Symbolic Play and Creative Arts in Music Therapy with Children and Families

Jacqueline Z Robarts MA, ARCM, PGCE is a teaching professor on the Guildhall School of Music and Drama MA Music Therapy program, London, and Clinical Tutor at Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy, London. A former Research Fellow in Music Therapy, City University, London, she worked for many years in NHS children & adolescent mental health, paediatric, and learning disabilities services.

Introduction. 1. 'All the world's a stage' - Forms of play in music therapy. 2. Setting the stage: Practicalities and preparation for symbolic play in music therapy. 3. Playing and reality: Winnicott's concepts of symbolic play and their significance for understanding play in the music therapy. 4. The 'minute particulars' of improvised play: Sounded dreams. 5. 'Two kinds of music therapy': Exploring 'genre' in the context of clinical practice in music therapy. 6. Symbolic play in music therapy with disturbed children: An integrative approach. 7. The relationship between children's play themes and active music-making in Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy. 8. 'If I hurt myself, you would take care of me...' 9. Furnishing the musical play space: The role of songs in music therapy with children and adults. 10. Vocal Psychotherapy and the play of the Inner Child. 11. 'Will you play with me, with or without music?' 12. If there is no music, is it music therapy? 13. Playful music-making with young children with autism and their families. 14. Embodied mentalizing in music therapy: The use of music and musical form in the development of symbolic function in children with autistic spectrum condition. 15. When Baby Gigi danced with an angry Dragon: Symbolic interactions in the music therapy of an adopted child with multiple disabilities. 16. 'When can we play?' Thoughts on the use of free improvisation in music therapy groups with nursery-aged children. 17. Playing snakes and ladders: Exploring cross-modal collaboration between music therapy and dance movement psychotherapy in attuning to children with severe learning disabilities and autistic spectrum disorders. 18. Symbolic play in music therapy as a window into early childhood attachment difficulties. 19. The trauma of relating - one little boy's search for self. 20. 'I may be small but I've got a lot of courage now'. 21. Playful music therapy for the development of attachment: Healing trauma in adoptive families. 22. The remembered scream: integrative music therapy with children with early trauma and PTSD. 23. How children use stories to process early years' traumatic experiences: music therapy vignettes. 24. Phantasy and playing with reality: Role play and the use of puppets with adoptive children. 25. 'Now you be the mummy elephant, and you be dead': Expressions of abrupt, painful separations in the symbolic play of adopted children in music therapy. 26. The mosaic of music and play: working with social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) and traumatised adolescents in Hong Kong. 27. 'Our World is all a Mess': A journey in music therapy towards integration, emotional resilience and a sense of self. 28. Reflections on children's play with safeguarding concerns in music therapy: Clinical perspectives and procedures. 29. The art of supervision: Resonance, technique and reverie.