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Abstract

This article sets out to describe some of the content of a recent Ph.D. thesis (Birmingham University) entitled ‘Music in the Pastoral Care of Emotionally Disturbed Children’. The thesis attempts to articulate an understanding at theoretical and practical levels of what it is in the process of music in the pastoral care of emotionally disturbed children that brings about a degree of transformation in the client. The theory gradually evolved through the practice of music therapy with emotionally disturbed children in a residential school over a two-year period. Three case studies are described in the thesis: one of these is included in this article.

The particular contribution of this thesis is that it suggests and describes a direct link between the elemental dynamics of music and the elemental dynamics of people in relationship in the context of creative musical play. This play is then considered as a medium in which transformation of damaged people in relationship may occur.

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