A Community Music Therapy Project’s Journey

Abstract

Since starting the music therapy Community-Based Organisation (CBO) Music for Peaceful Minds (MPM) in July 2008 there have been on-going gradual but significant changes to the way music therapy is practised and spoken about worldwide that has both challenged and informed MPM’s local practice in northern Uganda.
This paper is a personal reflection of MPM’s work over the past seven years with an aim of explaining what it means to work as a music therapist with a community-driven frame of mind when working in places that need a flexibility of approach. How has this work moved away from conventional music therapy (where symptoms and health problems at an individual level are focussed on in a therapeutic space) (Stige 2002)? And how has MPM evolved alongside the music therapy profession’s changes over the years since the emergence of community music therapy?