Meeting ALL of Our Client: Music Therapy and Racial Difference
This study is a pilot research project examining the understanding of UK music therapists regarding their experiences with how race and racial disparity emerge in their therapeutic spaces. Therapists have the potential to cause racial harm to their clients due to a variety of factors. Even without intending to, therapists may contribute to white supremacist systems and perpetuate damaging, colonial ideologies (Baines, 2021; Dimidjian & Hollon, 2010; Norris, 2020). In a similar vein, Black African, Other Black, Asian or Brown (BAOBAB) therapists might unintentionally transmit their feelings of not belonging or impostor syndrome, born from their lived experiences, to their clients (Davenport et al., 2023; Hadley, 2013; Tirado, 2023; Vencatasamy, 2023).
This pilot study is a small-scale qualitative research project designed to explore music therapists’ understanding of how their racial identity is portrayed in therapeutic settings with clients or professional contexts. It aims to gain initial and exploratory insights into this phenomenon, with the view to generating data that can be analysed to inform and shape pro-social justice practices, including anti-oppressive practices. Two focus groups were held to investigate:
- The manifestation of race and racial disparity within therapeutic spaces in UK music therapy.
- How UK music therapists of colour interact with clients and colleagues in therapy spaces.
- The literature (or lack thereof) around racial understanding between music therapist and client.
The researcher’s critical positionality as a BAOBAB music therapist (see the ‘DISRUPTION’ section of this poster) and academic profoundly informs this inquiry, providing an insider perspective while acknowledging the potential for bias inherent in qualitative research.