Making our way through the deep waters of life: Music practitioners' professional work in neonatal intensive care units

Abstract

This chapter discusses the work of music practitioners in neonatal intensive care units, where newborns and their families are in great need of support in the midst of a multi-layered physical, psychological, and emotional crisis. People-centred music making provides opportunities for developing the openness of values, actions, and interactions through musicking. Within the neonatal intensive care unit ward environment these newborns, their families, and healthcare personnel are struggling in life and death situations. Metaphorical thinking may be one way to navigate, develop, and co-construct interprofessional work in complex healthcare contexts, as well as to break down the boundaries of expertise professionalism in which music and musical quality are predominant values. Some families perceived music as something that takes them through “deep waters”. This metaphor mirrored their times of great difficulty and inability to resolve the challenges ahead on their own.