Importanza della ricerca sperimentale in musicoterapia

This paper reports an analysis of the articles published between 1998 and 2008 in the Journal of music therapy, an international, peer reviewed, impact factor journal. The aim of this analysis is to reveal the main research tendencies in the field of music therapy. The analysis process employed an inductive method based on “grounded theory” where categories emerged from the data rather than data being categorised according to pre-determined categories. The analysis sought to reveal as ‘themes’ the areas of research in music therapy that were reported by this prestigious journal during the period under investigation. The ‘themes’ of research revealed were: prenatal/new-born/infant sound experiences, the effects of music, music therapy or music at school, music therapy or music in the social context, theoretical aspects of music therapy, meta-analysis, experimental research with music therapy, education and professional development of music therapists. The ‘themes’ are described and their importance for the development of research in music therapy is discussed.