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Guide VIII-061

Liberation music therapy

Dorian Wallace2022New York, USA
A 36 · L 49 · M 1514 interventions in the Trinity explorer
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[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: Dorian Wallace's own published writings. These are the essay "Liberation Music Therapy" (dated 13 June 2022 on its Anarchist Library repost, from Wallace's blog, and also reissued as Anarchist Essays #38), the Substack chapters "Introduction to Liberation Music Therapy" and "Theoretical Foundations of Liberation Music Therapy", "The Praxis Wheel (Revised)" (2025), and the episode pages of his 2025–2026 workshop podcast series Liberation Music Therapy (Eps 2–9, This Machine Kills Fascists). The podcast is used through its episode descriptions only. [source: Wallace 2022 essay; Substack chapters; Praxis Wheel (Revised); podcast pages]

What it is. Liberation music therapy (LMT) is a practice framework, not a manualised therapy. Dorian Wallace is a composer and music therapist who calls himself board-certified. He applied it at Rikers Island jail and says it draws on his work in hospice, carceral settings and recovery from high-control groups. He states that LMT is not a specific orientation but a way of practising that centres justice, empowerment and cultural consciousness. In his words there is "no single way to 'do' liberation music therapy". [source: Theoretical Foundations; Introduction chapter; Columbia Presidential Scholars seminar page, May 2022; podcast page]

It applies Latin American liberation psychology (Ignacio Martín-Baró) to music therapy. It combines this with Freire's concientización (critical consciousness) and critical pedagogy, liberation theology, decolonial thought, critical psychology, community music therapy, trauma-informed care and "artivism" (art plus activism). [source: Wallace 2022 essay; Theoretical Foundations]

How change happens (as Wallace frames it). People heal when they come to see personal distress as tied to oppressive social, economic and political structures (critical consciousness) and then act together on it. Music speeds this up in several ways. Familiar community music opens reflection on one's position in society. Rhythmic entrainment and shared music-making build bodily solidarity. Making music together turns insight into collective agency. In this model the therapist is "less of a clinician but more of a cultural practitioner". [source: Wallace 2022 essay; Theoretical Foundations]

The sources are blog, essay and podcast material, not a peer-reviewed manual. They describe almost no step-by-step procedure. Wherever this guide supplies operational steps beyond Wallace's text, they are marked [synthesis]. No other published approach called "liberation music therapy", and no Martín-Baró-based music therapy method, was found in English or Spanish sources or in music therapy journals (Voices, The Arts in Psychotherapy, Canadian Journal of Music Therapy), so this guide follows Wallace. Related critical approaches published under other names (anti-oppressive, feminist and critical-humanist, social-justice, and Brazilian social-community music therapy) are summarised below as context. They are not LMT. [source: pages listed under Sources] [uncertain: no book, manual or training curriculum by Wallace was found; Baines (2013) and Hadley & Thomas (2018) are cited through abstracts and reviews only]

Related work under other names (context, not LMT)

The name "liberation music therapy" is Wallace's own. Music therapists who write about oppression and justice in peer-reviewed journals mostly use other names. Their work is distinct from LMT. It is better documented, and a clinician adapting LMT can borrow from it. [source: Apley 2025; Apley & Hadjineophytou 2026; Ribeiro et al. 2025; Baines & Edwards 2018]

  • Anti-oppressive music therapy (AOMT; Sue Baines, Canada). Baines (2013, The Arts in Psychotherapy 40(1)) describes it as practice that aims to expose and dismantle both obvious and hidden oppression in music therapy systems, practice and research. A grounded-theory study in a long-term care facility and a secure mental health centre found that building client-preferred music into all programming increased client agency. Staff cultural humility also increased. Baines and Edwards (2015) apply the same analysis to research: who takes part, who frames the question, recruitment and consent. [source: Baines & Edwards 2018 and 2015 abstracts; Baines 2013 cited there]
  • Critical, feminist and identity-focused work (Susan Hadley). Hadley edited Feminist Perspectives in Music Therapy (2006) and Sociocultural Identities in Music Therapy (2021). The 2021 book ends with seven reflexivity exercises, including a values inventory, recognising microaggressions, cultural and critical genograms, and preparing for difficult dialogues. Hadley and Thomas (2018, Music Therapy Perspectives 36(2)) propose critical humanism in music therapy. [source: Baines 2023 review in CJMT; Ribeiro et al. 2025 reference list] [uncertain: Hadley & Thomas cited only]
  • Social-justice and institutional advocacy (UK Nordoff and Robbins therapists). Apley (2025) and Apley and Hadjineophytou (2026), both in Voices, describe concrete moves. These include sharing session extracts so staff see clients differently, reframing "challenging" behaviour, advocating within multidisciplinary teams, holding groups in public spaces, and supporting clients to perform so they shape how others see them. Their framing is anti-oppressive practice, empowerment and allyship, not liberation psychology. [source: Apley 2025; Apley & Hadjineophytou 2026]
  • Brazilian social-community and emancipatory music therapy. Ribeiro, Ribeiro and Rosário (2025, Voices 25(3)) describe collective music-making and songwriting projects with four groups: Black women on São Paulo's periphery, an Indigenous community in Rio de Janeiro (at its own request), LGBTQIA+ people in Belo Horizonte, and survivors of domestic violence. They draw on Baines and on Brazilian authors (Cunha, Paz), not on Martín-Baró or Freire. [source: Ribeiro et al. 2025]
  • Other reference points. These include a Voices special issue on queering music therapy (19(3), 2019) and a Music Therapy Perspectives special issue on social justice (Swamy & Webb, eds., 2022). Vaillancourt (2012) and Curtis (2012) write on social justice, and Ansdell (2002) on community music therapy. [source: Apley 2025 reference list; Voices issue title from its listing] [uncertain: cited only]

