Jukka Tervo

Jukka Tervo, has been working as a music therapist for 30 years. He began by working in an institute for clients with mental disability and later worked for many years in a large psychiatric hospital with adult psychiatric patients. In the1980s he worked at the Adolescent Psychiatric Unit of The Psychiatric Clinic at Oulu University Central Hospital developing music therapy for adolescents. He graduated as a music therapist from University of Jyväskylä in 1987. At the present he works as a freelance music therapist with children and adolescents. He supervises music therapists and also gives lectures. He has published studies, articles and essays on music therapy in adolescence and childhood, the importance of music and creativity at different developmental phases and on the importance of youth culture for adolescence growth and development. The music therapy described in this paper is based on Tervo's book A Guitar Made of Steel - Music Therapy in Adolescence (2003) published in The Series of Psychoanalytic Works by the Monasteri Psychotherapy Foundation Oulu, Finland. The book builds upon 25 years of clinical and theoretical material of music therapy with adolescents based on psychoanalysis. In the case reports (2-3 meetings per week over a period of 1-5 years), young people with varying degrees of disturbances are examined (age-dependent and enhanced crises of youth, depression, drug problems, asocial behaviour, violence, self-destructive behaviour, narcissistic problems, neurological problems, and inflamed home or school conflict situations), as well as their treatment using music therapy. Music therapy for special patients with, for example, mutism, anorexia nervosa, psychosis, adolescence breakdown, and autism is also examined. Email: Jukka.Tervo@mail.suomi.net

Articles on Voices

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Music Therapy with Adolescents