Who we are

Our signature is Process-Based Music Therapy — finding a style of therapy that resonates with you and your history. Our team are highly skilled at identifying patterns and features in your life and behaviours that help match the right therapeutic approach.

We work hard at the start to get the best outcomes at the end.

All our clinicians maintain registration with the HCPC, good-standing CPD records, and a commitment to the standards of proficiency.

Bucking the trend

Increasingly, Music Therapists have to exercise more and more flexibility to demonstrate their impact. At That Music Therapy Lot, we make sure your clinicians have a boat-load of CPD so that they can be both flexible and effective.

We are also experts in assessment, working to create new and innovative assessment tools both in Music Therapy and for wider multi-disciplinary teams.

Meet the founder

Ben Richardson

Ben started his professional career as a Music Therapist. During his early work, he noticed that the major flaw in many clinicians’ work wasn’t the therapy — it was the reporting.

Inspired by the work of Speech and Language and Occupational Therapist colleagues, he began to support a paradigm shift toward Process-Based work: targeting measurable verbs rather than objective adjectives. That means watching for things like latency, similarity in expressions, and variance in responses.

Core to Ben’s philosophy is the belief that therapy resistance is a myth; it just means the right therapy hasn’t been tried yet. He has an excellent track record of engagement with adolescents and young adults, often supporting them through an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approach.

When working with Ben, you can expect honesty, with what you think held in higher regard than what he thinks. He is deeply interested in functional truth — the beliefs we hold to be true and act in line with — and how these operate as our primary reasons for behaviour.

Looking for Ben’s integrative talking therapy practice? That’s at Therapy With Ben.

If requested, Ben’s dog Pru can also make an appearance in sessions.

Where we’ve helped

• 
  Flourish Learning TrustOverhauled the clinical referral system.
• 
  TCESWorking to support some of the most disadvantaged young people in London.
• 
  Lime TrustRestarted the Music Therapy provision at two schools.
• 
  TICECreated a therapeutic music programme which can be delivered digitally for young people in the North East.

FAQs

What is Music Therapy?

Music Therapy is a psychological intervention which uses the musical skills of the therapist to support a client’s wellbeing. Find out more at the British Association for Music Therapy.

Where do you work?

Music Therapists can work with anyone and anywhere, but primarily at That Music Therapy Lot we work with verbal populations who are handling deep-rooted trauma or SEMH difficulties. That being said, we are always open to hearing about how we might be able to help — so never hesitate to get in touch.

How do you become a Music Therapist?

Music Therapists have to train for two years to get an MA in Music Therapy from one of eight different teaching courses.

Where can I find out more?

You can find out more at www.bamt.org, or on NHS England’s site about the Allied Health Professions. Alternatively, try the HCPC’s standards of proficiencyfor a deep-dive into what is expected of us.

Can anyone be a Music Therapist?

Music Therapy is a protected title by the Health and Care Professions Council. You can be prosecuted for practising Music Therapy without being registered with them — don’t worry, we all are at That Music Therapy Lot.

What is Process-Based Music Therapy?

Process-Based Music Therapy means our clinicians attend to the active psychological and musical processes driving change — not just surface behaviours or fixed technique playlists — so we can pick the right approach for the right moment.