In practice [synthesis]: if a client, employer or commissioner asks for liberation-oriented or justice-oriented music therapy, the peer-reviewed reference points are AOMT and the social-justice literature above. Wallace's LMT is one practitioner's framework with similar aims.

2. Framework

No published phases, session count or progression criteria. Wallace gives no formal session structure, number of sessions or outcome measures. His one worked example is a group format: play a community-relevant song to people in custody, then pose reflective questions. [source: Wallace 2022 essay]

Organising framework: the Praxis Wheel. In place of phases, Wallace offers the Praxis Wheel as a real-time "compass for therapeutic and activist work". It is meant for therapists, educators, organisers and artists. [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised); Praxis Wheel Explained]

  • Axis (centre): the practitioner's main medium. This can be music, art, therapy, education, mutual aid, spiritual companionship or any care-rooted embodied practice. For Wallace it is almost always music.
  • Eight spokes:
    1. Trauma-Informed and Trauma-Sensitive
    2. Culturally Relevant and Identity-Affirming
    3. Accessibility and Nuanced Participation
    4. Empathetic Concern and Compassionate Action
    5. Embodied Mindfulness
    6. Educational and Transformational Practices
    7. Accountability and Collective Agency
    8. Liberatory Truth, Understanding and Justice
  • Rules of the Wheel: no spoke ranks above another; the spokes inform each other; it is relational, not hierarchical; always begin with the first spoke (trauma-informed); and it is "always in motion": adaptive, relational, progressive. [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised)]

Formats and settings named by Wallace:

  • Groups of people in custody at Rikers Island
  • Hospice and end-of-life care
  • Recovery from cultic, systemic and narcissistic abuse
  • Community and activist spaces
  • Online workshops for clinicians and organisers

Session length and frequency are not specified. [source: Wallace 2022 essay; Praxis Wheel (Revised); podcast pages]

Working arc for a clinician [synthesis; Wallace publishes no phases, but this order follows his rule to begin with spoke 1 and his lyric-analysis sequence]:

  • Phase A, Safety and engagement (spokes 1–3; about 1–3 sessions). Agree consent and the group contract. Learn the participants' music. Remove access barriers.
    • Move on when participants choose songs, speak or play voluntarily, and can name how they will step out if distressed.
  • Phase B, Reflection and consciousness-raising (spokes 4–6, 8; the core of the work). Run cycles of listening or music-making followed by dialogical reflection and problem-posing education.
    • Move on when participants link personal experiences to social conditions in their own words and start proposing what they could do.
  • Phase C, Agency and action (spoke 7). Plan and carry out participant-chosen collective projects, such as songwriting, a performance, a mutual-aid or advocacy step, or links to community organisations. Include repair and accountability processes.
    • Close when the group has an outcome it owns and a plan for continuing without the therapist.
  • Every session [synthesis]:
    • grounding/check-in
    • music experience
    • reflection questions
    • action or integration
    • closing ritual and regulation check

Professional frame.

