Director – Music Therapy & Research
Ph.D., M.Mus., B.Mus(Hons), G.C. (Higher Ed)
Professor Felicity Baker is Professor of Music Therapy and Associate Dean (Academic) at the Victorian College of the Arts and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at The University of Melbourne.
She is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Music Therapy. She is a former ARC Future Fellow and President of the Australian Music Therapy Association. Her main interests are in the area of songwriting as a therapeutic tool for people across the lifespan.
Felicity has researched the phenomena of songwriting as a therapeutic method examining its impact with adolescents with eating disorders, with autism, with acquired brain injury, with spinal cord injury, with mental illness, people in detox, older retirees, and people with dementia. She is currently developing songwriting methods that are grounded in the theory that exploring your life’s narratives via songwriting is a meaningful activity that contributes to the development of a person’s identity and self-concept.
Having published widely with over 100 publications, Felicity is best known for her authored and edited texts: Music Therapy in Neurorehabilitation: A Clinician’s Manual. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2006 with Jeanette Tamplin), Song Writing Methods, Techniques and Clinical Applications for Music Therapy Clinicians, Educators and Student (2005, with Tony Wigram), and Voicework in Music Therapy: Research and Practice (2011, with Sylka Uhlig). She recently published a monograph “Therapeutic Songwriting: Developments in Theory, Methods, and Practice (Palgrave MacMillan).
