Engaging 'Respect for Persons' in Music Therapy

Abstract

The goal of this article is to bring clarity to the notion of ‘respect for persons’ and to outline possible applications for the clinical music therapist. An argument is made that we can build understanding about respect for persons by raising a series of pertinent questions, beginning with, 1) How does a clinical Code of Ethics deal with respect for persons? 2) What do I mean when I call someone a ‘Person’? 3) What are key issues concerning personhood? 4) What do we mean when we ‘respect a person’? 5) What are some implications of ‘respect for persons’ in clinical music therapy? and importantly, 6) How do I understand respect from the client’s point of view?

Keywords

• person
• respect
• code of ethics
• agency
• consciousness
• mutuality