  • Wallace practises as a board-certified music therapist. [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised)]
  • US credential. The MT-BC is granted by the Certification Board for Music Therapists (CBMT). It requires completing an AMTA-approved academic and clinical training programme and passing the CBMT exam, then recertifying every five years with 100 credits. Certification is voluntary, but some states require it for licensure or registries. [source: CBMT FAQ]
  • UK. "Music therapist" is a protected title across the UK. It is regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) under the Health Professions Order 2001, alongside art therapist, art psychotherapist and dramatherapist. Only HCPC-registered practitioners may use it. [source: UK Regulated Professions Register, Arts Therapist] BAMT is the professional association. [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
  • No LMT-specific credential or training route exists. Wallace's training offer found was his online workshop and podcast series. [source: podcast pages]
  • Who should do what [synthesis]:
    • Active music-making for therapeutic aims (improvisation, group drumming, songwriting as treatment) belongs within credentialed music therapy.
    • A psychotherapist without music therapy training can use song discussion and critical-consciousness dialogue within their own scope. They should not call it music therapy and should refer to or co-facilitate with an MT-BC or HCPC-registered music therapist for the music-making components.
  • Not a stand-alone treatment [synthesis]. LMT does not replace evidence-based treatment for PTSD, psychosis, severe depression or substance use. Use it alongside such care.

Materials and physical safety [synthesis unless cited]:

  • Playback. A speaker or phone with controllable volume.
  • Percussion and instruments. Clean shared instruments between uses.
  • Custodial settings. Get custody approval for every item in advance (cables, drumsticks, metal parts, glass bottles and anything usable as a weapon or ligature are commonly restricted).
  • Hearing safety. The WHO-ITU safe-listening standard sets a weekly allowance of 80 dB for 40 hours for adults and 75 dB for children. It was written for personal audio devices; use it as a conservative reference for rooms [source: WHO-ITU standard; application to rooms is synthesis].
    • Keep amplified playback at conversational-plus levels.
    • In group drumming, offer foam earplugs and hand drums or shakers rather than loud kits.
    • Seat hyperacusis-prone, autistic or trauma-startle clients away from loud instruments, and let them control their own volume (e.g. a shaker rather than a djembe).
    • Stop or soften if anyone covers their ears.

3. Guiding principles

From the 2022 essay [source: Wallace 2022 essay]:

  • Meet communities where they are, "psychologically, intellectually, and spiritually". Start from the participants' worldview, not from your analysis.
  • Use music popular in the community, not music you think they should hear. Participants choose or nominate the songs.
  • Respect participants' beliefs and culture; avoid an artificial, imposed or entitled posture. Do not perform allyship or lecture. Be plain about your own position.
  • "Real will always recognize real." Authenticity and class solidarity build trust; scripted rapport does not.
  • Therapist as cultural practitioner and participant in struggle. Music is treated as art, ritual, therapy and politics at once. The therapist stands with the group rather than above it.
  • Look past resistance and be patient with harmful views. Wallace cites an IWW trainer's view that solidarity counters bigotry. Engage people who voice prejudice rather than ejecting them by reflex.
  • Accountability is vital, approached with empathy. Name harm in the group and repair it without shaming.
  • Music's meaning depends on historical context and social group. Ask what a song means to these listeners; never assume.

Liberation-psychology principles as listed in the Substack Introduction chapter [source: Introduction chapter]:

  • Critical consciousness (conscientisation). Help participants see the social, political and economic forces in their lives, as a step toward action.
  • Critical realism. Hardship is real, but how it is understood is shaped by ideology and power. Validate the reality and question the interpretation.
  • De-ideologised reality. Help participants spot dominant narratives they have absorbed (e.g. "I'm poor because I'm worthless").
  • Social orientation. Formulate each person within their culture, economy and politics, not only intrapsychically.
  • Preferential option for the oppressed majority. Prioritise the needs and voices of marginalised members, including inside the group.
  • Methodological eclecticism. Borrow from psychodynamic, narrative, community and Indigenous approaches and from mainstream tools, assessed critically and reworked.

From the Theoretical Foundations chapter [source: Theoretical Foundations]:

  • Co-learner, problem-posing stance (Freire, hooks). Ask questions and share knowledge both ways; do not "deposit" interpretations.
  • Trauma-informed reframe from "What is wrong with you?" to "What happened to you?" Ask about context and history before pathology.
  • Validate cultural identity and support reclaiming heritage. Invite heritage music, language and stories.
  • Treat poverty, discrimination and inequality as causes of distress. Address practical needs and refer for them, not only feelings.
  • Stay attuned to group social-emotional dynamics. Track who speaks, who is silenced and who holds power in the room.

The Praxis Wheel spokes as stance principles [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised); practical meanings are synthesis]:

  • Trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive. Build safety, trust and grounding first, and adjust settings flexibly to members' needs.
  • Culturally relevant and identity-affirming. Honour lived experience and amplify quieter voices.
  • Accessibility and nuanced participation. Offer graded ways in, such as listening only, a shaker, singing, or lyric suggestions, and remove friction.
  • Empathetic concern and compassionate action. Respond to suffering and injustice with competent, deliberate help, not only empathy.
  • Embodied mindfulness. Stay present to bodily signals and rhythms, your own and the group's.
  • Educational and transformational practices. Teach about trauma, resilience, power and oppression, and address internalised oppression somatically and relationally.
  • Accountability and collective agency. Own your impact, repair, and share decision-making power.
  • Liberatory truth, understanding and justice. Centre marginalised people's accounts of what happened.

