It has been almost 70 years since today’s concept of music therapy appeared in the United States and the United Kingdom. The number of music therapists and schools for music therapy in the world has been gradually increasing. As for Japan, it has been 50 years since music therapy was introduced by Juliette Alvin in 1967 and 1969, who founded the first organisation for music therapy in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, it is still hard to say that the practice of music therapy in Japan has widely spread. This paper aims to propose a research on the practice of music therapy in Japan.
Literature Review
In fact, music therapy has been a great interest worldwide. The World Federation of Music Therapy (WFMT), which is the only international NPO for music therapy since 1985, has been updating the current status of music therapy of 32 countries and one region all over the world since 2008 (WFMT, n.d.). It is reported that the number of music therapists and educational institutions has been improved in many countries with 19,232 music therapists at least and over 200 educational institutions respectively. Furthermore, not only domestic conferences, but also international or regional conferences have been …show more content…
Okazaki (2003) pointed out that there has been very little public recognition or approval of music therapy, though the history of music therapy started already in the 1950s. Hirokawa (2011), a professor of a music therapy undergraduate course approved by JMTA, pointed out that most students cannot work as a music therapist after graduation, but as a music teacher, staff of a institution, or a part-time worker. It is claimed that there is a few job markets for music therapists, and the income is low. Ikuno (2001) explained that the growth of music therapy in Japan increased so rapidly in a short time during 1990s, hence caused those