This paper draws upon a dissertation for a Master of Music Therapy undertaken at the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre, London. Music therapy is not currently an established part of bone marrow transplantation (BMT) care for paediatric patients in Britain and consequently little research has emerged in this area of clinical work in the UK. This study explores the psychosocial needs of children and their families during BMT, and demonstrates how music-centred co-improvisatory music therapy can address these needs. It is written from the point of view of the therapist. Drawing from interviews with patients, families and staff who have experience of music therapy within the area of BMT, and clinical vignettes form the first author's music therapy practice, this paper highlights four areas of psychosocial needs that music therapy can address: a sense of agency, pleasure, cultural identity and normality. Each of these is discussed in relation to both the child and the family. The study suggests that the use of a music-centred, co-improvisatory approach to music therapy appears to be especially flexible in meeting and supporting the variety of psychosocial needs experienced by both children undergoing a bone marrow transplantation and their families.

Hospitals and clinics worldwide have incorporated music therapy in their work with cancer patients and in palliative care. As the music therapy profession has developed internationally, so has its role in palliative care. The arts and creative arts therapies are being seen as a form of spiritual care in healthcare setting, particularly where individuals are confronting life-threatening illnesses. By offering opportunities to engage in the arts and develop creative expression, people with cancer can be enable to mourn, grieve, celebrate life, be empowered to endure their situation, and find healing and meaning. In many studies we find that music therapy is not simple used with the identified patients but also with their families and carers. As well as noting the importance of work with patients and their families, music therapist also emphasise the importance of music for their own healing. This is necessary to meet personal needs when working with dying and in the context of a broader hospital milieu of colleagues and friends. The world Health Organisation's recommendations for cancer relief and palliative care are to affirm life and regard dying as a process, to provide relief from pain and distressing symptoms, to integrate the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care, to offer a support system to help patients as actively as possible until death, and to offer a support system to help the family cope during the illness and in their own bereavement. Music therapy has the potential to meet all of these recommendations.

This paper describes an outcome investigation into two clinical groups of mothers and young children receiving short-term music therapy. The first group was a closed group of mothers and toddlers receiving six-weekly music therapy sessions. The second group was an ongoing group of parents and babies receiving one music therapy session followed by a discussion of videotaped excerpts of this music therapy session a week later. As a point of comparison, a group of children and parents attending a local nursery school receiving six-weekly music sessions run by a music therapy was also investigated. Video analyses, audio analyses and parent's questionnaires were used to measure results. Comparing information collated from the questionnaires to results of the video analyses revealed that parents attending the clinical group viewed their children's behaviours in a less positive light than control group parents. The article is written from the music therapist's viewpoint. This group music therapy work is described and reflected upon in a more qualitative way in a previous article entitled "Mummy can play too..." Short-term music therapy with mothers and young children' published two years ago in the BJMT.