4. Intervention inventory

Wallace's essays describe one intervention in detail: lyric analysis with entrainment observation and a move to action. A podcast episode page and a workshop listing outline two more: a music and liberation sharing circle (4.15) and a four-session arc for people whose relationship with music was shaped by coercion (4.14). Several others he names without a procedure: communal music-making, creating music about class and power, critical psychoeducation, embodied mindfulness, participatory and arts-based methods, collaboration with community organisations, and the Praxis Wheel. Each entry below says which parts are his and which are [synthesis]. All therapist wording is illustrative.

4.1 Community-relevant song selection

  • Purpose / when: Wallace's first step in every music experience. It honours the community's culture, builds trust and supplies material people already identify with, since music reflects how a community sees itself. [source: Wallace 2022 essay]
  • Steps:
    1. Ask participants which artists, songs and genres they listen to, and which songs "say something true" about their lives. [synthesis]
    2. Choose from what is popular in the community, not your own canon. [source: Wallace 2022 essay]
    3. Pre-screen each track for content that may harm or trigger this specific group, such as graphic violence, sexual violence, self-harm, slurs aimed at members, or songs used by gangs, abusers or a high-control group. Choose clean or radio edits where the institution requires them. [synthesis]
    4. Find out what the song means to these listeners, because meaning depends on historical context and social group. [source: Wallace 2022 essay]
  • Example language (illustrative): "What's on your playlist right now? Which song would you want this group to hear, and why?"
  • Watch for / working: It is working when members bring songs and argue for them. Watch for someone choosing a song to provoke another member, and for songs tied to a member's trauma. Ask privately before playing a nominated song that may carry such links. [synthesis]

4.2 Lyric analysis for critical consciousness (core intervention)

  • Purpose / when: To move from felt response, to personal meaning, to social and structural awareness, to possible action. Wallace used it in custody groups at Rikers Island with a trauma-themed rap track (Meek Mill). [source: Wallace 2022 essay]
  • Steps (the sequence and question themes are Wallace's, paraphrased; the timing and handouts are [synthesis]):
    1. Set up [synthesis]. Give printed lyrics if literacy and institutional rules allow, or play twice. Remind the group they can pass on any question.
    2. Play the song. Observe entrainment while it plays (4.3). [source]
    3. Body first. Ask how the rhythm affected their bodies. [source]
    4. Personal salience. Ask which lyrics stood out. [source]
    5. Critical consciousness. Ask whether any moments in the song express critical consciousness, meaning awareness of the forces shaping the artist's situation. [source]
    6. Positionality. Ask whether any lyrics raise awareness of the listener's own position in their socioeconomic environment. [source]
    7. Action. Ask what they can do with this knowledge. [source]
    8. Close [synthesis]. Summarise the themes in the group's own words, check regulation, and do a brief grounding.
  • Example language (illustrative):
    • "Before we talk about the words, what did that beat do in your body?"
    • "Which line stuck with you?"
    • "Is the artist describing something only he did, or something that was done to a whole neighbourhood?"
    • "Where are you in that picture?"
    • "So, knowing that, what's one thing that's actually in our hands?"
  • Watch for: Wallace does not discuss risks; the following are [synthesis].
    • Disclosure of offences, ongoing legal matters or self-harm. In custody, state the limits of confidentiality beforehand and remind people that disclosures about pending cases can be used in court.
    • Grief or trauma flooding.
    • The therapist steering people toward a predetermined political reading. Problem-posing means the group reaches its own conclusions.
  • How you know it is working [synthesis]:
    • Participants move from "I" to "we" and "they" statements.
    • They link the song to their own histories.
    • Self-blame softens into contextual understanding.
    • The group starts generating its own questions.

4.3 Observing entrainment as nonverbal communication

  • Purpose / when: Wallace treats unconscious rhythmic synchronisation, such as head-bobbing or foot-tapping, as communication. He watches for it even when no one is speaking. He grounds this in evolutionary ideas about collective rhythm (Jordania's "battle trance"). [source: Wallace 2022 essay; the theory is Wallace's framing and is not established fact]
  • Steps:
    1. While music plays, note who moves in time, who freezes and who disengages. [source; recording it is synthesis]
    2. Use this to pace the discussion: start with engaged members and invite, without pressing, those who were still. [synthesis]
    3. Optionally reflect it back without interpretation. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "I noticed a lot of feet going during the chorus. What was happening there?"
  • Watch for: Moving in time is not consent or agreement, and stillness is not resistance. Stillness may mean dissociation, hypervigilance, a medication effect or cultural norms. Never read movement as evidence of a person's state beyond what they confirm. [synthesis]

