In episode 21 of Music Therapy Conversations Luke Annesley talks to Andy Lale. Andy has worked as a music therapist for twenty years. He has been employed by CNWL NHS Trust, in this capacity, since 1999. He manages a team of arts psychotherapists for South Westminster and specialises in music psychotherapy with psychotic states. His clinical work, with this client group, focuses on transference and insight. His MA dissertation on Countertransference Enactment is available in the Tavistock Library. He has taught on the MA in Music Therapy at Roehampton University and now supervises other clinicians in this compound intervention. He also contributes to the ICAPT evening lecture series. Andy has created a series of online videos explaining the key ideas of this way of working. This study is an attempt to encourage interest more widely, in psychoanalytically informed music psychotherapy, for psychosis. Andy presented this study at the BAMT conference, 2018.​

In this interview, Andy talks about the origin of the term 'psychodynamics', and in some detail about how he applies psychodynamic theory to his work as a music psychotherapist with psychotic patients. What is the relationship between music and psychodynamic theory? We also discuss the anti-psychiatry movement, and the difficulties of research and evaluation of music psychotherapy with this client group. And what about 'music psychotherapy' itself? Why is there not yet a well-established post-qualification training in music psychotherapy in the UK?