Sociocultural Identities in Music

Therapy 1st Edition Susan Hadley

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/sociocultural-identities-in-music-therapy-1st-edition-su
san-hadley/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Vocal Music and Contemporary Identities 1st Edition

Christian Utz

https://ebookmeta.com/product/vocal-music-and-contemporary-
identities-1st-edition-christian-utz/

Magic In The Moonlight 1st Edition Auryn Hadley

https://ebookmeta.com/product/magic-in-the-moonlight-1st-edition-
auryn-hadley/

Spells In The Summertime 1st Edition Auryn Hadley

https://ebookmeta.com/product/spells-in-the-summertime-1st-
edition-auryn-hadley-2/

Spells In The Summertime 1st Edition Auryn Hadley

https://ebookmeta.com/product/spells-in-the-summertime-1st-
edition-auryn-hadley/
Witchcraft In The Woods 1st Edition Auryn Hadley

https://ebookmeta.com/product/witchcraft-in-the-woods-1st-
edition-auryn-hadley/

Rent Boys 1st Edition Hadley Field

https://ebookmeta.com/product/rent-boys-1st-edition-hadley-field/

National Physical Therapy Examination Review and Study

Guide 2018 Susan B. O'Sullivan

https://ebookmeta.com/product/national-physical-therapy-
examination-review-and-study-guide-2018-susan-b-osullivan/

Early Childhood Music Therapy and Autism Spectrum

Disorder Second Edition Petra Kern

https://ebookmeta.com/product/early-childhood-music-therapy-and-
autism-spectrum-disorder-second-edition-petra-kern/

Sociocultural Examinations of Sports Concussions 1st

Edition Matt Ventresca

https://ebookmeta.com/product/sociocultural-examinations-of-
sports-concussions-1st-edition-matt-ventresca/
 Sociocultural Identities in Music Therapy

Copyright © 2021 by Barcelona Publishers

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored,

or distributed under any circumstances, without prior written
permission from Barcelona Publishers.

Print ISBN: 9781945411694

E-ISBN: 9781945411700

Barcelona Publishers
10231 Plano Rd.
Dallas TX 75238
Website: www.barcelonapublishers.com
SAN 298-6299

Copy-editor: Jack Burnett

Cover Design: Matthew King
Production Manager: Dr. Demi Stevens
 To Carolyn Kenny, who honored the whole aesthetic of the
therapist and client, whose narrative we are missing here yet
lives on through so many
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In many ways, acknowledgments are complex due to the many
different ways that people have contributed to the production of this
book. In this acknowledgment, I would like to reflect on those
whose impacts appear most saliently to me.
I acknowledge music therapy clients whose sociocultural contexts
have not been adequately recognized and valued within the
therapeutic process and relationship, historically and in the
contemporary moment. I acknowledge the pain and harm that this
lack of acknowledgment continues to cause. Despite the lack of
acknowledgment, I acknowledge the therapeutic growth that has
occurred due to the resilience of clients whose sociocultural identities
are marginalized and minoritized.
I acknowledge music therapists and music therapy students
whose sociocultural contexts have also not been adequately
recognized and valued within the music therapy profession and
within educational institutions and curricula. I acknowledge the pain
and harm that this has caused and continues to cause. I also
acknowledge that your contributions have often been undervalued
and even ignored and erased. The stories in this book bear witness
to this.
A very sincere gratitude goes to the authors of the chapters
within this book. Your stories have touched mine in very significant
ways. Thank you for the vulnerability it took to share these in a
public space. Your examples of critical sociocultural reflexivity are
such a wonderful gift to the music therapy community.
To my dear friend and mentor, Ken Bruscia, for continuing to
believe in me and continuing to support me in so many ways. And to
Barcelona Publishers for taking another chance on one of my
projects. Special thanks to Jack Burnett for his copyediting
suggestions, Matthew King for his great cover design, and so much
appreciation to Dr. Demi Stevens for always being so gracious and
accommodating, especially at the very last moments in this process!
To my dear friends who continue to stand by me, even when
physical and sometimes emotional distance get in the way. I value
every connection and know that my very being is interdependent
with yours. Thank you for being you and for helping me become
who I continue to become.
To my immediate and extended family, without whom I would
not be, in all the ways I am. Your love continues to sustain me
through the valleys and peaks of my life journey.
Last, but not least, I acknowledge those unacknowledged people
and efforts that have been rendered inconsequential by our
underestimation of just how intimately we are linked to each other,
how your labor is linked to mine, and how what we consume daily
(even the materials that are used for this book) makes possible the
actualization of this entire process. Indeed, to have accomplished
the creation of this book requires those who provide the very food
without which we could not do the work that we do. I acknowledge
you! Our interconnectedness and interdependence are global.
Hence, to thank one is to thank all. As Martin Luther King, Jr., put
this with the eloquence of a prophet, poet, and philosopher, “We are
caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single
garment of destiny.” I am undetachable from this beautiful network,
and I am thankful for the gravity of ethical responsibility that this
reality has bestowed.
 CONTRIBUTORS
ezequiel bautista is an indigenous, xicanx music therapist working
in a children’s hospital on O’odham land. he is pursuing his master of
music therapy at slippery rock university and is dedicated to the
process of unlearning oppressive ways of being in the world with
others. he acknowledges those that precede him in the fight for
justice and hopes this book may be a place of both solace and
discomfort for those striving for social change.

Akash Bhatia, MA, MT-BC, LPC, is a music therapist at the

Institute for Therapy through the Arts (ITA) in Evanston, IL. He is
co-chair of ITA’s annual Integrated Creative Arts Therapy
Conference. He primarily works with children and adolescents with
anxiety, depression, and autism spectrum disorder. He has developed
a music therapy program at an inpatient psychiatric hospital and has
researched music and wellness with a mental health support group
for South Asian adults.

Kathryn Eberle Cotter, MA, MT-BC, MFT, currently works as the

clinical director of youth mentoring at her local YMCA and has a
private music therapy practice working primarily in bereavement and
palliative care settings. Her previous practice included hospice care,
supplemental education, and working with incarcerated youth.
Kathryn is passionate about accessibility to mental health services
and overall wellness resources and focuses her practice on achieving
this aim for individuals, families, and communities.

Petra Gelbart, PhD, MT-BC, works as a music therapist with

seniors, children, and parents in New York City. She periodically
teaches classes at Ramapo College of New Jersey, including a course
titled Music and the Mind. Her research, writing, and advocacy have
focused on intercultural communication, trauma, and marginalized
groups in Europe as well as the United States.

Maevon Gumble, MMT, MT-BC, is a music therapist based in

Pittsburgh, PA (U.S.), currently working with a local community
mental health clinic (Familylinks) while also maintaining a private
practice (Becoming Through Sound) that primarily supports trans,
nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming persons within gender-
affirming voicework. Maevon has published and presented on
gender-affirming voicework and served as a guest editor for a
special issue on queering music therapy for Voices: A World Forum
for Music Therapy.

Susan Hadley, PhD, MT-BC, is a professor and the director of

music therapy at Slippery Rock University (PA, U.S.). Her books
include Experiencing Race as a Music Therapist: Personal Narratives,
Therapeutic Uses of Rap and Hip Hop, Feminist Perspectives in Music
Therapy, Narrative Identities, and Psychodynamic Music Therapy:
Case Studies. She has published numerous articles, chapters, and
reviews; serves on the editorial boards of several journals; and is
co–editor-in-chief of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.

Spencer Hardy, MA, MT-BC, currently works as a music therapist

and the expressive therapies coordinator at Primary Children’s
Hospital. Spencer also works part-time for the Utah Pride Center in
co-leading a music and art therapy group for LGBTQ+ youth.
Spencer has given many presentations and participated in work
centering LGBTQ+ voices and queer identity, including publishing in
the peer-reviewed journals Music Therapy Perspectives, Arts and
Psychotherapy, and Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.

Doug Keith, PhD, MT-BC, is director of creative arts therapies at

SRH University Heidelberg, where he also directs the international
MA in music therapy. He has published works on music therapy with
disabled children and adults with HIV, music therapy in the NICU
context, music therapy curriculum, and internationalization in music
therapy.

Joyu Lee, 李若萸, FAMI, MM, MT-BC, owner and founder of Music
and Your Mind, LLC, is a professional cellist and music therapist with
over 18 years of experiences in music therapy, cello performance,
music education, and arts administration. She specializes in Guided
Imagery and Music, music-focused relaxation, and anxiety, pain, and
depression treatment and management. Joyu currently works at
UNC Health in Chapel Hill, NC, primarily working with teens and
young adults with eating disorders and in mental health.

Jessica Leza, MA, MT-BC, provides music therapy for students

with developmental disabilities in Texas public schools. She
graduated with a bachelor of music in music composition from the
University of North Texas and a master of arts in music therapy from
Texas Woman’s University. Jessica completed a music therapy
internship at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ,
and has received additional training in Neurological Music Therapy
(NMT).

Ming Yuan Low, 刘明元, MA, MT-BC, is a PhD candidate in Drexel

University’s Creative Arts Therapies program. His dissertation
involves an interpretive phenomenological analysis of autistic adults’
experiences in Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy. His research interests
include participatory action research in partnership with autistic
people and critical inquiries in music therapy. He has served in
multiple elected and appointed roles within the American Music
Therapy Association and is a founding member of the Malaysian
Music Therapy Association.
Kristen McSorley, MMT, MT-BC, is currently the music therapy
internship director at a private agency in Portland, OR. She is most
interested in music therapy work that holds space for essential
human experiences such as play, creativity, joy, grief, and belonging.
She strives to teach and practice in a way that upholds these values,
considering each person’s resources, past traumas, cultural context,
and systemic barriers.

Hiroko Miyake, 三 宅 博 子 ( み や け ひ ろ こ ), PhD, RMT, is an

associate professor at Kunitachi College of Music, Japan. She works
with people with disabilities in her clinical practice and also conducts
community music projects with diverse people. Miyake’s research
interest concerns how different people can create a collaborative
space through music.