4.4 Communal music-making for solidarity (drumming, chanting, singing)

  • Purpose / when: Wallace describes communal music-making as building solidarity and empathy. He cites drumming, chanting and singing as traditional healing and altered-state practices (Sufi practice, shamanic drumming, devotional chant) and as modern forms (rave, hip-hop, reggae). He gives no protocol. [source: Wallace 2022 essay; Theoretical Foundations]
  • Steps [synthesis; use only within music therapy training or with a music therapist]:
    1. Begin with an easy shared pulse, using body percussion or shakers.
    2. Rotate leadership so that participants, not the therapist, start and change patterns.
    3. Build call-and-response.
    4. Add a participant-chosen chorus or chant.
    5. Bring the volume and tempo down together.
    6. Finish with a silent pause and a short reflection: "What was it like to be in time with each other?"
  • Example language (illustrative): "Anyone can stop, sit out or just listen at any point. Marcus, give us a rhythm and we'll follow you."
  • Watch for [synthesis]:
    • Hearing levels. See section 2.
    • Escalation. Rising tempo and volume can tip into agitation in custody or acute settings.
    • Cult and high-control survivors. Synchronised chanting or trance-inducing repetition can echo coercive group rituals. Avoid trance-oriented repetition and ensure an easy exit.
    • Sacred traditions. Do not reproduce Sufi, shamanic or other sacred practices. Wallace cites them as history, and religious authority belongs to those traditions.
  • Working: Participants lead, listen to each other, and describe connection without feeling pressured. [synthesis]

4.5 Creating music about class, history and power (songwriting and arrangement)

  • Purpose / when: The Introduction chapter says participants analyse and create music about class struggle, historical context, power and systemic change. No procedure is given. [source: Introduction chapter]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Harvest phrases from earlier lyric-analysis discussions.
    2. The group picks a theme and point of view.
    3. Choose a familiar beat, chord loop or melody (song parody or a new rap or verse over a loop).
    4. Write verses individually or in pairs, and the chorus as a group.
    5. Rehearse and record if permitted.
    6. The group decides whether and how to share it.
  • Example language (illustrative): "We keep coming back to 'nobody hears us.' Want that as the hook? Who wants to write the first verse?"
  • Watch for [synthesis]:
    • Recordings. In institutions, recordings and lyrics may be reviewed by staff, and naming people, gangs or cases can create risk. Agree what can be written down.
    • Ownership. The song belongs to the group; get consent before any sharing.
    • Working: the group can explain the song's message in its own terms.

4.6 Moving from insight to collective action

  • Purpose / when: Wallace's lyric-analysis sequence ends with what participants can do with what they now see. He frames the work as a route toward collective organising, with the practitioner as an active participant in working-class struggle. [source: Wallace 2022 essay]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. List the actions the group itself proposes.
    2. Sort them into personal, interpersonal, community and institutional.
    3. Check each for safety and legal risk (especially in custody, on probation or under immigration control).
    4. Choose one doable step.
    5. Plan who, what and when.
    6. Review it next session.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Which of these can you do without putting yourself at risk? Which would need allies outside?"
  • Watch for [synthesis]:
    • The therapist's own politics driving the choice of action.
    • Participants feeling obliged to adopt the therapist's cause.
    • Actions in prisons that could lead to disciplinary charges.
    • Keep action participant-led and optional, and keep therapy separate from any organising you do outside your clinical role.

4.7 Critical psychoeducation (problem-posing dialogue)

  • Purpose / when: Wallace calls for collaborative psychoeducation built on Freire's problem-posing education and bell hooks, in place of the "banking" model. It covers mental health, trauma, resilience, power and oppression, and builds problem-solving and communication skills. His workshop also covers high-control dynamics, caste and class. [source: Theoretical Foundations; Praxis Wheel spoke 6; podcast Eps 7–9 descriptions]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Start from a problem the group names (a "generative theme" drawn from their songs).
    2. Ask what they already know about it.
    3. Add a short piece of information, such as how trauma affects the body or how control works in high-control groups.
    4. Pose it back as a question.
    5. Ask how it fits their experience and what it changes.
  • Example language (illustrative): "A lot of you said your body stays on alert even when you're safe. Here's one way trauma researchers explain that. Does it match what you live?"
  • Watch for:
    • Lecturing.
    • Information that feeds self-blame.
    • Unsourced claims. Some of Wallace's class frameworks are presented without sources; teach only material you can source. [synthesis]

