The Musician, the Researcher and the Psychologist: Three different types of Music Therapists …?

The Musician, the Researcher and the Psychologist
The aim of this presentation is to illuminate and discuss some connections between the therapeutic profession and development of music pedagogic theory. A topic that initially emerged as a result of a sub-study in my PhD -project about professional practitioners music-pedagogical Powers of Definition.
The purpose of this sub-study was to generate data about which concepts music-therapists use in their meta-reflections on musical situations in special-pedagogic related practices. The link between the sub-study’s results and the research question was based on the thesis that language constitutes a structural coupling between social and psychological systems. The result showed among other things that respondents did not use the same concepts when expressing their thoughts. The findings also revealed significant differences in the respondents understanding and interpretation of the case presented.
A conclusion of the sub-study is that variations in music-education terminology are not essential for how music situations may be perceived. The variations in the respondents' perceptions seem rather to be based on the discursive stance they take in their respective social practice. In contrast, the results indicate that the force contained in music-theoretical concepts appears to have an impact on how music situations are interpreted. These diversities were expressed as three different types of music-therapists; the Musician, the Researcher and the Psychologist, which will be the pivot point in my presentation.