Therapy in Music for Handicapped Children

Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins

Print ISBNs: 1-891278-19-3 or 978-1-891278-19-8

E-ISBN: 978-1-891278-98-3

		$23

This book traces the development of the Nordoff-Robbins approach to Creative Music Therapy. It is in the nature of a clinical autobiography in which Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins describe in detail the successive treatment and research projects through which they empirically shaped their seminal contribution to the international field of music therapy. Nordoff, a pianist trained for the concert platform and an eminent composer, turned his creative skills to reaching and engaging the musical sensitivities inborn in a wide range of mentally, emotionally and multiply disabled children. Robbins, with extensive experience in special education and arts therapies, supported and augmented Nordoffs insightful, searching work. Their imaginative collaboration took them on a journey of investigation into the then largely unexplored world of musical responsiveness in special needs children.

The Nordoff-Robbins approach took two fundamental directions, both creative. With individual children, they based their clinical practice on interactive improvisation. Processes of therapy were initiated as individual clients participated in music created spontaneously to meet, answer and enhance their musical and behavioral responses. In their approach to group music therapy, they mainly relied on composition, on songs, instrumental activities and forms of music theatre composed especially with childrens abilities and developmental needs in mind. The book recounts their discoveries and presents a broad range of technique in both modes of therapy. Musical factors are considered and discussed extensively and the reader is invited to accompany the authors as stage by stage they develop their theory and rationales of Creative Music Therapy.

It is on the work described in this book, beginning in the UK and Europe in 1959, and maturing in Kansas and Philadelphia through 1966, that the entire later development of the Nordoff-Robbins practice is founded. The processes of creative therapy that the pioneers researched in children inspired succeeding generations of therapists to apply their approach to adult clients and across the entire spectrum of human disability, illness, deprivation, and need.

Within their global musical orientation, Nordoff and Robbins were intensely client-centered, and the book is replete in mini case stories. A selection of captioned photographs illustrates the clinical focus of both modes of their approach. (2004;ISBN: 1-891278-19-3 $23)

Reviews By:

* Rick Soshensky in the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, Book Reviews Online March 2005

Table of Contents
Welcome by Barbara Hesser Foreword by Benjamin Britten Preface by G. Henry Katz Introduction	7 9 10 12
September 1959-June 1960 Sunfield Children’s Home I THE INCEPTION OF THE WORK	19 21
June-November 1960 European Tour II THE WEDENING EXPLORATION	37 39
February-July 1961 The Devereux Schools, and the Day-Care Unit for Autistic Children, Department Of Child Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania III OUTLINE OF A NEW MUSIC THERAPY	47 49
September 1961-March 1962 Institute of Logopedics IV INDIVIDUAL MUSIC THERAPY—CATEGORIES OF RESPONSE	57 59
V EXPERIMENTAL GROUP ACTIVITY— WORKING REPORTS	75
VI PIF-PAF-POLTRIE, THE WORKING GAME AS THERAPY	87
May 1962-May 1967 Day-Care Unit for Autistic Children, Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania VII MUSIC THERAPY AND PERSONALITY CHANGE IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN	97 101
November 1962-February 1967 School District of Philadelphia VIII GROUP MUSICAL ACTIVITIES WITH TRAINABLE CHILDREN	113 117
IX A RATIONALE OF GROUP MUSIC THERAPY	133
X EPILOGUE: TO THE MUSICIAN THERAPIST	141
Appendix I: Individual Music Therapy Illustrated Appendix II: Group Musical Activities Illustrated Select Nordoff-Robbins Bibliography Index	145 165 177 185