Just a Song Sunday: William W. Sears - The Outline

I'm still over here, reading the foundation of my education and experience as a music therapist. Today I am going to share the outline that William W. Sears published in Music In Therapy, edited by E. T. Gaston in 1968. This is the information in the second chapter, and I feel that this chapter, more than any other reading I did as a baby music therapist, affected me and my practice - well, maybe Bruscia's Defining Music Therapy was close, but I still think that Sears is my guy when it comes to music therapy writing.

ANYWAY...

For those of you with a familiarity with behavioral psychology and theory, this terminology will not be very shocking. For those of you who are not as immersed in behaviorism, this outline may include language that you do not like or recognize or believe. That's fine. Feel free to agree or disagree with the writings presented in their original form here. Know that we all have different ideas about how music is effective as a therapeutic medium, and we all have different ways of discussing these ideas. The central idea, that of the fact that music is an effective therapeutic medium, is not really up for debate. We know that it is, but we differ in how we talk about it.

The outline in question is located on page 33 of the text listed at the bottom of this post. The book is out of print, but the ideas remain sound to me (with a bit of updating of language, etc.). 

Here is the outline. Next week, I'll spend some time talking about how I interpret the outline within my own philosophy and clinical practice.

A. Experience within structure

1. Music demands time-ordered behavior.

a. Music demands reality-ordered behavior.

b. Music demands immediately and continuously objectified behavior.

2. Music permits ability-ordered behavior.

a. Music permits ordering of behavior according to physical response levels.

b. Music permits ordering of behavior according to physiological response levels.

3. Music evokes affectively ordered behavior.

4. Music provokes sensory-elaborated behavior.

a. Music demands increased sensory usage and discrimination.

b. Music may elicit extramusical ideas and associations.

B. Experience within self-organization

1. Music provides for self-expression.

2. Music provides compensatory endeavors for the handicapped (ugh - language wasn't the same back in 1968) individual.

3. Music provides opportunities for socially acceptable reward and nonreward.

4. Music provides for the enhancement of pride in self.

a. Music provides for successful experiences.

b. Music provides for feeling needed by others.

c. Music provides for enhancement of esteem by others.

C. Experience in relating to others

1. Music provides means by which self-expression is socially acceptable.

2. Music provides opportunity for individual choice of response in groups.

3. Music provides opportunities for acceptance of responsibility to self and others.

a. Music provides for developing self-directed behavior.

b. Music provides for developing other-directed behavior.

4. Music enhances verbal and nonverbal social interaction and communication.

5. Music provides for experiencing cooperation and competition in socially acceptable forms.

6. Music provides entertainment and recreation necessary to the general therapeutic environment.

7. Music provides for learning realistic social skills and personal behavior patterns acceptable in institutional and community peer groups. 

Lots of things to talk about and lots of things to ponder in the near future. Join me next Sunday for the first foray into what this outline means to me.

Sears, W. W. (1968). Processes in music therapy. In E. T. Gaston (Ed.) Music in therapy (30-44). New York: MacMillan.