Music therapy and parent-infant bonding

Abstract

Building the bonds of love in a secure relationship in the early years is considered essential to making a good start in life. Part of the repertory of interaction involves easily identified music elements. This predisposes the music therapist to having a strong basis on which to support therapeutic interventions that promote secure bonding between vulnerable infants and their caregivers. By providing a musical container, or skin, in which both the parent and infant can be held, music therapy can offer the dyad a chance to safely encounter and explore one another anew. Music therapists have rich resources for supporting this capacity sensitively and joyfully with their clients.