Marisol S. Norris, PhD, MT-BC, is a board-certified music

therapist and critical arts therapies educator. Her music therapy
practice and supervisory experience span medical and community
health settings and have profoundly informed her multicultural-
relational lens. Marisol’s personal and professional work centers on
Black aesthetics and the discursive construction of race in music
therapy theory and praxis, the role of cultural memory and
aesthetics in monoracial and crossracial meaning-making processes,
and culturally sustaining practices in therapy and education.

Freddy Perkins, MT-BC, is a master of music therapy candidate at

Slippery Rock University and an analytical music therapy trainee at
Molloy College. His master’s thesis utilizes music improvisation to
understand the self-integrative experiences of Black queer cismen.
He currently works with adolescents experiencing depression,
anxiety, trauma, and mood dysregulation. Freddy also works in
private practice with QPOC. He serves on the steering committee for
the Black Music Therapy Network and is a member of Team
Rainbow.
Sandra Ramos-Watt, MA, MT-BC, LCAT, is a New York State–
licensed mental health practitioner. She is the founder of CATs of
Color, a network of creative arts therapists of color that addresses
the need for greater multiracial diversity in the C.A.T. professions.
Sandra served as a two-term board member for the New York State
Office of the Professions/ Mental Health Practitioners. In her clinical
practice, Sandra focuses on how one’s way of being in the world is
situated within the frameworks of their social and cultural histories.

Sangeeta Swamy, PhD, MT-BC, LPC, is assistant professor and

director of music therapy at Valparaiso University. She has published
in peer-reviewed journals and chapters and presented nationally and
internationally. Her research, scholarship, and pedagogy focus on
critical spiritual theory, intersectional identity, sociocultural issues in
GIM, and mindfulness and contemplative traditions in the
educational and therapeutic space.

Natasha Thomas, PhD, MT-BC, is a clinical assistant professor at

IUPUI, steering committee member for Black Music Therapists
Network, and committed advocate for creative and culturally
sustaining support for marginalized communities. Her research and
clinical work are inclusive of emerging technology, as well as the
perspectives of disability and queer identities, and the unique ways
in which those perspectives and resources can intersect to impact
quality of life, identity construction, and meaning-making.

Annette Whitehead-Pleaux, MA, MT-BC, is the president and

CEO of the Center for Cultural Responsiveness, a nonprofit that
provides education, training, and supervision in diversity, inclusion,
and equity to colleges, universities, and practitioners. They teach at
several universities. They have 10 publications in peer-reviewed
journals and 12 chapters. Annette is co-editor of Cultural
Intersections in Music Therapy: Music, Health, and the Person and a
frequent presenter and trainer at conferences across the globe.
 CONTENTS
Cover Image
Title Page
Copyright & Permissions
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction - Susan Hadley

Conceptual Origins and Theoretical Framing

Situating Myself: Embracing Complexities
What Lies Ahead

Chapter 1. Me: A Personal and Professional Necessity -

Marisol Norris

Location of Self
Exploring Me Through a Culturally Sustaining Lens:
A Whole Lot of Black Backs Made Bridges
Embarking on an Intentional Practice of Critical
Cultural Reflexivity
If Not a Culturally Sustaining Practice, Then What?
Implications

Chapter 2. transfronterizx - ezequiel bautista

 growing up in the borderlands
music in the borderlands
final thoughts
Chapter 3. “What Are You?” Finding Connection As A
Brown, Male Music Therapist" - Akash Bhatia

Point of Entry
Values, Identity, and Signature Theme
A Brown, Male Music Therapist in an Inpatient
Psychiatric Hospital
Summary and Implications for Music Therapists

Chapter 4. A Skeptic In The Land Of Music Therapy:

Evaluating Evidence At The Beginnings Of Practice -
Petra Gelbart

Ethnomusictherapist
Only Americans Go to Therapy
Telling Fortunes
A Conversion Experience?
The Maligned, Wonderful Placebo

Chapter 5. Making A Detour: Paths For Diverse People To

Live In Diverse Ways - Hiroko Miyake

Introduction
The Experiences Developing My Sociocultural
Identities
Examples of Work in Which I Have Engaged
Ambiguous Ways to Communicate with People’s
Sociocultural Identities
 Implications of Self-Reflection
Chapter 6. The Long Journey Toward Self-Acceptance:
Living As A Queer Transgender Music Therapist -
Spencer Hardy

Growing Up
Values and Beliefs
Stereotypes and Microaggressions
Privilege
Fear and Internalized Transphobia
Theoretical Orientation
Clinical Work and Self-Disclosure
The Empowerment of Queer Youth
Intersectionality
Supporting Diversity Within the Music Therapy Field
Conclusion

Chapter 7. Caught Unaware: Honest Acknowledgments

and Clinical Applications in an Ongoing Process -
Kathryn Eberle Cotter

On the Tracks
My Identity Formation
My Foundational Values
Becoming Aware
Resisting Defensiveness and Acknowledging Bias
Learning and Unlearning
Receiving and Witnessing Truth
A Lifelong Endeavor
In Conclusion
Chapter 8. Comfortably “Unknowing”: Maintaining
Equilibrium as a Minority in a Minority Profession -
Natasha Thomas

Paddle Like Hell

The Evolution of “Unknowing”
Engaging with the Cultural “Unknown”
“Unknowing” in Practice: Our Responsibility to
Community
The Risks and Possibilities of Getting Comfortable
with Unknowing

Chapter 9. Tabula Rasa = Tabú la Raza: My Not-So-Blank

Slate - Sandra Ramos-Watt

In Summary

Chapter 10. Queering Karma and Cosmos: My Journey as

an Indian American Music Therapist in the United States
- Sangeeta Swamy

Early Beginnings
Music Therapy and Identity
On Privilege
Conclusion

Chapter 11. “The Highest Good Is Like Water” 上善若水:

The Music Runs Through It - Joyu Lee

Tributaries of My Stream
Like a Fish in Water
A Brook with No Stream
 Swimming In and Out of Different Schools
The River Running Through It
Chapter 12. “El Closet es Para el Ropa...”: Music
Therapist, Coming “Aut” - Jessica Leza
Chapter 13. What Could I Do Better?: Failing Again and
Again - Maevon Gumble

Who Am I?
Entering the Field of Music Therapy
Questions for Ongoing Interrogation of Ethical
Practice
Questioning My Professional Work
Conclusion

Chapter 14. “On the Outside, Always Looking In”: A

Queer Black Man’s Search for Acceptance - Freddy
Perkins

Apparent Incongruities
Learning My Value and My Values
My College Years
Constant Code-Switching
Signature Themes
Integrating the Apparent Incongruities
Just Being Me Is Enough

Chapter 15. Always Evolving: Finding Fluidity in Fixed

Narratives - Kristen McSorley

Queering My Sense of Identity

Considerations for Music Therapy
 Impacts of My Sociocultural Situatedness
Conclusion
Chapter 16. Unfinished Story - Ming Yuan Low

Entering the Courageous Conversation

The Perpetual Minority
What’s in a Name?
Chinese Malaysian in the United States
Conclusion

Chapter 17. Themes and Variations - Annette Whitehead-

Pleaux
Chapter 18. Intersections and Intersectionality: Under
Construction - Douglas R. Keith
Afterword: Reflections and Strategies - Susan Hadley

Strategies for Cultivating Sociocultural Reflexivity

Final Reflections

Footnotes
 INTRODUCTION
Susan Hadley
she/her/hers

Given . . . the omnipresence of culture and its

concomitant influences, we believe that
attempting to ignore or exorcise it from any part
of our daily lives is myopic. We believe that
making an effort to do so within the context of
therapy is even more egregious[.]
—Kenneth Hardy, 2016, p. 5

Conceptual Origins and Theoretical

Framing

The idea for this book grew out of a final paper I assigned, in 2016,
to the first group of graduate students in the master of music
therapy program that I developed at Slippery Rock University. The
paper required each student to explore their sociocultural identity
formation at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, disability,
body type, religion, language, and more. They were to explore the
values they absorbed in their formative years, overtly and covertly,
at home, in the media, and in the wider community. I asked them to
explore how their values shape, and are shaped by, various aspects
of their identity and how these values informed and inform their
understanding of themselves relationally. They were to explore
which aspects of their identities are most salient to them and which
are often unacknowledged. Furthermore, they were to consider
which aspects of other people’s identities appear salient to them and
which often go unnoticed. I asked them to share their process of
critical reflexivity in terms of their sociocultural identity, as well as
the relational dynamics in therapy based on the sociocultural
situatedness of the therapist and the client. Through their processes
of critical reflexivity, they were to share the benefits and challenges
they have experienced within the music therapy context.
Bruscia (2002) delineated this process of cultural reflexivity
almost two decades ago, writing:

Through concepts like “reflexivity” (identifying one’s own

frame of reference in relation to another) and “local versus
general knowledge” (recognizing that one’s understandings
are delimited by the contexts and cultures in which they were
derived), culture-centered thinking places considerable
responsibility on the music therapist. Whether operating
within the domains of practice, research, or theory—music
therapists must continually act with a deep awareness of how
culture and context “situate” each party in every interaction
and the meaning that is created therein. We must do this not
only by “locating” ourselves and those with whom we
interact, but also by considering how our individual and
collective histories particularize our frames of reference. To
understand our ongoing interactions, we must disentangle
and reweave our respective pasts and presents, for history
and culture are the backdrops in which every story unfolds.
(p. xv)