4.8 Trauma-informed grounding and immediate support (Praxis Wheel spoke 1)

  • Purpose / when: Spoke 1 always comes first. Wallace defines it as recognising how trauma affects the body and building safety, trust and grounding, while flexibly adjusting the setting to members' needs. His Ep 3 lists sections on psychological first aid, phases of trauma recovery and trauma-informed principles. [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised); Apple Podcasts listing for Ep 3] [uncertain: Wallace's specific procedures for these]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. At the start, agree a group contract covering passing, leaving the room, confidentiality and its limits, and no recording without consent.
    2. Explain what music will be used and why, so nothing is a surprise.
    3. Open with a short grounding, such as feet on the floor, three slow breaths with a soft sustained tone, or naming one sound in the room.
    4. Agree a stop signal.
    5. If someone is triggered, lower or stop the music, orient them to the present (name, place, date, the room), offer water or a seat by the door, and follow up one-to-one.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Music can bring things back fast. If a song hits wrong, raise a hand or just step out. Nobody needs to explain."
  • Watch for:
    • Startle, freezing, glazed eyes or leaving.
    • Songs tied to the trauma itself: the music played during an assault, the abuser's favourite songs, a cult's worship songs, songs from a funeral. [synthesis]
    • Working: members use the stop signal without shame and return. [synthesis]

4.9 Embodied mindfulness (spoke 5)

  • Purpose / when: Spoke 5 asks practitioner and group to stay present, attuned to bodily signals and rhythms, aware of others' perceptions, and grounded. Ep 6 promises practical approaches to present-moment awareness and contrasts mindfulness with concentration as "choiceless awareness rooted in lived experience". It also discusses the ethics of complementary and alternative medicine. [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised); Apple Podcasts listing for Ep 6] [uncertain: the episode's actual exercises]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Before or after the song, invite two minutes of open listening: notice any sound, sensation or thought without choosing one.
    2. Repeat with a slow, soft instrumental track or a single sustained tone.
    3. Ask what was noticed, not what should have been felt.
    4. Keep the option of eyes open.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Eyes open or closed, your choice. Just notice whatever shows up, the music, the room, your breath, and let it move on."
  • Watch for:
    • Dissociation or rising panic in trauma survivors during inward focus. Shorten the exercise, keep eyes open and keep it externally anchored.
    • Avoid framing it as spiritual practice unless the client brings that in. [synthesis]

4.10 Praxis Wheel as a planning and reflection compass

  • Purpose / when: Used before and after sessions to keep practice ethical, culturally grounded and liberation-oriented, and to adapt in real time. [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised); Praxis Wheel Explained]
  • Steps [synthesis; Wallace publishes no step-by-step method]:
    1. Before a session, check each of the 8 spokes, starting with spoke 1, and write one concrete plan per spoke (e.g. spoke 3: "bring shakers and large-print lyrics").
    2. During the session, when something goes wrong, ask which spoke is under strain.
    3. Afterwards, rate each spoke briefly in supervision notes and choose one to strengthen next time.
  • Example language (to yourself or in supervision, illustrative): "Spoke 7 slipped today. I made the song choice for them. Next week they choose."
  • Working: Session plans show deliberate attention to all spokes, and repeated gaps become visible. [synthesis]

4.11 Accountability and repair (spoke 7)

  • Purpose / when: Spoke 7 means owning your actions and their impact, committing to repair, and sharing power. Wallace states that accountability is vital and should be practised with empathy. Use it when harm occurs in the group or between therapist and group. [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised); Wallace 2022 essay]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Pause the activity.
    2. Name what happened descriptively.
    3. Invite the person harmed to say the impact (or speak with them privately).
    4. The person who caused harm, including the therapist, acknowledges it without defending.
    5. Agree a concrete repair and any change to the group agreement.
    6. Check in next session.
  • Example language (illustrative): "I picked that track without asking, and it landed badly for some of you. That's on me. From now on, songs get a group okay first."
  • Watch for:
    • Shaming rituals or public "call-outs" that retraumatise.
    • Coerced apologies.
    • In cult-recovery groups, accountability processes that resemble the group's confession practices. Keep them voluntary, private where possible and time-limited. [synthesis]

4.12 Participatory and arts-based inquiry

  • Purpose / when: The Introduction chapter names participatory action research and arts-based methods as liberation practices. No protocol is given. [source: Introduction chapter]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. The group defines a question about its conditions (e.g. "What makes the unit feel unsafe?").
    2. Members gather material through songs, lyrics, short interviews or playlists.
    3. The group analyses the material together.
    4. It presents findings in a form it chooses, such as a song, a set list or a statement.
    5. With consent, the findings feed back to services.
  • Watch for: Ethics approval if any of it becomes research; anonymity; and institutional retaliation risk. [synthesis]

