Borczon, R. (2004). Music therapy: A field work primer . Gilsum, NH: Barcelona. 149 pages. ISBN 1-891278-21-5. $21.00

Borczon, R. (2004). Music therapy: A field work primer. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona. 149 pages. ISBN 1-891278-21-5. $21.00 Ronald Borczon, MT-BC, has published Music therapy: A fieldwork primer, a text designed for students who are training in music therapy fieldwork experiences and internships. The author has an admirable reputation as a clinician and educator: nearly 25 years as a professional music therapist as noted in this book. He has to his credit a previous text, also published by Barcelona, titled Music therapy: Group vignettes (1997), which is used widely in English speaking undergraduate and graduate training programs around the world. A stated focus for the current "handbook" is to assist students in ". . . the process of developing helping skills" (p. xiii). Toward this aim Borczon provides supportive advice, brief clinical scenarios with various intervention suggestions, descriptions of a group of verbal techniques with examples of usage, an explanation of documentation procedures, and encouragement for students to embrace supervision opportunities. Cursory descriptions of musical techniques and methodological procedures are found, but these are few and are admittedly not the intention of the book. A final chapter is devoted to quotes from experienced music therapists that were provided in response to the author's request for helpful thoughts to share with less experienced therapists. In the very beginning of the text (second page) I was struck by Borczon's acknowledgement of "the two most influential music therapy educators in my life, Ken Bruscia and Jayne Standley" (p. x). Personally, I found it difficult to envision two more noteworthy yet distinctive professionals after whom one might model oneself as a music therapist. Bruscia is known world-wide as a therapist steeped in psychodynamic traditions. His important work in clinical improvisation, Guided Imagery and Music (GIM), and qualitative research methodologies is quite dissimilar to that of Standley, whose equally renowned pioneering work in medical and school-based settings has its foundations firmly in behaviorism. And while Bruscia's academic success may be traced to the training of students in a diversity of clinical orientations, Standley's academic program has been similarly well-regarded and attended for its unwavering ethos of behaviorism. Consequently, my curiosity was instantly piqued for what the rest of this fieldwork primer held. From which clinical orientation will guiding notions be drawn? Will music in the therapy process be conceived as a reinforcer for client behaviors or will students be encouraged to hear clients' music in an interpretive fashion from which insights to unconscious motivations may be gained? Will students read that client responses must be evaluated through quantifiable means or will recognition be afforded to the value of qualitative and subjective observations? And what value will be ascribed to the process of developing therapeutic relationships and the relative therapeutic importance thereof? Although the above observations and curiosities may initially appear peripheral to the intent and content of this text, the reader is well advised to hold the notion of clinical polarities in mind while absorbing Borczon's recommendations for successfully facilitating therapy. The book has a principal slant toward behaviorism, particularly where clinical technique is concerned. Behavioral therapy terms such as "contingency," "reinforcement," and "incompatible response" abound as does the notion that treatment is most successfully evaluated through quantifying client responses. In a chapter titled "Intervention Strategies for the Difficult Client," a preponderance of behaviorally grounded suggestions is put forth for 'managing client behaviors/ Conversely, Borczon advises students in their first clinical encounter Io "Think of the client as a piece of music that is constantly flowing and changing in time. Your role is to help this symphonic outline embodied in human form discover meaning and health through their music" (p. …