As I read through the students’ final papers, I was struck by the

integrity in their narratives and how helpful it might be for other
music therapists to witness the vulnerability required in this kind of
critical reflexive process. It was at this moment that the idea for this
book formed. Given our current moment—in the midst of global
protests demanding racial justice and with the social and political
galvanizing efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Me Too
movement, and the Ni Una Menos movement, along with continued
efforts for disability justice and LGBTQ+ justice, in a society that
seems to be becoming increasingly openly polarized regarding issues
of individual versus collective social justice and human rights—this
book seems all the more crucial and urgent.
Music therapy professional codes of ethics require music
therapists to identify and recognize personal biases, and to avoid
“discrimination in relationships with clients, colleagues, and others in
all settings” (AMTA, 2019, 1.2). Music therapists learn the
importance of striving to be self-aware (AMTA, 2019, 5.2) and
recognizing “the impact of our feelings, attitudes, and actions on the
client and the therapy process” (AMTA, 2013, 9.1). Furthermore,
music therapists are tasked to “demonstrate awareness of the
influence of race, ethnicity, language, religion, marital status, gender,
gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, ability,
socioeconomic status, or political affiliation on the therapeutic
process” (AMTA, 2013, 9.5). While official music therapy documents
state these principles, there is little in the music therapy literature
that provides resources for how to approach this exploration or that
provides examples. As an educator who stresses the importance of
cultivating critical reflexivity, I had to turn to other fields for
resources and examples. Yet, as I read the students’ papers, I
imagined what a book in music therapy that addresses these issues
might be like and became excited about putting together such a
collection. So, as with my other books, this grew out of my teaching
because I felt it would be a helpful resource for music therapy
students and clinicians.
The theoretical frame within which this book is situated is broadly
construed as critical theory. In general, important concepts in critical
theory, according to Brookfield (2005), are to learn to recognize and
challenge ideology, contest hegemony, unmask power, overcome
alienation, pursue liberation, reclaim reason, and practice democracy
(p. 39). In this book, each author engages with critical theories of
race, feminism/ womanism, critical disability studies, and queer
theory to unpack their own sociocultural situatedness with a
commitment to social justice. Through this process of critical
reflexivity, they each explore their history of privilege and
oppression, identify barriers to how they understand themselves and
others, and consider implications for their music therapy practice.

Situating Myself: Embracing Complexities

Consistent with Bruscia’s emphasis on reflexivity, it is crucial that I

thematize my situated sociocultural reality to provide you with a
glimpse into some of the experiences that have contributed to how I
understand myself and my work. This brief narrative disclosure, of
course, is but a slice of a complex set of interconnecting narratives
that continue to expand what Carolyn Kenny has referred to as the
aesthetic field (Kenny, 2006). Sharing a narrative interpretation of
how I understand who I am is inextricably linked to multiple
interactions with everyone and everything I encounter—past,
present, and future—sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly. I
understand identities as always in processes of becoming, in
relational contexts. To share with you who I understand myself to be
or to give an account of myself (Butler, 2005) is limited. It is not
possible for me to narrate my life because many aspects of it would,
by necessity, be left out—some irretrievable, some left out by choice.
The stories I will share highlight those things that have remained
most salient to me and that have cohered as I make sense of a
number of interconnected experiences. In sharing this narrative, I
need to note that my earliest relationships have created lasting
impressions that I cannot retrieve, and yet traces of these surely
shape all my relationships. Furthermore, there are parts of myself
that are not transparent to me. So, I cannot provide “full
transparency” to you. And, finally, what I share is mediated by with
whom I am sharing this narrative. As such, these snippets are small
parts of my multiply-storied self, ones I have selected with a very
specific intention. With that said, within this introductory section of
the book, I provide you with descriptions of my sociocultural
locations in an effort to provide a sense of how I situate myself and
am situated relationally and how my experiences contributed to me
reaching out to the authors who have shared their complex and
different experiences in this anthology.
I do not like providing a laundry list of identity markers, and yet
here I go. I am a white, U.S.-born Australian, enabled (or
nondisabled), neurotypical, college-educated, heterosexual, middle-
class, middle-aged ciswoman, professor of music therapy, living and
working in the United States. I am in a cross-racial marriage and am
the co-parent of a Black stepson and four biracial sons. I grew up in
a family context of two parents who are white heterosexual,
cisgender, and nondisabled (who have remained married to each
other), a brother 6 years older than me, a sister 4½ years older than
me (both white, heterosexual, cisgender, and nondisabled), and a
white younger brother who was adopted at a few months of age,
when I was about one and a half years old (who at a very young
age contracted meningitis that left him deaf in one ear and who is
gay and cisgender).

Complexities of Group Membership

My family of origin and my current family reveal to me the

complexity of families and their trajectories. Not all families share
biological ties. Families come in a variety of complex configurations.
There are so many intragroup variations. I have experienced many
assumptions that people made regarding biological ties, based on
norms and stereotypes of “typical” families. People would comment
that my adopted brother had his father’s eyes. He would sometimes
joke by saying he wouldn’t know. And one time, a stranger
commented that my stepson had his mother’s nose, meaning mine.
His nose is exactly like his biological mother’s. We all laughed at the
unintentional truth of the statement, knowing all too well that what
the man was perceiving in the two of us was ridiculous as we have
incredibly different nose structures. Whereas people were looking for
biological ties where there were none, often when we go out as a
family to eat we are asked if we are paying separately. In these
cases, people see the racial differences and cannot see the obvious
biological ties. All of these experiences have taught me about the
risks of making assumptions based on limited understanding of
group membership, which can cause harm to the recipient. This has
been important in how I attempt to, as Vee Gilman might say,
“learn” others (Gilman, 2018).

Complexities of Timing

Important to my story is that after 4 years of my parents and older

siblings living in the United States on unceded Lenape land while my
father earned a PhD in theology from Princeton Seminary in New
Jersey, I was induced a week early so that I would be old enough (6
weeks old) to travel with the family back to Australia, where I grew
up in unceded Noonga country. They said I was the “souvenir” they
brought back with them. Ken Bruscia once joked that my resistance
to being pushed was the result of my birth being induced.
Nevertheless, there is a theme related to timing that seems
significant in terms of my values and which is differentially
emphasized in various sociocultural contexts.
I began school at the age of 4, because the preschool (or
kindergarten, as it is called in Australia) teacher said I was more
than ready to start elementary school. Due to my young age and my
different strengths, in my first 5 years of school, I went back and
forth between grade levels for different classes. I did mathematics
and science with kids a year older than me and stayed with my age
group for reading and writing. Looking back, these were the
happiest years of my school life. When I was 10, the teachers and
my parents decided that I could not go through the entirety of
school in two different grades, so a decision had to be made as to
whether to put me up with the older kids or keep me back with my
age group. I was not consulted. They decided that it would be best
for me socially if I was “held back” to remain with my aged peers.
Unfortunately, the result of this was that my drive for learning
seemed to wane as a result—the work felt easy and no longer
challenging. For the remainder of my education, I put in just enough
effort to do well and spent energy in non-academic musical and
social pursuits. I grew up with narratives that described me as
talented in mathematics (I could solve random multiplication
problems up to 12 without a pause by the age of 5) and science,
and these things did seem to come naturally to me. I felt pride in
these narratives. Other narratives reinforced that I was not so good
at reading and writing or in the humanities. I don’t remember stories
of pride about my abilities in these areas and sometimes felt shame
when receiving well-intentioned feedback. It soon took hold that my
“strengths” were in mathematics and sciences and my “weaknesses”
were in the humanities. This thin narrative about my academic
strengths and weaknesses was not challenged until I entered
graduate school. It was Ken Bruscia’s alternative narrative that
shifted how I began to understand myself in a richer way.
When I was about 13, I attended confirmation classes at the
progressive church we attended. Each week, I asked numerous
questions about what we were studying. I didn’t just want to accept
what we were learning without interrogating it. I was highly
engaged in the process. At one point, the minister, whom I loved
dearly, pulled me aside and said I needed to stop asking questions
to give room for others to speak. I sat quietly, bursting at the seams
to ask more questions, waiting while no one else really said much.
When it came time for confirmation, I let the minister and my
parents know that I wasn’t ready. They asked why, and I explained
that I still had a lot more questions. The minister responded by
telling me that I will always have questions and that no one is ever
ready and that I should just continue with the confirmation.
Reluctantly, I did. After feeling pushed before being ready, I stopped
going to church on a regular basis after being confirmed. My drive
again waned.
 When I was growing up, my dad always stressed time as being
really important. He would show signs of anxiety if it seemed that
any of us were not ready when he wanted to leave to get
somewhere. I have internalized some of his anxiety around not
meeting timelines. And yet, at the same time, I often resist being
pushed.
Timing and my values associated with it play out in complex
ways in my work with students and colleagues. As I have thought
more about time and the importance placed on it, I realize that my
relationship to time is shaped by my location as a white, middle-
class, enabled person. The ways in which my early experiences
impacted me negatively have complexified the values I now have. It
is challenging for me to find a balance between not being rigid
around time and not being so flexible that it causes problems both
for the student/colleague and for me. My flexibility towards time
frames in many ways deepens my relationships because the person
feels supported, and it also hinders my relationships when I feel
disrespected or taken advantage of.

