Date of Award
Spring 5-16-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling
Major
Expressive Therapies
First Advisor
Dr. Leticia Prieto Álvarez, MT–BC/NMT, LMHC
Second Advisor
Rachel Quirbach, MT–BC, LPC
Abstract
With the rise of overt fascism, anti–fat bias, anti–intellectualism, anti–multiculturalism, anti–diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the persistence of white, capitalist, cisheteropatriarchy narratives around bodies, music therapists need to recognize how client and therapist bodies show up in practice. In this critical literature review, bodies will be sociopolitically and culturally contextualized, and the intersections of music therapy, body liberation, and body power will be discussed. Music therapists need to address the body oppression faced by sociopolitical identities such as race, gender, disability, age, body size, sexuality, neurodiversity, class, ethnicity, nationality, housing status, and immigration status. The music therapy field needs to reflect on how it is complicit in systemic oppression, and how through ideas of body liberation and body power, it can change the way bodies are treated in music therapy spaces. Resources used include personal experience, podcasts, books, academic journals, videos, social media, and websites via databases, libraries, and online searches. Most research is from the last ten years, with the oldest source being from 1989. Results show that: a) more contemporary research is needed about how bodies show up in music therapy; b) music therapists need to address their own resistance to body liberation, unlearn harm, and integrate freedom practices into their work; and c) body liberation, continuous reflexivity, accessibility, and anti–oppressive practice is needed in order to do authentic music therapy work. This research is important because everyone has a body, and it serves as a starting point for how to work more intentionally with a multiplicity of bodies in the music therapy space.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Perkoski, Katherine M., "From Body Positivity to Body Power: How Music Therapy and Body Liberation Intersect to Address Body Oppression in the Therapeutic Space–A Literature Review" (2026). Expressive Therapies Theses. 92.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_therapies_theses/92
Comments
The author identifies as a U.S. born, white, English–speaking, fat, Queer, cisgender woman residing in the northeastern U.S.