Musical and Verbal Interventions in Music Therapy: A Qualitative Study

In clinical work, our main task as music therapists is to make interventions: we give our clients guidance, encouragement, and support; we offer interpretations; we play with and for them. Most of the interventions are either musical or verbal. As a music therapy clinician, supervisor, and educator, I wanted to explore the following questions: (a) How do music therapists define musical and verbal interventions? (b) When does a music therapist intervene musically and when does the therapist intervene verbally? (c) When and why do music therapists suggest to their clients exploring an issue musically or verbally? (d) Do musical and verbal interventions serve the same purpose or different purposes? (d) How is the decision about the type of intervention made? and, (e) is there a difference between the power and meaning of musical interventions versus verbal interventions for both the therapist and the client?