Our history

(last update: 15 September 2015)

Approaches was founded in September 2008. As the first peer-reviewed journal of music therapy in Hellas (Greece), Approaches was established in the spirit of contributing not only to the Hellenic, but also to the global scene of music therapy, promoting the dialogue between different disciplinary, as well as cultural communities.

As a bi-annual, Hellenic-English open access journal publication, and under the leadership of the founding editor-in-chief Giorgos Tsiris, Approaches published its first issue in spring 2009. Following a non-stop publishing history since then, Approaches has published 14 issues until today, including 3 special thematic issues. In this context the journal has collaborated with disciplinary and professional bodies such as the Hellenic Association of Certified Professional Music Therapists (ESPEM), the ISME Commission for Special Music Education, Music Therapy and Music Medicine, as well as the European Music Therapy Confederation (EMTC).

The launch of special issue 7.1, August 2015, Norway [from left: Catherine Carr (associate editor), Hanne Mette Ridder (guest editor of the special issue and advisory board member), and Giorgos Tsiris (founding editor-in-chief)].

Approaches drew the interest of the international scientific community since the beginning of its function. As a result, 203 authors from 28 countries published their work in Approaches only within its first five years of the journal’s life. Today Approaches has been established as one of the three international open access peer-reviewed journals of music therapy worldwide together with Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy  (published by the Grieg Academy Music Therapy Research Centre, Uni Research Health in Norway) and Music Therapy Today (published by the World Federation of Music Therapy).

From 2008 until mid-2015, Approaches was a partner of the Greek Association of Primary Music Education Teachers (GAPMET) under the chairmanship of Maria Argyriou. During these years, GAPMET generously hosted Approaches on its own website, while it offered a community within which initial ideas and proposals were tested and developed. In May 2012 Approaches, in collaboration with GAPMET and the team ‘CATI’, co-organised in Athens the two-day seminar “The Arts as Therapy: Theory – Practice – Research”. This seminar led to the special issue “Music, Drama, Dance Movement and Art Therapy: Interdisciplinary Dialogues”.

In August 2015 Approaches became fully autonomous as an open access journal publication and in September of the same year it launched its new independent website (www.approaches.gr). During the same period of time, the name of the journal changed from “Approaches: Music Therapy & Special Music Education” to “Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy”.

The new website gives to the journal full autonomy and managerial independence. This fact contributes to speeding up the publication process by reducing drastically the waiting time between submission of papers and their publication on First View. On the other hand, the new name of the journal reflects with greater accuracy the work, the scope and the vision of the journal: Approaches is a peer-reviewed music therapy journal that, in addition to texts that fall within its immediate field, invites interdisciplinary approaches and perspectives from the wider field of music, health and wellbeing. It invites, for example, perspectives from fields such as music education, community music, psychology of music and medical ethnomusicology.

The journal’s editorial board as well as all peer-reviewers have played a crucial role in the development of Approaches to date. Everyone’s work has contributed to ensuring the high quality of the journal publications, and also to the journal’s further development as a valid source of information on contemporary developments in music therapy and the wider field of music, health and wellbeing.

Further reading

More information about the history of Approaches can be found in the following papers:

 

Publication history of the journal
Currently known as

Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy
ISSN 2459-3338
Period: September 2015 – current

Formerly known as

Approaches: Music Therapy & Special Music Education
ISSN 1791-9622
Period: 2009 – August 2015

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