Complexities of Multiple Relationships

I attended only one school for all 13 years. It was a private parochial
school for girls. I started there not only because it was the only
school in the area that would take me at such a young age but also
because my mother taught in the high school—so this meant that I
could attend at a greatly reduced cost. A year after I began, my
father became the principal and my schooling became free for the
rest of my 12 years. Having my father as my principal from almost
as far back as I have memories means that I have been navigating
dual or multiple relationships for as long as I remember. Many of the
teachers at the school were also friends with my parents, so I would
engage with them socially. Some teachers were the parents of my
friends. I learned early on to adapt in each situation as needed.
Knowing these adults in multiple roles and circumstances brought
with it a richer perception of them as people.
After completing my undergraduate degree, I moved back to my
home state to introduce music therapy there. I developed part-time
music therapy programs in various facilities, taught cello at my
former school, and worked as a nursing assistant at a residential
facility for physically disabled people. At this facility, I held a variety
of positions. I worked as a nursing assistant, a physical therapy
assistant, and a music therapist. Again, I was in a context in which I
was navigating multiple relationships with the people who lived
there. After I had gotten to know them quite well, some of them
commented that I knew them more fully than most other people in
their lives. They said that most of the therapists really focused only
on specific needs related to their area of specialty—emotional,
physical, occupational—and that the nursing assistants took care of
their activities of daily living such as assisting them in the bathroom,
showering, dressing, and eating. Some of us also went out with
them in social contexts, like to the movies, shopping, out to dinner,
or out to bars to drink and listen to music. Given that I was involved
in each of these aspects of their lives, they commented on how I
knew them in their wholeness—emotionally, physically (not just in
terms of mobility, but very personal daily care routines), socially—
and not just a portion of them. Our understandings of each other
felt deep and complex.
In music therapy, as in many other therapies developed within a
Western sociocultural context, the importance of interpersonal
boundaries and avoiding dual or multiple relationships is stressed.
This is set in place to protect clients from harm. It is considered
ethical practice. My experiences throughout my life in navigating the
complexities of multiple relationships, while at times quite
challenging, have often led to rich and meaningful relationships,
often with greater depth than I sense would have occurred had
more rigid boundaries been set in place. This is not to deny that
without important levels of reflexivity, boundary-crossing comes with
risks and can cause great harm.
Complexities of Connecting Through
Music

Growing up, I was very close to my mother. She used to call me her
little Koala because I always wanted her to carry me. From my
perspective, my father seemed more distant emotionally. This was
not surprising, given that he went to boarding school at the age of
12. And his father had left his family in England at the age of 16 and
started a new life on his own in Australia.
My father was a gifted piano player from a young age, and
playing the piano was always central in his life. As a young child, I
learned violin and piano. I refused to continue on violin once I
shifted to a teacher whose teaching style I really disliked. I was then
given the choice to learn oboe or cello. I chose cello, and I had an
immediate deep connection with it. It is difficult to describe my
relationship with the cello, other than to say that when I played, it
felt like it was the sounding of my soul. Once I began playing cello at
the age of 12, my dad was my main accompanist. It seemed that
when we played together, we connected deeply and that emotional
distance was bridged. It is interesting to note that it was while
engaging in music that I first noticed and connected with my
spouse.
As a young cellist, I played in youth orchestras and I played a lot
of chamber music. I loved playing chamber music. It was a complex
mix of vulnerability, because of how exposed you are as the only
person playing your line, and intimacy, because of how deeply
connected all the players are.
For most of my youth, I dreamed of becoming a medical doctor,
specifically an obstetrician or “baby doctor” as I called it at the time.
I really wanted to assist in the process of bringing new life into the
world. At the age of 16, something shifted. At this point in my life,
there were several influences that shifted my thinking. My
relationship with music, through my cello playing and singing in
choirs, had grown very strong, but I knew I did not want to be a
performer (my pleasure was in playing with people, not performing
for people) or an educator (as so many in my family were teachers,
that was the last thing I wanted to do with my life!). I also
entertained the idea of becoming a social worker like my maternal
aunt, with whom I was very close. I decided that what I really
wanted to do was to work with youth who were living on the streets
and that the way I would form relationships with them would be
through engaging in music. Given that music was the main way I
connected with my father, perhaps it was a way I could reach out to
youth with whom it might otherwise be hard to connect. I imagined
myself becoming a music-based social worker. As I shared my dream
with some people, a violinist friend of mine who had attended the
Menuhin School, Guildhall, and Juilliard told me that it sounded like I
wanted to be a music therapist. I had never heard of such a thing.
He told me that it was something they taught in the United States
and the U.K. So, I had a goal: I would go overseas as a graduate
student to become a music therapist. After I shared this with my
maternal aunt, she informed me that an undergraduate program in
music therapy had recently started in Melbourne. It was the first
program in Australia. With that, my life path changed completely.
Here was an actual profession where I could make meaningful
connections with others through music. So, at the age of 17, I
moved from one side of Australia to the other—about 3,500 km
(over 2,000 miles)—to study music therapy.
My first clinical placement as a student was at a residential
facility for people who were labeled as severely to profoundly
physically and cognitively impaired. The people who resided in one
of the wards I visited could not communicate verbally, were unable
to ambulate, were unable to eat without assistance, and needed
others to dress them, shower them, and attend to other
fundamental daily needs that they could not do unassisted. Many of
them spent much of the day with their hands in their mouths,
regurgitating their saliva. I remember feeling repulsed by the smell
that this created in the space. At the time, I also experienced a lot of
tension about the meaning of human existence. I wondered what life
was like for each of them and what would make it meaningful. I
thought that if these were not human beings but other animal
species, they would have been left to die or killed. I wondered
whether what I was doing was meaningful for them. For me, what I
valued in myself was tied into things I could do that would
distinguish me from others. My perceived value of myself was also
tied into how I was in relationship with others. I wasn’t observing
these things reflected in the lives of people sitting isolated, being
stimulated by the sensation of regurgitation. I decided that perhaps
it would be meaningful for them to experience another form of
sensation through hearing and feeling the vibrations of music, as
well as experiencing gentle human touch—not as a means of
performing tasks of daily living skills, but as an affirmation of our co-
existent humanity. It was a difficult first clinical experience because I
was not getting affirmation that what I was providing was
meaningful for those with whom I was engaging. I had to attune to
people whose sociocultural locations were quite different from mine.
In time, I learned to attune to different forms of connection through
music and different forms of communicating that connection.

Complexities of Independence

I spent 4 years in Melbourne while earning my bachelor’s degree in

music therapy. I then returned to Western Australia and developed
part-time music therapy programs in various facilities. At first, I was
the only music therapist in the state. After 4 years, I felt I needed to
learn more about how to engage in music therapy. I decided that I
wanted to learn from Dr. Ken Bruscia, whom I had met in my final
year of my undergraduate degree. So, I contacted him and applied
to Temple University to pursue graduate study. To my surprise, he
remembered me! Although I applied after the deadline, I was
accepted with full-tuition remission and a graduate assistantship. I
had planned to go backpacking in Nepal and around Europe for six
months, but due to my acceptance at Temple earlier than expected,
I changed my plan and headed instead to Philadelphia. I was 25.
When I think back on moving a great distance at 17 to go to
university as an undergraduate and then moving halfway around
Earth at 25 to do graduate studies, it makes sense in my family
genealogy. I am by no means unusual. My maternal grandmother
traveled alone by boat from England to Singapore at the age of 22
(in 1927!) to teach. My paternal grandfather traveled by boat from
England to Australia at the age of 16 (in 1926), wanting to start a
life independent from his family. My mother attended boarding
school from the age of about 6 until they were evacuated to
Australia when she was about 8. My father attended boarding school
from the age of 12 and never really lived at home again for any
appreciable time. My parents and older siblings moved to the United
States for my dad to pursue graduate studies before I was born. So,
it was not seen as out of the ordinary for me to embark on such
adventures alone, “independently.”
When I arrived in Philadelphia, PA, I knew no one except Ken
Bruscia and Tony Meadows, who was also Australian and beginning
at Temple. I knew that the brother of a good friend of mine was
living in Philadelphia while studying at UPenn, and he offered to help
me secure housing. In the process of finding a place, we decided to
live together. I felt comfort in knowing that I would be living with
another Australian who was starting a career in academia as a
psychologist and who, because he had been in Philadelphia for 5
years, would have some household essentials. That last point was an
assumption—it turned out he did not! I vividly remember my first
day in class. As we were introducing ourselves, I burst into tears. I
explained that that morning I had had to eat my cereal with a fork,
that we had almost no housewares, and that I had spent all my
savings (I had sold my car to move) on the first and last month’s
rent and the security deposit. The next day, two fellow MMT
students—roommates Laurie Fox and Leah Klibanoff—brought me in
a whole place setting from their kitchen that included a dinner plate,
bowl, mug, knife, fork, dessert spoon, and teaspoon. Later that day,
Ken Bruscia dropped off bedding and kitchenware that he no longer
needed. I was overcome by the kindness of each of them. Laurie
and Ken have continued to be there throughout my life in so many
ways when I have needed to depend on them.
I had learned to equate “dependence” with neediness, weakness,
and being a burden. To need something from someone else was
deemed a weakness. I had also learned to equate the role of a
therapist with someone who is strong and who helps people who are
dependent. Towards the end of my time as an undergraduate
student, I experienced a moment of deep despair, a moment when I
realized that maybe I should not be a therapist at all. I immediately
went to Denise (Grocke née Erdonmez) and cried, explaining that I
thought that I had a need to be needed and that maybe this was
why I had chosen to be a music therapist. This realization made me
feel terrible, and I thought that maybe I should quit. She sat and
listened to me and asked me questions and continued to listen to me
in all of my angst and despair. Eventually, she smiled and said that
she thought that it was great that I had had that realization, that
she felt that many people have that need, and that an advantage
was that with this realization, I could work on ways to not let it
negatively impact the therapeutic relationship. A value she instilled in
me at that time was that self-awareness was essential for
relationships to develop in meaningful ways. Thinking back, I think
that this helped me understand that we all need to acknowledge our
interdependence.
I share these stories because they depict the complexities of
what Mingus (2017) refers to as the myth of independence, a value
instilled in me and many others sharing similar sociocultural
locations. This value of independence is a Eurocentric, individualistic,
capitalist value. Dependence is perceived as a burden. Needing help
is perceived as a weakness. Not only is it valued in Western society,
but also it is a major goal in various forms of therapy. But, as a
species, humans are interdependent. This is how we have survived
and thrived. We hold on to an unrealistic notion that we should be
able to do things on our own, yet we are dependent on so many
different people for so many things, most of which we do not
consider. In our current historical moment in the middle of the
COVID-19 pandemic, just as we are realizing how interdependent we
are, at the same time we are placing much greater value on certain
modes of independence than we are on others. That is, we feel that
it is perfectly acceptable to depend on medical professionals,
farmers, factory workers, truck drivers, and mechanics, but we
negatively view any dependence on people to assist us with daily
living skills. This differential valuing of dependence is harmful to
disabled people. Over time, my pedagogy has shifted away from a
focus on independence to a focus on appreciating our
interdependence and inter-connectedness.

