sense in that human beings are seen as needing beauty and beauty making experiences for our very survival. Moving towards beauty is viewed as indicative of moving towards wholeness or a fulfillment of potential. In this sense humans are re-defined as forms of beauty. Love is a quality present in the aesthetic of the therapist which helps the client negotiate the fear and uncertainty associated with engaging in the journey on the unknown path leading to change. One may keep in mind that from Kenny’s Native worldview spirit is inseparable from every context. With a sense of the spiritual so integral to ones perspective it is no wonder that when you get right down to the bones of the matter concepts such as love and beauty figure so prominently. Interestingly, most people do not question the elementary importance of such qualities in their own lives, yet when it comes to clinical conceptualizations and settings such basic human constructs are often left at the door. Kenny turns this on its ear by telling us not to be beguiled and limited by dominant clinical culture and to leave our theories at the door. She states above all, “First, be a human being with a heart. Don’t get distracted from that.” (p.74). The point being that such human to human contact provides the necessary security, and thus the freedom to “play” with creative alternatives” (p.114).

With its elemental tone the field of play works for me on an almost preconceptual level. It feels as though Kenny has outlined a context which is philosophically prior to, and constitutive of, the emerging conceptualizations about what happens in music therapy. It’s present in the background, or perhaps around whatever else I think is going on in my sessions. Again, when I consider this model in relation to my work it appears not as something followed or prescribed as much like something somehow remembered; like being brought home to the music.

As mentioned, while there is a theme throughout this book to do with integrating Kenny’s Native roots with music therapy, the articles that make up the chapters in the third part of the book, Being Native, come directly from Kenny’s native studies. Kenny has a strong link to Canada in this regard. She describes how Canada is where she fully realizes her deep connection to a Native context. The articles in this section center around the theme “the sense of art” which Kenny developed through her personal connections and experiences with the Haida and Maori people, and formal research on the role of the arts in the revitalization of Haida culture. “The sense of art” as a concept reflects the centrality of an aesthetic and spiritual sensibility in the shaping, or reshaping of a culture, the development of which is of particular importance in children. Music therapists will relate to this material where the arts and creativity are positioned as a prime, vital ingredient in a culture’s healing and road to becoming whole.

Beyond the obvious deeply personal motivation behind her Native scholarship, and with a level of concern and dismay for the way in which Native practices are sometimes misappropriated and used out of context, is an intention that society at large may benefit from the wisdom of tribal societies (p148). Kenny’s larger perspective was conveyed in a comment made during a talk she recently gave at the College where I teach music therapy. Responding to a question about Native practices in therapy she said, “Every one of us here, if you go back far enough has tribal roots. With First Nations People it’s just more recent.” (Kenny, 2007).

The final two parts of this book, The Integration: Education, Practice, Research and the brief Ecological Music Therapy, explore said (the title) topics in terms of ways we relate to our work as music therapists from cultural and multi-cultural perspectives. The influence of culture in music therapy has been another concern of Kenny’s. She defines culture as the very mode with which we ascribe meaning to events and experiences. She comments further that ones culture is so integral to our view of things that it is sometimes difficult to see (Stige & Kenny, 2002). Here again Kenny draws attention to an aspect of our experiencing – sensory perception of sound, beauty, ritual/healing patterns in music, so close as to be easily obscured by cognitive reckoning.

On the topic of culture, a further Kenny legacy beyond this anthology has been the co-founding, with Norwegian music therapist Brynjulf Stiige, of Voices, a web based international forum for music therapy (www.voices.no), which features culture as a central topic among its many themes. There will be something of interest and relevance at the fingertips of every music therapist in this multidimensional resource.

Also included in this final portion of the book are two chapters which take the reader into the heart of Kenny’s work, an examination of her practice with a client. The material here was taken from interviews several years after their work together was completed. In reading these texts one gets a sense of the new possibilities and “playing with alternatives” that are inherent in the field of play.

In the preface of this anthology Ken Aigen invites the reader to inhabit the space created by Kenny’s writing. I find this space at once simple and challenging; the former in that I’m beckoned into a simple, mindful presence of the mingling of the basic musical elements with my senses, into a place of intuition and first order response, where the play in musical interaction and an awareness of the freedom engendered through that process is highlighted. At the same time the space is challenging. Not only because the scope of the scholarship drawn upon to support the articulation of the features of the space is substantial, but also because maintaining a focus on the qualities deemed so important in these pages (and which speak to an inner knowing) is often at odds with the currents of influence and the pressures inherent in the clinical world. I am a clinician as well as a music therapy instructor. Dilemma comes to the fore. How much do we bend to the language and paradigms of the healthcare cultures we music therapists find ourselves in? Enough to get along and be viewed as part of the team, sure, but it is imperative that this is not to the point of losing sight and somehow the articulation of what it is that makes music therapy unique.

So reading Carolyn Kenny often sends me into reverie. Her writing, in its fundamentally philosophic nature, serves as a catalyst to that realm of thought concerned with matters of truth, trust, meaning, choice and generally a consideration of the very nature of what it means to be a music therapist. No small questions these, and my hunch is that Kenny would be pleased to be the cause of such existential musings. When I was relatively new at teaching music therapy I asked her about trying to balance between assisting students with their need to know what to do in a music therapy session versus managing that incessant specter of not knowing what to do. She was uncompromising in her response in support of the latter, “They need to struggle. It’s more important they figure out how to be” (Kenny, 1998).

Is that not a prescription for all of us as music therapists? Kenny has managed to find a way to speak her truth as a music therapist and a person of mixed culture. Through the writing presented in this anthology she shares some essential elements of that journey with us. Certainly in studying her work any music therapist will benefit, either by a clarification, or by a healthy challenge of what is true for them.

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