Abstract
This edition of the journal comes a few months after the success of the BAMT biennial UK conference in February 2018. This was held at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and along with celebrating the breadth and diversity of music therapy work across the UK and beyond, celebrated 50 years of music therapy at the Guildhall.
The conference themes of ‘Music, Diversity and Wholeness’ are prominent in this edition. We are delighted to include a guest editorial from Sarah Wilson, a Music Therapist working at SMART London in mental health care. Wilson’s editorial frames and contextualises the 3 articles by Felicity Baker, Jane Gosine and Lars Tuastad that follow. She reflects on the development of her own practice and the search for a flexible approach that can encompass diverse need. We also include 4 book reviews to introduce readers to new books. Simon Procter reviews A Matrix for Community Music Therapy (Wood 2016), Max Rhys reviews Musical Pathways in Recovery (Ansdell and DeNora 2016), Collette Salkeld reviews Creative Therapies for Complex Trauma (Hasler and Hendry 2017) and Rowan Armes, Melanie Beer and Alison Ramm review Creative Arts in Mental Health (Neilson, King and Baker 2016). These book reviews also illustrate the broadening of the music therapy landscape, covering a diverse range of different practices and clinical areas.
Since our last Edition, there have been some changes in personnel for the Editorial Team. We have said goodbye to Kay Sobey, and have welcomed Dr Philippa Derrington. Kay was the recipient of the 2018 BAMT Lifetime Achievement Award and her citation can be read on the BAMT website. While Kay continues her music therapy clinical practice, she has stepped down from the British Journal of Music Therapy (BJMT). The Editorial Team will miss her high standards and excellence in editing, her enthusiasm for finding out about music therapy and her good humour. We extend a warm welcome to Dr Philippa Derrington as she joins the Editorial Team. Philippa is an experienced Music Therapy clinician, researcher and educator who will be known to many of you through her presentations and publications. She is programme leader of the MSc in Music Therapy at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, and is a passionate advocate for the development and promotion of music therapy. We are delighted that Philippa is joining the team.
We would like to thank Ruth Melhuish for working with us to blind peer review the Tony Wigram essay prize for 2017. This biennial award, named in honour of a great pioneer and champion of music therapy in the United Kingdom and worldwide, enables a newly qualified UK Music Therapist to publish in the journal and have experience of the peer reviewing and editing process. As in previous years, we found the standard of submissions to be high. The winner of the Tony Wigram student essay prize for 2017 is Lucy Dindoyal. Lucy, recently graduated from the MA Music Therapy at the University of Roehampton, wrote about the impact that motherhood has on the work of the Music Therapist, and her essay will be published in the next edition of the journal (32/2). Congratulations to Lucy, and thank you to all those who made a submission. The next essay prize will take place in 2019.
All three Editors were present at the BAMT conference and ran a writing workshop. It can be hard to find the time to write; there are many other pressures and deadlines that we must meet and the task of finding uninterrupted time to write can be pushed down the list of things to do. But it is important. All the Editors have their own relationship with writing and publishing and appreciate the time, effort and personal commitment that writers give. We encourage those of you who presented a paper at the conference to consider writing it up for the journal, and to contribute in this way to the development of music therapy research and practice. We are currently working in a quickly changing healthcare climate and documenting practice is important within the evolution of our profession. Do read and enjoy the writing in the rich articles and reviews in this Edition, which give us much food for thought about the state of the profession in 2018.