Complexities of Patriarchy

Experiences during my undergraduate years continued to reinforce

and challenge beliefs and values I had absorbed over the years
regarding the complexities of patriarchy. I experienced women being
invalidated, objectified, insulted, and assaulted. I experienced
double standards for sexual behavior and relational “faithfulness” for
men and women, with much more latitude given to men. I
witnessed different levels of acceptance of this type of subjugation
from people of all genders. I personally experienced intimate partner
violence over those 4 years, and this shifted my understandings of
those in relationships where there is physical, emotional, and sexual
abuse. I had learned to believe that people who were abused were
“weak” and that if they were strong they wouldn’t have been abused
or they would have left the situation as soon as it began. It is deeply
problematic that we make the person who is at the receiving end of
the violence into the problem. I internalized these beliefs. While I
have worked through much of this since then, for a while my
perspective of myself as strong, intelligent, independent, and self-
sufficient was shaken. At the same time, I thought I was strong and
helping a person whom I came to believe was broken. In some
ways, I was drawing on my learned value of putting the needs of
another before those of myself. In some ways, I was a product and
victim of society’s acceptance of toxic masculinity.
After moving back to Western Australia, as I mentioned above, I
developed part-time music therapy programs in various facilities and
also taught cello and worked as a nursing assistant at a residential
facility for physically disabled people. At the same time, I pursued
postgraduate studies in special education. Perhaps due to taking on
too much, I ended up with mononucleosis. I was experiencing
extreme fatigue, falling asleep while teaching and while attending
lectures, and couldn’t get out of bed to get to work. On the way
home after sleeping through a lecture, prior to which I had slept all
day and called in sick to two different jobs, I went to a doctor’s
office to request a blood test. Given my extreme fatigue, coupled
with swollen glands and infected tonsils, I suspected I might have
mono. The doctor denied my need for a blood test, saying that
obviously I was tired and wanted an excuse to take a few days off
work. My perception, given his interactions with me, was that he
thought that I was overstating my symptoms and that he perceived
me as “a weak woman.” When I insisted that I wanted a blood test
and shared my medically informed self-diagnosis, he still refused to
believe the test would be positive (which it was). He insisted that I
was just feeling overworked and wanted a few days off. He seemed
to believe in his superiority both as a medical professional and as a
man, and his approach was incredibly condescending. I later learned
that this kind of experience of not being believed is common for
women in medical settings. I experienced what philosopher Miranda
Fricker (2007) has come to call testimonial injustice.
My experiences of abuse and invalidation by cis white men, of
not being attended to in ways that affirmed my humanity, have in
many ways influenced how I try to be in relationship. I value being
acknowledged, appreciated, and believed. People who are
marginalized experience not being attended to in ways that affirm
their humanity and experience not being acknowledged and
believed.
Complexities of Culture

Growing up, I did not notice my race. However, when I first moved
to Philadelphia, my whiteness was suddenly salient to me. On my
first day of graduate school at Temple University, I got onto a
crowded bus at 26th and Girard and looked around to find a seat.
They were all taken. I put my arm up and held on to the strap for
support. As I took in my surroundings, I was suddenly acutely aware
that I was white. I felt hypervisible for the first time in my life. Of
course, I’d been white all my life, but now I was much more aware
of my whiteness. Here I was, living in a predominantly African
American neighborhood, the only white person on the bus, no longer
surrounded by a familiar sea of whiteness.
Moving to a predominantly Black neighborhood in Philadelphia
meant that, for the first time in my life, I was in the racial minority.
In my new neighborhood, I was constantly aware of the color of my
skin. I felt that negative assumptions were being made about me
based purely on my skin color, and I felt angry that I was not being
seen for the person I felt I was. At the time, I thought this gave me
empathy for those who were so often in the minority. However, what
I came to learn was that even though I was temporarily in the
minority for those moments, I was in a larger society that privileges
whiteness. In the wider world, whiteness is the norm against which
standards of beauty, achievement, and morality are judged. Racial
depictions on magazine covers, television, the news, radio, and films
only confirmed that. In politics, stores, my music and other classes,
and the textbooks I read, the subtleties of whiteness were
embedded in many forms. I have witnessed countless ways in which
my whiteness affords me unearned advantages, while people of
color are systemically disadvantaged.
While studying and working in Philadelphia, I met my husband,
who is African American. George questioned many of my
assumptions, and our relationship expanded—and continues to
expand—my perspectives in countless ways. He bought me books on
feminism; he challenged my definition of racism; he asked how
music therapists understand the concept of the self; we discussed
the therapeutic relevance of rap and hip-hop; he asked how music
therapists were responding to social issues of the day; he asked how
music therapists address racial dynamics. I didn’t feel equipped to
answer many of these questions, as I had not really grappled with
them on a sustained level. In our conversations, challenging systems
of privilege, especially in terms of race, was so constant that one
day I said, “Can we have a break from talking about this just for a
little while?” I remember his response vividly. It was a mark of my
privilege to ask such a question, he said—my survival did not hinge
on challenging the system of white supremacy. I continue to learn
and struggle with this and so many other ways in which the world
reveals itself to me in different ways than it does to others.
Through our relationship and our regular conversations about
race, I have become significantly more aware of the dynamics of
whiteness, racialization, and racism. Being in an interracial
relationship has opened me up to a whole new way of perceiving the
world. I found myself in more honest conversations about race. I
made and continue to grow from what may be perceived as
mistakes, and I am open to them as opportunities for growth. I
began to realize how unaware I was regarding the dynamics of race.
There were many times when I felt and sometimes still feel, over 25
years on, defensive. There are times still when I want a break from
thinking and talking about race. But that is coming from a standpoint
of whiteness. I can’t afford not to think about race. We have five
sons who need me to be aware all the time.
Looking back, I cannot remember an emphasis on culture in any
of my music therapy training. In my graduate studies in music
therapy, there was a focus on psychotherapy, which does emphasize
that there are aspects of our unconscious that impact how we
respond, that our past influences our present, and that in order for
our interpersonal relationships to flourish, we need to address
intrapersonal dynamics. We were encouraged to have therapy
sessions ourselves to gain greater awareness so that we could
reduce the ways that our personal issues limit our freedom in the
therapeutic relationship, hindering the therapeutic alliance.
However, seldom if ever was our sociocultural situatedness
emphasized in this reflexive process. In my doctoral studies in the
psychoeducational processes program, I took courses that began to
address some of these issues, such as a human diversity course in
which I explored my sociocultural situatedness; a narrative inquiries
course that expanded my concepts of “truth” and concepts of “the
self” through postmodern interpretive frameworks; courses focused
on field theories and social processes that were tied into group
process and social conflicts that were occurring in the world; a
course on concepts of education that introduced me to Andrew
Hacker’s book Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile,
Unequal; and a course on marriage and family therapies that
expanded my understandings of systems theories. These all revealed
the complexities of culture intrapersonally, interpersonally, and
internationally.

Complexities of Norms

In the company of music therapists, it is not unusual to hear

someone proclaim, “What is normal?” The proclamation seems to
communicate one’s progressive stance in terms of human variability.
In some ways, however, this hinders further exploration into the
ways that norms structure and reinforce relations of power. My
understandings of norms were both challenged and expanded
through two significant encounters. In 2005, I attended a lecture by
Iris Marion Young on structural injustice and the politics of
difference. Her lecture influenced my critiques of normative
structures. She discussed how a politics of difference asserts that
our dominant narratives—which include how we negotiate relations
of power in terms of gender, race, sexuality, socioeconomics,
disability, and so on—center on a particular and restricted set of
ruling norms, norms that usually present themselves as neutral and
universal. That is, there are certain expectations for how people
ought to perform certain tasks, expectations of what is normal, and
these are deployed as standards against which all individuals are
judged. These standards structure not just capabilities but also
desires, forms of reasoning, language, values, priorities, work ethic,
aesthetic expression and appreciation, and so forth. Young also
discussed how it does not make sense to seek equality in terms of
treating all persons according to the same standards and principles,
the same set of ruling norms that actually privilege certain kinds of
people over others. These ruling norms position various people as
“deviant” and “problematic.” She suggested that because humans
vary in such a large number of ways, so too should our standards
and principles. Such ruling norms are actually disabling and
disadvantaging many groups of people who would otherwise not be
disabled or disadvantaged (Young, 1999). Young’s work echoed and
amplified discussions I had had with friends who are marginalized in
various ways.
A few years later, I attended a lecture by Simi Linton. She
described how, as the result of a car accident while she was
hitchhiking from Boston to Washington, DC, to protest the Vietnam
War, her legs had become paralyzed. She shared many experiences
that shaped her understanding about what it means to be disabled.
As she spoke, I began to feel an important tension between what
she was saying about disability and what I had learned in my music
therapy training and had continued to teach music therapy students.
Linton outlined the difference between a medical definition of
disability and a social, cultural, and political definition of disability.
She critically discussed the concept of ableism as an insidious form
of oppression towards disabled people. She talked about how so
many health care professionals desire to “help” disabled people and
yet they are invested in the perpetuation of a conception of disability
as pathology in an individual (Linton, 1998).
These two lectures greatly reinforced values that were continuing
to form that had grown from deep friendships I had with people
from various sociocultural groups that are minoritized and
marginalized in our society. After these lectures, I began presenting
on dominant narratives in music therapy discourse, our complicity
with them, and what we need to do in order to remain vigilant in our
work toward social justice. I broadened my writings from feminism
to explore issues of race in music therapy. Following this, I edited a
special issue in Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy on
disability studies and music therapy, the first of many special issues
focused on social justice that I have organized as a co–editor-in-
chief of the journal.

