Creating a Dialogue – Music Therapy with Children in a Private Practice.
 

Author:

Heike Raff-Lichtenberger

Abstract:
Children with very different physical disabilities or mental retardations attend private music therapy treatment. Some of them can not speak, some of them have very limited verbal communication skills. In this case our task as music therapists is to focus on what these children are able to offer us. Most of this is through music in its broadest sense:

It may appear as a sound or in a movement, in a sequence of tones or in a rhythm played on an instrument. Music therapy offers the possibility to tune into the child’s personal way of expression and to find a common level of communication. This provides the child a way to experience itself as a communicating person. In musical improvisation the child can share experiences and overcome isolation. Statements within the world of verbal communication seem senseless but take on meaning. Video clips of such music therapy sessions focusing on selected musical dialogues between 4 children individually and the therapist.

Transparency of music therapy activity is a fundamental precondition for ensuring that the child´ s development in music therapy bears fruit in his or her social and medical/therapeutic fields.
The aim of music therapy here is not only to discover and develop abilities in the child but also to awaken awareness in the social environment of what the child offers in order to take part in community life and develop his or her potential.

Biographical details:
Heike Raff-Lichtenberger, Music Educator (Musikhochschule Detmold) and Dipl.- Musictherapist (Universität Witten/Herdecke) worked at the joint communal and University Clinic Gemeinschaftskrankenhaus Herdecke and teached at the University of Witten/Herdecke in Germany from 1991 to 1996. She teached at the Fachhochschule Heidelberg in 1996 and 1997. Since 1996 she runs the "Praxis für Musiktherapie" in Stuttgart, where she treats children. In addition to this she works in a hospital with adults who suffer from oncological disease.