Community Sound Work: Music in open health settings – voice and body, inclusion and therapy, individuality and indication

Abstract Though Sound Work was developed in the field of psychiatry, its characteristics proved to comply widely with the philosophical paradigms of community music, a fact that encouraged the development of Community Sound Work as a new interdisciplinary and culturally sensitive concept. Sound Work was developed on the basis of comparative psychiatric case studies identifying four main clinical problems: traumatization and pathological symbolization, psychosomatic loops and somatization, loss of inner balance and social disintegration, energetic maladjustment and inadequate energy expenditure. Clinical application has shown that rhythm and sound are deeply involved with human characteristics and life-determining conditions. This led to various applications of Sound Work in medical, preventive, pedagogical and sociocultural fields. Consequently, the philosophy of community music could benefit greatly from a fresh view of psychiatric Sound Work, because while psychopathological traits require therapy, authentic personality features require empathetic inclusion.