Complexities of Pedagogy

As my awareness of “the omnipresence of culture and its

concomitant influences” grew (Hardy, 2016), I brought that
awareness increasingly into the center of my pedagogy. My first step
was to develop a course for senior students, called Advanced Topics
in Music Therapy, in which we engaged the therapeutic relationship
critically in terms of gender, race, and disability. The more I delved
into disability studies, the more concerned I was about perpetuating
oppressive discourse that positions disabled people in limited ways. I
seriously considered leaving the profession because I was worried
that I was contributing to the perpetuation of harm towards disabled
people. Jennifer Adrienne, a dear friend and peer who had left music
therapy, encouraged me to stay and to teach music therapy within a
social justice framework. I turned to critical pedagogy and drew
inspiration from bell hooks (2003), Paulo Freire (2012), and later
Stephen Brookfield (2005).
In 2016, I began teaching the first courses in the master of
music therapy program that I had conceived and developed. This
program centers on sociocultural situatedness. Instead of having a
single multicultural counseling course, all of the coursework draws
from a range of theoretical perspectives that consider the whole
person of the therapist and the whole person of the client within
their sociocultural contexts. Through this program, my
understandings are continuing to expand, and I am continuing to
grow through my relationships with the students and the materials
we are exploring. The students continue to introduce me to concepts
and readings that are new to me. It has been a rich experience for
all of us. Over the past few years, I have learned more about queer
theory from the students, so much so that last year two of them
were guest editors for a special issue on queering music therapy that
was published in Voices.
Critical pedagogy is liberatory and transformative. It requires that
the process of learning consists in both intellectual and emotional
maturation. I find that in my pedagogical approach, complexities
described above in terms of timing, multiple relationships,
connecting through music, interdependence, gender, sexuality, race,
disability, and much more all come into focus. These complexities
bring with them many challenges that must be navigated. The
benefits of this kind of approach involve the depth and
meaningfulness of the process for all of us.

What Lies Ahead

In the narratives that follow, music therapists engage in a critical

cultural reflexive process and explore implications on their
therapeutic practice. Among the authors, there is gender diversity,
diversity of sexualities, racial diversity, ethnic diversity,
neurodiversity, geographical diversity, linguistic diversity, educational
diversity, and more. Initially, there was even more diversity in terms
of authors from more geographical locations around the world, many
of whom are Indigenous. However, for various reasons, people were
unable to contribute in the end. While each of their perspectives
would have added further richness, there still exists an abundance of
perspectives within the following pages. Each person’s intersectional
identity positions them differentially in terms of their sociocultural
location, which brings with it different experiences of unearned
advantages or disadvantages based purely on their membership in
various sociocultural groups in unique combinations. The social
contexts of everyone’s experiences are explored distinctively. Woven
together, the stories in this book create a rich tapestry of the
sociocultural identities of music therapists and their implications for
their therapeutic relationships and processes.
As editor, I have been intentional around discourse. Discourse,
which is much more than individual words, shapes and is shaped by
values and understandings. For example, I have decided to capitalize
Black but not white when referring to these two respective racial
groups. While there are strong rationales on both sides of this
debate, my reasoning behind this decision comes from the fact that
white people have not had a history of discrimination and oppression
based on skin color (Bauder, 2020) and also that Black has become a
preferred identity marker for many African diasporic peoples. All
other races and ethnicities have been capitalized as proper nouns. I
requested that wherever possible, authors not use the term
“American” to refer to the United States. To say American should
mean including people from anywhere in South, Central, or North
America. We have intentionally used gender-neutral language where
possible and have tried not to use ableist metaphors (May & Ferri,
2005; Schalk, 2013) in which the construction of disability is in
opposition to knowledge or that equate impairment of mobility with
lack of progress, liberation, or transformation. We have also
intentionally avoided metaphors that equate dark with something
negative and light with something positive (Noily, 2016) because of
racially laden implications.
As you read these narratives, critically engaged them, and
provide a space for them, jot down internal responses that you
perceive as positive, neutral, and negative as a way to uncover some
of your values and beliefs. All responses are important to interrogate
—even those we understand to be good. Notice ways in which you
distance yourself from certain experiences and similarly ways in
which you align yourself with certain experiences. Notice whether
there are any patterns that emerge. Reading with this level of
intention and reflexivity may reveal aspects of yourself that are not
salient for you. Be open to having your perspective challenged and
possibly cracked. Leonard Cohen would say, That’s how the light
gets in. I would say, That’s how you shed your skin, and, as Kenny
(2006) would say, That‘s how you expand your aesthetic field.

References

AMTA. (2013). Professional competencies. American Music Therapy

Association. Retrieved from
https://www.musictherapy.org/about/competencies/
AMTA. (2019). Code of ethics. American Music Therapy Association.
Retrieved from https://www.musictherapy.org/about/ethics/
Bauder, D. (2020). AP says it will capitalize Black but not white. AP
News. https://apnews.com/7e36c00c5af0436abc09e051261fff1f
Brookfield, S. D. (2005). The power of critical theory: Liberating
adult learning and teaching. Jossey-Bass.
Bruscia, K. E. (2002). Foreword. In B. Stige, Culture-centered music
therapy. Barcelona Publishers.
Butler, J. (2005). Giving an account of oneself. Fordham University
Press.
Freire, P. (2012). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of
knowing. Oxford University Press.
Gilman, V. (2018). Personal communication through an original
poem.
Hardy, K. V. (2016). Toward the development of a multicultural
relational perspective in training and supervision. In K. V. Hardy
& T. Bobes (Eds.), Culturally sensitive supervision and training:
Diverse perspectives and practical applications. Routledge.
hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope.
Routledge.
Kenny, C. B. (2006). Music & life in the field of play: An anthology.
Barcelona Publishers.
Linton, S. (1998). Claiming disability: Knowledge and identity. New
York University Press.
May, V. M. & Ferri, B. A. (2005). Fixated on ability: Questioning
ableist metaphors in feminist theories of resistance. Prose
Studies, 27(1–2), 120–140.
Mingus, M. (2017). Access intimacy, interdependence, and disability
justice. Leaving Evidence: A Blog by Mia Mingus.
https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2017/04/12/access-
intimacy-interdependence-and-disability-justice/
Noily, D. (2016). Seeing the dark in a different light: The power of
our language to promote racial justice. T’ruah: The rabbinic call
for human rights. https://www.truah.org/resources/seeing-the-
dark-in-a-different-light-the-power-of-our-language-to-promote-
racial-justice/
Schalk, S. (2013). Metaphorically speaking: Ableist metaphors in
feminist writing. Disability Studies Quarterly, 33(4).
Special Issue on Music Therapy and Disability Studies. (2014).
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 14(3).
Young, I. M. (1999). Ruling norms and the politics of difference: A
comment on Seyla Benhabib. Yale Journal of Criticism, 12(2),
415–421.
 Chapter 1

ME: A PERSONAL AND

PROFESSIONAL NECESSITY

Marisol S. Norris
she/her/hers

The bridge
I must be
Is the bridge to my own power
I must translate
My own fears
Mediate
My own weaknesses
I must be the bridge to nowhere
But my true self
And then
I will be useful
—Donna Kate Rushin

I found God in myself and I loved her, I loved

her fiercely.
—Ntozake Shange
 I died today. Pour libations for me.
—me

I often engage in a location of self in most professional encounters

as an entry into my evolving definition of personhood and its
influence on my professional work. I’ve leaned upon cultural workers
and scholars, often Black queer, feminist, and womanist theorists
who permitted their bodies as bridges to others’ learning, and
minoritized therapists who recognized the connections between their
liberation and others’. And in many ways, these cultural workers led
me to consider the political act of naming as a catalyst to critical
dialogue in therapeutic spaces—not solely serving as a deliberate
means for calling out the traumatic wounds of oppression, but also
amplifying the intentional care needed to bridge our inner worlds
with the world around us, the people and relationships we hold, and
liberatory aims.
thandiwe Dee Watts-Jones, a Black clinical psychologist and
creative nonfiction writer, believes that deep social reflection and
meaningful dialogue in therapeutic spaces can emerge from central
tensions brought about by the therapist’s disclosure of their
sociocultural identities. In “Location of Self: Opening the Door to
Dialogue on Intersectionality in the Therapy Process,” Watts-Jones
(2010) describes the location of self as a process by which therapists
may initiate conversations with service recipients about these
similarities and differences (p. 405). Building upon several
approaches made salient by the “cross-fertilizing” work of
minoritized therapists, Watts-Jones (2010) proposed that
intersectionality, as manifested in therapists, holds deep meaning
and contributes to therapists’ “professional and personal presence”
(p. 407). I begin this chapter by offering an adapted location of self,
one that not only describes my sociocultural location but also whose
positionality has been influenced by my cultural heritage and the
multiple ways in which I perceive myself in the world and in my
work.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
disposition that has induced them in modern times to
impose humiliating penalties on such Women as are
guilty of sins which the Men themselves commit with
the utmost freedom, and thus to establish a mortifying
difference, in that respect, between the two sexes,
instead of that amiable equality which obtained
between them under the Jewish law, according to
which the Man and Woman who had committed
together the sin of Fornication, were lashed with equal
numbers of stripes.
[9] The Miserere is the 51st Psalm; and the De
Profundis is the 130th, which is none of the shortest.
The singing of the Miserere seems to be particularly
appropriated, among Catholics, to regulate both the
duration of religious flagellations, and the time to which
they are to be performed, as we may conclude from
the above passage of our Author; and also from a
passage of M. de Voltaire in his Candide, in which he
says, that, when Candide was flagellated at Lisbon, by
order of the Inquisition, he was all the while
entertained with a Miserere en faux bourdon; which is
a kind of Church Music.
[10] The expressions of the Vulgate are, fui
flagellatus, I have been whipped. The Vulgate of the
Old Testament is a very ancient Latin version of it from
the Hebrew, corrected afterwards by St. Jerom, which
is followed in all Catholic Countries.
[11] The Talmud is the Tradition, or unwritten law of
the Jews, the Law of Moses being their written Law.
This Tradition has, in process of time, been set down
in writing; and two different Collections have been
made of it: the one, in the Jerusalem School, about
three hundred years after Jesus Christ, which is called
the Jerusalem Talmud; the other, in the Babylonian
School, five hundred years after Jesus Christ, and is
called, the Babylon Talmud. The latter is that which is
usually read among the Jews; and when they simply
say, the Talmud, they mean the Babylon Talmud.
[12] Buxtorf, the Author from whom the above facts
are drawn, is mentioned with great praise in the
Scaligerana, which is a Collection, or mixture, of
Notes, partly French, partly Latin, found in the papers
of J. Scaliger, and printed after his death. Buxtorf is
called, in one of these Notes, the only Man learned in
the Hebrew language; and Scaliger adds, that it is
surprising how the Jews can love him, though he has
handled them so severely; which shews that he has
been impartial in his accounts. Mirum quomodo
Buxtorsius à Judæis ametur, in illâ tamen Synagogâ
Judaicâ illos valdè perstringit.
[13] It is to be supposed, that the Jew Priests had
been well freed for the above benign interpretations
they gave of the law of Moses.
 C H A P. III.