4.13 Collaboration with community leaders, organisations and policymakers

  • Purpose / when: Wallace lists collaboration with community leaders, organisations and policymakers, and the creation of open, dialogical spaces inside institutions, as part of practice. [source: Theoretical Foundations]
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Map local resources with the group, such as re-entry services, tenants' unions, cultural centres and mutual aid.
    2. With consent, make warm referrals.
    3. Invite community musicians or elders to co-facilitate where the group wants this.
    4. Agree data-sharing limits in writing.
  • Watch for: Confidentiality when outside partners join; dual relationships if you are also an organiser in the same community. [synthesis]

4.14 Psychoeducation on high-control dynamics (recovery from high-control groups and coercive control)

  • Purpose / when: Wallace works with survivors of cultic, systemic and narcissistic abuse. Ep 7 covers how autonomy is eroded and dependency is deliberately cultivated in relationships, organisations and politics, framed as harm prevention. [source: Praxis Wheel (Revised) author note; Apple Podcasts listing for Ep 7] His 2026 four-session online workshop for people whose relationship with music has been entangled with coercion, control or manipulation moves through four stages: building safety; music with positive associations; music with negative associations; and building an "audio-biography". [source: American Humanist Association event page, "Music Support Workshop for Recovery from Cults & Abusive Relationships"]
  • Steps [order of steps 1–3 and 5: Wallace's workshop outline (AHA event page); detail and step 4 synthesis]:
    1. Build safety first: agree consent and pacing, and make clear the survivor can skip or stop any track at any point. [source: AHA event page; detail synthesis]
    2. Start with music the survivor links to strength, identity and joy, chosen by the survivor. [source: AHA event page]
    3. Only once that feels steady, and at the survivor's pace, approach music linked to harm or control (for example the group's own songs). The survivor decides whether to listen, stop, change how it is used, or leave it aside; the aim is reclaiming choice and boundaries. [source: AHA event page; detail synthesis]
    4. Alongside, use 4.7 to name control tactics such as isolation, information control and induced dependency, and invite survivors to compare these with their experience at their own pace. [synthesis]
    5. Close by building an "audio-biography": a self-designed soundtrack of the survivor's life as it is now. [source: AHA event page]
  • Example language (illustrative): "You get to decide what music is yours now. Let's start with songs that feel like you at your strongest. We'll only go near the harder ones if and when you want to."
  • Watch for:
    • Group singing, chanting and charismatic facilitation can re-create the dynamics being healed. Keep leadership rotating.
    • Keep the therapist's authority low-key.
    • Never ask for loyalty to a cause. [synthesis]

4.15 Music and liberation sharing circle

  • Purpose / when: A group opener that links personal and collective struggle through music members already value. Wallace offers it as a group activity on the first episode page of his podcast series. [source: The Liberation Music Therapist, Episode 1 page, 29 June 2025]
  • Steps:
    1. Each member names a song or piece of music that helped them through a personal or collective struggle. [source: Episode 1 page]
    2. The group listens to the pieces. [source: Episode 1 page] Pre-screen nominated tracks and keep volume moderate (see 4.1) [synthesis].
    3. Discuss how each piece affected members emotionally, mentally and physically. [source: Episode 1 page]
    4. End by considering how music like this could contribute to a wider social or political movement for healing. [source: Episode 1 page]
    5. Let anyone pass or name a song without playing it. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "Think of a song that got you through something hard, on your own or with other people. If you're happy to, tell us about it and we'll listen together."
  • Watch for: Songs tied to trauma for another member (ask privately before playing); one person's struggle being turned into a political lesson they did not ask for; pressure to share. It is working when members connect their own songs to shared experience without being steered. [synthesis]

5. Handling problems

Wallace's published texts barely address clinical problems. He gives three positions:

  • look past resistance and meet people where they are;
  • engage people holding harmful views through solidarity rather than rejection;
  • treat accountability as vital, practised with empathy.

[source: Wallace 2022 essay] Everything else in this section is [synthesis].

Stuck or silent group.

  • Drop back to spoke 3 (accessibility). Offer listening-only roles, written or anonymous lyric picks, or pairs before the full group.
  • Swap abstract questions ("positionality") for concrete ones: "Who in the song has power? Who doesn't?"
  • Let a participant DJ the next track.

"Resistance" or rejection of the political frame.

  • Wallace's stance is to look past resistance to where people actually are. [source]
  • In practice, never make critical-consciousness language a condition of participating.
  • Some clients want symptom relief, not analysis. Respect that, offer the contextual lens as one option, and keep the music work useful either way.

Participant voices bigotry against another member or group.

