Around 15 years ago Sheila Hill of the School of Inner Sound approached me (Lyz Cooper) informing me that The Princes Trust had started the process of regulating the Holistic Health Field. They began with the ‘high risk’ categories such as acupuncture, osteopathy and are moving through the medium risk to the low risk categories (which is where sound Therapy & Healing resides). At that time there was no representing Body for Sound Healing or Sound Therapy. We realised that if the field had no representation then there would come a time in the future when sound therapy and sound healing would not be able to be practised legally. We also knew that this field would become more and more important as people began to realise the efficacy of the modality and sought sound therapy and Healing as a way to improve their health and wellbeing. It was time to set some standards for the therapeutic sound field and invite people to ‘stick their flag in the sand’ as Sheila put it.
We purchased a template to help us with the process and set to work. A year or so later we met with various luminaries in the therapeutic sound field and presented the idea of the Association to them. The College of Sound Healing joined us for meetings and together a set of standards for training and a code of ethics and best practice was set.
A couple of years ago it was decided that the Sound Therapy Association (as it was then named) was to become a not for profit limited company and renamed to encompass a much wider sector of the field. The Therapeutic Sound Association now encompasses fields such as Vibroacoustic Therapy, Music medicine and some areas of music therapy. This is a really exciting time, basic standards have been set, we have a code of ethics and best practice, a website and professional register. We are now looking forward to organising a conference, webinars, podcasts and a whole host of different ways to support our members. We are also looking to expand the body of research in the field and would love to support members with this.
We are excited to be welcoming new training schools, workshop facilitators and/or therapists all of the time. We are also looking for board members to help with some of the exciting new projects we have planned. If you are passionate about taking this exciting, creative and effective field forward, we’d love to hear from you!
We would also welcome dialogue from people in the field that want to know about how we can help and what the benefits are of joining an association.
