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. 2024 Dec;78(4):165-177.
doi: 10.1177/15423050241291562. Epub 2024 Nov 21.

Faith and Practice: How Religious Beliefs Affect a Music Therapist's Clinical Identity and Practice

Victoria Di Giovanni  1 , Heidi Ahonen  1
Affiliations

Faith and Practice: How Religious Beliefs Affect a Music Therapist's Clinical Identity and Practice

Victoria Di Giovanni et al. J Pastoral Care Counsel. 2024 Dec.

Abstract

Although there has been considerable literature surrounding spirituality and its role in music therapy, there stands to be a gap surrounding religious faith and its effect on clinical practice by practitioners. This phenomenological study, conducted among accredited music therapists in Canada, examined the impact religious faith has on their clinical practice. The study found that religious devotion had more positive benefits than negative repercussions in the workplace among these professional practitioners.

Keywords: Music therapy; discrimination; religion; spirituality.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Survey distributed to members of the Canadian Association of Music Therapists (CAMT) from February 11–18, 2022, using Qualtrics.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Phase 2: Interview Questions (Semi-Structured) - Conducted throughout March 2022.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Religions practiced by survey respondents (based on 3% of CAMT's 969 members).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Experiences of perceived discrimination by survey respondents with colleagues, peers and/or clients in relation to religious affiliation.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Data analysis from interview participants highlighting interconnectivity of themes and subthemes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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