Voluntary flagellations were unknown to the first

Christians. An explanation is given of the
passage of St. Paul: I chastise my body, and
keep it under subjection[14].

FLAGELLATIONS are mentioned so often as eleven

times by the Holy Writers of the New Testament.
Of these, five relate to Jesus Christ. The first is in
the xxth chapter of the Gospel according to St.
Matthew, v. 19; and in the xxvith of the same, v. 26.
In the xvth chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, v. 33. In the
xviith chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, v.
33; and in the xixth chapter of the Gospel according
to St. John, v. 1[15]. No just conclusion, as the Reader
may see, can be drawn from the above-mentioned
passages, in support of voluntary flagellations, and of
those Disciplines which Monks now-a-days inflict on
themselves; since it is plain that our Saviour did not
whip himself with his own hands: and we might as
well say that we ought to inflict death upon ourselves,
and nail ourselves to a cross, as that we ought to
lacerate our own flesh with scourges, because Jesus
Christ was exposed to that kind of punishment.
The other six passages of the New Testament in
which whipping is mentioned, are, first, in St. John’s
(c. ii. v. 15.) And when He had made a scourge of
small cords, he drove them out of the Temple, and
the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the
changers of money, and overthrew the tables. The
second chapter is in the fifth chapter of the Acts (v.
40.) And when they had called the Apostles and
beaten them with scourges, they commanded that
they should not speak in the name of Jesus; and let
them go. The third place in which scourgings are
mentioned, is the sixth chapter of the second Epistle
to the Corinthians (v. 15.) St. Paul in that Chapter
places Stripes among the different methods of
persecution which were used against the ministers of
the Gospel, and he moreover relates the sufferings to
which he himself had been exposed. Of the Jews five
times received I forty stripes save one: and in the
next verse he says, Thrice was I beaten with rods,
once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck; a
night and a day I have been in the deep. Fifthly, in his
Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 36.) the same Apostle
says, speaking in general terms, And others had
trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea,
moreover of bonds and imprisonments. Now, from all
these passages no authority whatever can be
derived to justify the practice of voluntary flagellation.
All the persecuted persons above-mentioned
suffered those beatings with rods, and those
scourgings, much against their will.
The sixth and last passage in which whipping is
mentioned, in the New Testament, is therefore the
only one from which any specious conclusion may be
drawn in support of the practice of voluntary
flagellation: it is contained in the first Epistle to the
Corinthians (ix. 22); St. Paul in it says, I chastise my
body, and keep it under subjection. Indeed this
passage is well worth examining attentively. Several
men of great authority have given it as their opinion,
that the Apostle expressly meant to say, by the
above words, that it was his practice to lash himself,
in order to overcome his vicious inclinations. Among
others, James Gretzer, an able Theologian and one
of the Fathers Jesuits, vehemently asserts that the
Greek words in the text literally signify, “I imprint on
my own body the stripes or marks of the whip, and
render it livid by dint of blows,” and the same Father
supports his assertion by the authority of Septalius
and Guastininius, two celebrated Interpreters of
Aristotle, who, in their Commentaries, quote
Gallienus as having used the Greek word in question
(ὑπωπιάζω) in the same sense which he (Father
Gretzer) attributes to St. Paul. To these authorities
Gretzer moreover adds those of St. Irenæus, St.
Chrysostom, Paulinus, and Theophylactus, who (he
says) have all explained the above passage in the
same manner as himself does: so that, if we were to
credit all the comments of Father Gretzer, there
would, indeed, remain little doubt but that St. Paul
meant to say, he fustigated himself with his own
hands; and that he was thereby left an example
which all faithful Christians ought in duty to imitate.
But yet, if, setting aside, for the present, all
authorities on this head, we begin with examining
attentively into the real meaning of the Greek word
which is the subject of the present controversy, we
shall see that it cannot have that signification which
Father Gretzer pretends. In fact, let us examine if
that word occurs in any other place of the New
Testament, and in what sense it is employed. We
meet with it in the eighteenth Chapter of St. Luke,
wherein Jesus Christ says, in the manner of a
Parable, that a Widow used to teaze a Judge with
her frequent complaints, who was thereby compelled
at last to do her justice; and he makes him speak in
the following words: “Because this Widow troubles
me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming,
she weary me (ὑπωπιάζη μὲ.)” Now, who can
imagine that this Judge entertained any fear that the
Woman should flagellate him? Yet, we must think so,
if the Greek word used in the Text (which is the very
same as that employed by St. Paul, and on which
Father Gretzer builds his system) should always
signify, as that Father pretends, to beat, or lash. If a
literal explanation of that word, therefore, is in many
cases improper and ridiculous, it follows that it is
frequently to be understood in a figurative sense, and
that it is then only employed to express that kind of
hard usage either of one’s self, or of others, which is
exercised without any mixture of real violence, or
bodily sufferings. To this add, that St. Paul himself,
when, on other occasions he really means to speak
of blows and actual stripes, never once makes use of
the word in question.
Besides, if in order rightly to understand the
meaning of St. Paul, we consult the holy Fathers and
Interpreters (which certainly is a very good method of
investigating the truth), we shall scarcely find one
who thought that St. Paul either beat or lashed
himself, and in the above passage meant to speak of
any such thing as voluntary Flagellation. St. Iræneus,
Bishop of Lyons, though he has translated the words
in question into these, “I chastise my own body, and
render it livid,” has made no mention whatever of
either scourges, whips, or rods.—St. Chrysostom
likewise supposes, that the Apostle in the above
passage, only spoke of the pains and care he took, in
order to preserve his temperance, and conquer the
passions of the flesh; and that it was the same as if
he had said, “I submit to much labour, in order to live
according to the rules of Temperance. I undergo
every kind of hardship, rather than suffer myself to be
led astray.” It must be confessed, however, that
Benedictus Haeftenus, in his Disquisitiones
Monasticæ, quotes a passage from the above
Author’s 34th Homily, by which he pretends to prove
that self-flagellations were in use in that Father’s
time; but the words which Haeftenus has quoted in
Latin are not to be found in the original Greek of St.
Chrysostom’s Homilies, and are therefore to be
attributed to some modern Flogging-Master
(Μαστιγοφόρος) who has lent them to him, by a kind
of pious fraud. Other passages to prove our
assertion, might be quoted from the words of
Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, of Oecumenius, as well
as several other Greek Fathers.
The Latin have also understood St. Paul’s words in
the same sense that the Greek Fathers have done.
Indeed I do not find one among them but who
thought that St. Paul did not actually lash himself with
his own hands. St. Ambrosius, Bishop of Milan,
expresses himself on the subject in the following
words. ‘He who says (meaning St. Paul) I chastise
my body, and bring it into subjection, does not so
much grieve (contristatur) for his own sins, which
after all could not be so very numerous, as for ours.’
St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, and an illustrious
Discipline of St. Augustin, on this occasion treads in
the footsteps of his excellent Master, giving the same
sense as him to the words of St. Paul. The following
is the manner in which St. Fulgentius explains those
words, in his Epistle on Virginity, addressed to Proba.
“The spiritual Spouse of Virgins does not seek in a
Virgin a body practised in carnal pleasures; but
rather wishes she should have chastised it by
abstinence. This, the Doctor of the Gentiles used to
practice on his own body. I chastise (says he) my
body, and keep it under subjection. And again, in
watchings often, in thirst and hunger, in fastings
often: let therefore the Virgin of Christ forbear to seek
after pleasures which, she sees, are equally with-
held from the widow.”
To all the above proofs, I know it will be objected
that St. Petrus Chrysologus, archbishop of Ravenna,
is clearly of opinion that St. Paul lashed himself with
his own hands. The following is the manner in which
he expresses himself on this head, at least if we are
to credit the account given of his words by that great
Patron of flagellations, Father Gretzer, in his Book
printed at Ingolstadt in the year 1609. “This St. Paul
used to do, who wrote in the following words the title-
deed of his own Servitude, I render my body livid,
and bring it into subjection: like a faithful Slave,
himself supplied the rod, (vindictam) and severely
lashed his own back, till it grew livid[16].” Now, who
would not from these words, thus standing alone, as
Father Gretzer recites them, conclude that St. Paul
really used to cover his back with stripes? But, if we
consult the original itself, we shall see that St.
Chrysologus meant no more than to borrow a simile
from the punishment usually inflicted on Slaves;
which punishment he mentions in the beginning of
the very passage we discuss here, and of which
Father Gretzer has artfully quoted only the
conclusion. “After all (says Peter Chrysologus) if the
Servant does not awake early the next day, and rise
before his Master, whether he be weary or not, he
will be tied up and lashed. If the Servant therefore
knows what he owes to another Man, the Master is
thence taught what himself owes to the Lord of
Lords, and is made sensible that he also is subject to
a Master.” ‘This is what St. Paul practised, who wrote
the title-deeds of his own servitude, and exposed
himself to thirst, hunger, and nakedness. Like a good
slave, he himself supplied the rod, and severely
lashed himself.’
 If we examine into the works of St. Hierom, St.
Austin, Pope Gregory the Great, and other Latin
Fathers, we shall find that they also understood, that
St. Paul had expressed himself in a figurative
manner. And it is only by misquotations, or arts of the
like kind, that Father Gretzer, Cardinal Demian, and
others, have attempted to prove that self-flagellations
were in use so early as the time of St. Paul among
Christians.
 FOOTNOTES:

[14] As the disputes concerning religious

flagellations have been carried on with great warmth
on both sides, the two parties have ransacked the
Scriptures for passages that might support their
respective opinions; and the supporters of flagellations
have been particularly happy in the discovery of the
passage of David, mentioned in the preceding
Chapter; and that of St. Paul which is recited here. By
the former passage, the supporters of flagellations
pretend to shew, that they were in use so early as the
time of David; and that the Prophet underwent a
flagellation every morning: by the latter passage, they
endeavour to prove that self-scourgings were practised
by St. Paul, and of course by the first Christians. As
the literal meaning of the above two passages is
wholly on the side of the supporters of flagellations,
this, as it always happens in controversies of that kind,
has given them a great advantage over their
opponents, who have been reduced, either to plead
that the expressions urged against them were only to
be understood in a figurative sense, or to endeavour,
by altering the original passage, to substitute others in
their stead. The latter is the expedient on which our
Author has chiefly relied in this chapter, and he strives
to substitute another word, to the word ὑπωπιάζω,
used by St. Paul when he said, he chastised his flesh;
which is to be found in all the common Editions of the
Greek New Testament. And indeed it must be
confessed, that the above word is of itself extremely
favourable to the promoters of self-flagellation; little
less so than the words of Asaph, fui flagellatus (I have
been whipped) mentioned in the foregoing Chapter; its
precise meaning being the same as I bruise or
discolour with blows: it comes from the word ὐπώπιον,
which signifies a livid mark left under the eye by a
blow: on which the Reader may observe (which, no
doubt, will be matter of agreeable surprise to him) that
what is called in plain English a black-eye, was
expressed in Greek by the word ὑπώπιον. Besides
trying to substitute another word to that attributed to St.
Paul in the common Greek Editions of the New
Testament, our Author produces several passages
from Greek and Latin Fathers, to shew that they
thought that St. Paul meant no more than to speak of
his great labours, abstinence, continence, &c.
The principal end of this Chapter is, therefore, to
discuss the interesting question, whether St. Paul used
to flagellate himself: and I have preferred to give the
above compendious account of the contest on the
subject, rather than introduce the long discussion of
Greek words, and use the whole string of passages
from Greek and Latin Fathers, contained in the Abbé
Boileau’s Book. By that means, the present Chapter
has, for the sake of the Reader, been shortened to ten
pages, instead of thirty, it must otherwise have
contained.
[15] “And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock,
and to scourge and to crucify him.” St. Matth. c. xx. v.
19.... “Then Pilate took Jesus, and scourged him.” St.
John, c. xix. ver. 1.
[16] Hoc implebat Paulus, qui servitutis suæ titulos
sic scribebat. Lividum facio corpus meum, & servituti
subjicio. Præbebat vindictam bonus servus, qui se
usque ad livorem, sic agens, jugiter verberabat.
 C H A P. I V.

The use of Flagellations was known among the

ancient Heathens. Several facts and
observations on that subject.

IT is not to be doubted, that flagellations had been

invented, and were become, in early times, a
common method of punishment in the Pagan world.
Even before the foundation of Rome, we meet with
instances which prove that it was the usual
punishment inflicted on Slaves. Justin, in his Epitome
of Trogus Pompeius, relates that the Scythians more
easily overcame their rebellious Slaves with
scourges and whips, than with their swords. ‘The
Scythians being returned (says Justin) from their
third expedition in Asia, after having been absent
eight years from their Wives and Children, found they
now had a war to wage at home against their own
Slaves. For, their Wives, tired with such long fruitless
expectation of their Husbands, and concluding that
they were no longer detained by war, but had been
destroyed, married the Slaves who had been left to
take care of the cattle; which latter attempted to use
their Masters, who returned victorious, like Strangers,
and hinder them, by force of arms, from entering the
Country. The war having been supported, for a while,
with success pretty nearly equal on both sides, the
Scythians were advised to change their manner of
carrying it on, remembering that it was not with
enemies, but with their own Slaves, that they had to
fight; that they were to conquer by dint, not of arms,
but of their right as Masters; that instead of weapons,
they ought to bring lashes into the field, and, setting
iron aside, to supply themselves with rods, scourges,
and such like instruments of slavish fear. Having
approved this counsel, the Scythians armed
themselves as they were advised to do; and had no
sooner come up with their enemies, than they
exhibited on a sudden their new weapons, and
thereby struck such a terror into their minds, that
those who could not be conquered by arms, were
subdued by the dread of the stripes, and betook
themselves to flight, not like a vanquished enemy,
but like fugitive slaves.’
Among the antient Persians, the punishment of
whipping was also in use: it was even frequently
inflicted on the Grandees of the Kingdom by order of
the King, as we find in Stobæus, who moreover
relates in his forty-second Discourse, ‘That when one
of them had been flagellated by order of the King, it
was an established custom, that he should give him
thanks as for an excellent favour he had received,
and a token that the King remembered him.’ This
custom of the Persians was however in subsequent
times altered: they began to set some more value on
the skin of Men; and we find in Plutarch’s
Apophthegms of Kings, ‘That Artaxerxes, son of
Xerxes, sirnamed the Longhanded, was the first who
ordered that the Grandees of his kingdom should no
longer be exposed to the former method of
punishment; but that, when they should have been
guilty of some offence, instead of their backs, only
their clothes should be whipped, after they had been
stripped of them.’
We also find, that it was a custom in antient times,
for Generals and Conquerors, to flog the Captives
they had taken in war; and that they moreover took
delight in inflicting that punishment with their own
hands on the most considerable of those Captives.
We meet, among others, with a very remarkable
proof of this practice, in the Tragedy of Sophocles,
called Ajax Scourgebearer (Μαστιγοφόρος): in a
Scene of this Tragedy Ajax is introduced as having
the following conversation with Minerva.

Minerva.
 ‘What kind of severity do you prepare for that
miserable man?’
Ajax.
‘I propose to lash his back with a scourge till
he dies.’
Minerva.
‘Nay, do not whip the poor Wretch so cruelly.’
Ajax.
‘Give me leave, Minerva, to gratify, on this
occasion, my own fancy; he shall have it, I do
assure you, and I prepare no other punishment
for him.’

The punishment of flagellation was also much in

vogue among the Romans; and it was the common
chastisement which Judges inflicted upon Offenders,
especially upon those of a servile condition.
Surrounded by an apparatus of whips, scourges, and
leather-straps, they terrified Offenders, and brought
them to a sense of their duty.
Judges, among the Romans, as has been just now
mentioned, used a great variety of instruments for
inflicting the punishment of whipping. Some
consisted of a flat strap of leather, and were called
Ferulæ; and to be lashed with these Ferulæ, was
considered as the mildest degree of punishment.
Others were made of a number of cords of twisted
parchment, and were called Scuticæ. These Scuticæ
were considered as being a degree higher in point of
severity than the ferulæ, but were much inferior, in
that respect, to that kind of scourge which was called
Flagellum, and sometimes the terrible Flagellum,
which was made of thongs of ox-leather, the same as
those which Carmen used for their Horses. We find
in the third Satyr of the first Book of Horace, a clear
and pretty singular account of the gradation in point
of severity that obtained between the above-
mentioned instruments of whipping. In this Satyr,
Horace lays down the rules which he thinks a Judge
ought to follow in the discharge of his office; and he
addressed himself, somewhat ironically, to certain
persons who, adopting the principles of the Stoics,
affected much severity in their opinions, and
pretended that all crimes whatever being equal,
ought to be punished in the same manner. ‘Make
such a rule of conduct to yourself (says Horace) that
you may always proportion the chastisement you
inflict to the magnitude of the offence; and when the
Offender only deserves to be chastised with the whip
of twisted parchment, do not expose him to the lash
of the horrid leather scourge; for, that you should only
inflict the punishment of the flat strap on him who
deserves a more severe lashing, is what I am by no
means afraid of[17].’
The choice between these different kinds of
instruments, was, as we may conclude from the
above passage, left to the Judge, who ordered that to
be used which he was pleased to name; and the
number of blows was likewise left to his discretion;
which sometimes were as many as the Executioner
could give. ‘He (says Horace in one of his Odes) who
has been lashed by order of the Triumvirs, till the
Executioner was spent[18].’
Besides this extensive power of whipping
exercised by Judges among the Romans, over
persons of a servile condition, over Aliens, and those
who were the subjects of the Republic, Masters were
possessed of an unbounded one with regard to their
Slaves, over whose life and death they had moreover
an absolute power. Hence a great number of
instruments of flagellation, besides those above-
mentioned, were successively brought into use for
punishing Slaves. Among those were particular kinds
of cords manufactured in Spain, as we learn from a
passage in an Ode of Horace, the same that has just
been quoted, and was addressed to one Menas, a
freed-man, who had found means to acquire a great
fortune, and was grown very insolent. ‘Thou (says