Music therapy within a unified system of science

Music therapy carries the responsibilities of interdisciplinarity; far from existing in a vacuum, it is interrelated with numerous other disciplines of social and health sciences. Thus, it should be admitted that it is impossible for music therapy theorists to achieve conclusiveness in their conceptual explanations, without simultaneously providing conclusive rationales regarding concepts which would be relevant simultaneously to other disciplines, such as the nature of mental health or disease, However, the lack of conclusiveness regarding its conceptual relations is not a shortcoming solely by the field of music therapy, as the reverse is also the case; the lack of conclusive conceptual frameworks on the actualities of mental health and disease within music therapy, points to the same lack within the fields of e.g. psychology or psychiatry.

Fundamentally, the fields which are studying the same reality have the responsibility to elucidate the same common concepts. For example, there cannot be a separation on the actualities of the nature of an electron between the fields of chemistry and physics, as the electron they are studying is fundamentally the same one, whether the study pertains to its behavior related to optics or to ionic bonds. A development on the subject within either one of the fields would

directly concern the other, because it would be a development on our understanding of the same reality. This mutual concern with the same reality makes science a joint effort and a unified system. Likewise the actuality of mental health does not suddenly become different when studied by different fields, and therefore ascertained conceptual relations in any of them would have to be common values.

The problem of music therapy literature being written largely for other music therapists (Ansdell, 2015) and likewise being read mostly also by music therapists, therefore is closely tied to this lack of conclusiveness; if comprehensive explanations regarding the actuality human health, well-being or mind, as well as their relationship with music were aimed provided, the literature would naturally be of concern for a wider scientific audience. Or if such conclusiveness is achieved within psychology or psychiatry, music therapy would have gladly adopted and integrated them. Conversely, when such conclusive interdisciplinary relations are not provided, the proposed theories cannot be conclusive even within the assumed boundaries of music therapy. This naturally weakens the relevance of music therapy to the rest of the scientific disciplines, and therefore hinders the fields interdisciplinary establishment

Nevertheless, influential authors within music therapy define the notion of theory in ways which explicitly oppose conclusiveness. Stige, Malterud and Midtgarden (2009) define theory as “a set of beliefs and assumptions...” (p. 10), or Aigen (2013), for example, state that most contemporary theories focus on providing a perspective or viewpoint on existing clinical practices. Likewise, Bruscia (2005), defines theory as “a way of thinking about what we do or what we know” (p. 540). Bruscia seemingly avoids to provide an evaluative criteria as to what kind of properties “a way of thinking” should have in order to qualify as a viable theory, as his meta-theoretical stance demands that “there is no one truth about the nature of theory” (p. 541).

In other words, the one single truth about the term theory is curiously proposed as it being void of certifiable truth and necessity. This postmodern meta-theoretical stance is promoted in similar assertions such as “the propositions or constructs are always constructed by the theorist based on how that theorist views what we do or what we know” (p. 540, underline is mine). As such, the term “theory” appears to be defined by Bruscia, on inductive grounds, that is, as an umbrella term reflecting the cumulative qualities of theories which are currently available in the music

therapy literature. However, as will be argued promptly the term itself signifies certain properties and distinctions, regardless of the common nature of present theories of music therapy.

Words which have both a technical and an everyday meaning often cause confusion, and even scientists can at times use the word theory when they really mean hypothesis or even just an opinion or hunch (University of California, 2012). This overestimation of beliefs and assumptions by regarding them as theories, simultaneously cause scientific theories and robust discoveries (e.g the theory of evolution) to be underestimated with the put down “it’s just a theory”, that it is a mere opinion whose legitimacy cannot be essentially different from another opinion. This means the proposed theory is only a viewpoint of the author, and could not be found as existing inherently in the actual world, if the world had not been viewed so by the author. For example, the impossibility of transferring genes in case of member of a species not surviving in the environment, is something that exists solely in the viewpoint of Darwin, or the submerged portion of an object displacing an equal volume of fluid is only the perspective of Archimedes based on his own meta-theoretical stance.

This is misleading in the sense that it conflates two distinct meanings of the word theory: its common usage, and its scientific usage as coherent and provable relational statements, that explain observed facts or phenomena or which set out, or aim to set out the laws and principles of something known or observed (University of California, 2012). Their unique character consists of not only being mere views, but being efforts towards capturing the essence relations existing in the actual world. These relations, such as ones mentioned above, are not mere opinions or constructs of the human mind, and are by all means concrete realities such as the relation between notions “survival” and “reproduction”.

Bruscia (2014a) recognizing that there is a difference in quality among their explanatory power regarding the world, suggests “coherence” as a constitutive dimension of theory, along which theories vary in their degree of reasonableness; which means theories have the luxury to be not so coherent, yet retain the status of theory. However, while opinions, guesses and hunches of experienced professionals can be valuable additions, it would be misleading to consider them as belonging in the same kind of category with the sole notion by which scientific legitimacy is represented within established scientific disciplines. “To provide a view or an opinion” does not

appear to be an inadequate description to delineate the purpose, accomplishment or the enabled affordances of currently established scientific theories. It could be another person's “view'' that submerged objects displace the amount of fluid, not equal but twice the volume of the submerged object, but it most certainly could not suffice as a theory of physics, nor could it contribute to human life and development in the way that the theorem of buoyancy thus far has.

Which means a scientific understanding of theory requires its relational statements to be supported by more than an elaboration on the views of an author. Therefore, it seems as it wouldn’t be so farfetched to argue that for a discipline to shift from a meta-theory that regards views as sufficient grounds for its scientific representation, towards a “scientific meta-theory”, namely one which requires ts theories to obtain and provide scientific knowledge on the truth of the world, could simultaneously be its shift from proto-scientific stage to scientific stage, and consequently its scientific establishment.