  • Wallace advises solidarity and patience rather than rejection. [source]
  • Still protect the targeted members first: stop the remark, restate the group agreement, and give the speaker a chance to repair (4.11).
  • If it continues, meet the speaker one-to-one; remove them only if safety demands it.
  • The preferential option for the most marginalised applies inside the room too.

Overwhelm, flashbacks and dissociation.

  • Stop or lower the music and ground (4.8).
  • Afterwards, review the song choice and pacing.
  • Screen beforehand for acute PTSD, psychosis, mania or intoxication. Those clients need individual stabilisation first.
  • Have an exit plan and a second staff member in custodial groups.

Musical trauma triggers.

  • Ask at intake about songs, genres or sounds tied to bad experiences: abusers' music, music used in interrogation or as punishment, worship songs of a high-control group, funeral songs, and loud bass or drums linked to violence.
  • Keep a do-not-play list per participant.
  • Warn before tracks with violent or sexual content.

Hearing and sensory overload. Apply the volume limits and earplug offer in section 2. Provide a quiet seat and visual cues for stopping.

Non-adherence and drop-out.

  • LMT has no homework protocol. Agree group-chosen between-session tasks (a song to bring, one observation) and treat missed tasks as information, not failure.
  • In custody, attendance often depends on transfers, lockdowns and court dates. Design each session to stand alone.

Ruptures with the therapist.

  • Common triggers are the therapist imposing music or politics, mis-reading a song's cultural meaning, or showing class or race privilege.
  • Use 4.11: name it, own it, repair it.
  • Wallace's warning against an entitled posture is the preventive principle. [source]
  • Take your own social position to supervision.

Undue influence and dual roles.

  • A therapist who is "an active participant in the struggle" holds power. Never recruit clients into organisations, campaigns or unions you belong to, and never make your approval depend on their politics.
  • Keep clinical records free of clients' political affiliations unless clinically necessary.
  • Follow your professional code (CBMT/AMTA, HCPC or equivalent).

Institutional constraints (prisons, hospitals).

  • State the limits of confidentiality in advance: mandatory reporting, threats, escape plans, and disclosures about pending cases.
  • Clear lyrics, recordings and instruments with security.
  • Avoid action plans that expose participants to disciplinary charges.
  • If you find abuse or rights violations, use formal reporting channels, document them and seek advice. Do not use participants as messengers.

Children and young people.

  • Get guardian consent and the young person's assent.
  • Follow mandatory safeguarding and reporting duties.
  • Use age-appropriate lyrics and lower volume (WHO-ITU child allowance 75 dB, 40 h/week [source: WHO-ITU]).
  • Keep politically framed content developmentally appropriate and non-partisan in school settings.

Hospice and end of life.

  • Liberation framing may be unwelcome. Follow the person's priorities (legacy songs, reconciliation, faith music) and keep the social lens light, for example honouring a life of labour or migration.
  • Coordinate with the palliative team.

Cult and high-control survivors. See 4.14.

  • Avoid trance-style repetition and charismatic leadership.
  • Avoid demands for group loyalty or confession.
  • Watch for the therapist or group becoming a new authority.

Untrained use and scope. Psychotherapists without music therapy training should limit themselves to song discussion (4.1–4.3, 4.6, 4.7) and refer for music-making. Do not present LMT as an established evidence-based treatment, since its sources are essays and workshops. Do not use it in place of indicated trauma, mood or addiction treatment.

Measuring progress (absent in sources). Use client-defined goals and simple session-by-session ratings of safety and connection, plus the standard outcome measures your service already uses. Wallace provides no outcome measures. [source: Wallace 2022 essay, by absence]

Sources

Sources used:

Works cited by Wallace (not paraphrased here): Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed; Martín-Baró's liberation psychology writings; bell hooks on critical pedagogy; Jordania on battle trance. [uncertain: bibliographic details not verified]

Related critical music therapy and regulatory sources:

Cited in those pages (not paraphrased here): Baines, S. (2013). Music therapy as an anti-oppressive practice. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 40(1). Hadley, S. (Ed.) (2006). Feminist Perspectives in Music Therapy. Barcelona Publishers. Hadley, S. (Ed.) (2021). Sociocultural Identities in Music Therapy. Barcelona Publishers. Hadley, S., & Thomas, N. (2018). Critical humanism in music therapy: Imagining the possibilities. Music Therapy Perspectives, 36(2). Vaillancourt, G. (2012). Music therapy: A community approach to social justice. The Arts in Psychotherapy. Curtis, S. L. (2012). Music therapy and social justice: A personal journey. The Arts in Psychotherapy. Ansdell, G. (2002). Community Music Therapy and the winds of change. Voices.

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