
Join us on November 9th at 11am ET for this Book club event where we will be discussing the book, Breaking Strings: Explorations of Mistakes in Music Therapy.
In this innovative volume of Breaking Strings, Avi Gilboa and Laurien Hakvoort use broken strings on an instrument as a metaphor to refer to those frustrating and sometimes upsetting moments when things go wrong in music therapy.
Although there are myriad ways in which music therapists can make mistakes and deal with the consequences, there is limited coverage of this subject in the professional literature. This book explores theoretical ideas and research on mistakes in music therapy. It also presents a series of authentic case studies in which 17 music therapists – ranging from novice to experienced practitioners, from 13 different countries – describe and reflect on mistakes in their own practice.
This book provides a starting point for both students and the wider music therapy community to discuss, analyze, and ultimately understand and learn from mistakes as part of their professional development.
Registration for this event is required. Register here:

Avi Gilboa (Israel), PhD, received his BA in Psychology and Music at Bar-Ilan University, Israel and subsequently his diploma in Music Therapy and his PhD in Cognitive Psychology. He has been a music therapist since 2001 in various settings and with different clinical populations. He is associate professor and head of the Music Therapy program at Bar-Ilan university. He supervises many music therapy PhD students and is supervisor of music therapy students and graduates.

Laurien Hakvoort (Netherlands), PhD, RMTh, NMT-Fellow, holds a BA and MA in Music Therapy from Amersfoort and University of the Pacific, California, USA, respectively. She obtained her PhD in Behavioral Sciences from Tilburg University. She has been a music therapist since 1994 and has worked as a music therapist in forensic psychiatry for 17 years and currently runs a private practice, Muzis.net. She is a music therapy lecturer on the bachelor’s and (pre-)master’s programs at ArtEZ University of the Arts, Enschede, the Netherlands and a freelance researcher.

Melissa Mercadal-Brotons, PhD, MT-BC, SMTAE. Music therapist specialised in the area of gerontology and dementias. Leader of the Special Interest Group on dementias of the IAMM. Director of the Master Programme in Music Therapy and Vice-director of Academic Affairs (Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya-ESMUC). Past-President of the WFMT.