The Influence of Language Barriers on Building Therapeutic Relationship in Music Therapy Practice in Aotearoa New Zealand: An Arts-Based Reflexive Phenomenology

The study focuses on the researcher’s individual and subjective experiences while conducting sessions in a non-native language, investigating how these barriers affect aspects of therapeutic presence, empathy, and attunement.</strong></p><p>Grounded in an interpretivist paradigm and framed within a reflexive phenomenological and arts-based approach, this qualitative research seeks to provide an in-depth understanding of the researcher’s lived experiences.

Naturalistic secondary data, including reflection journals, clinical notes, and supervision notes, allowed the researcher to examine personal encounters with language barriers. Reflexive thematic analysis was employed to analyse the data, facilitating deeper introspection and identifying emerging themes. The six themes were identified: foundational values, experiencing barriers, emotional landscape, sense of self, navigating through vulnerability, and compensating for and finding alternative pathways.