Beyond Individual Well-being: A Participatory Action Research Study on Self-Care, Psychoeducation, and Radical Acceptance in Music Therapy Education

Situated within a feminist educational framework and participatory action research, this empirical study explores pathways for facilitating self-care in music therapy education through participatory, arts-based group processes that centre student voices and lived experience.Across two cycles of collaborative groups, music therapy students co-created spaces that supported emotional presence, creative expression, and integration of personal and professional identities. Data were collected through observation, questionnaires, group dialogue, artistic works, and interviews. Thematic analysis identified six overlapping phases in students’ self-care journeys, shaped by ambiguity, vulnerability, and mutual care. Key challenges included navigating diverse learning preferences, sustaining autonomy within collaboration, and establishing psychological safety in institutional settings.The findings suggest that self-care in education is a relational and embodied process that resists fixed technique and invites educators and students to co-create ethical spaces for presence, reflection, and growth. Rather than framing self-care as relaxation or personal enjoyment, the study highlights its role as a form of psychoeducation that involves personal experience, pedagogical practice, and systemic conditions.