Learning together: An investigation into the potential of interprofessional education within music therapy

Abstract

The literature acknowledges the benefits of collaboration between music therapists and other professionals for the individual therapist who collaborates, for our clients and for the music therapy profession itself. However, there has been little discussion regarding how therapists acquire the skills required for collaboration. In a wider healthcare context, the principle of interprofessional education is utilised to facilitate such collaboration in practice. This study considers peer clinical work review sessions as a potential interdisciplinary training tool within a UK arts therapy training context, from a music therapy perspective. Using a phenomenological paradigm, the experience of participating in interdisciplinary peer review sessions between a music therapy student and a dance movement psychotherapy student was modelled and evaluated.

The study found that interdisciplinary peer review was experienced as beneficial to the training experience in several ways, including developing peer support, widening perspectives of other professions and developing cross-discipline communication skills. These results could provide a framework upon which to base development of interdisciplinary inputs within the UK training context.