Music Therapy

Self-esteem | Anxiety | Depression | Grief & Loss | Trauma | Addiction

Social-Emotional Development | ADHD | Autism | Behavioral Health Concerns | Identity Issues

Memory Care | Palliative Care | Hospice care

A music therapist is an allied healthcare professional who uses music to support musical and non-musical goals, often in specific health domains (e.g. physical, social, emotional, spiritual, developmental, or intellectual).

Don't let the 'music' fool you -- music therapists are trained to understand and apply research from fields including behavioral sciences, developmental psychology, holistic medicine, trauma-informed care, physiology, education, and neurological sciences at the graduate level. Post-graduate music therapists may choose to undergo additional training in specialties or advanced models including Analytical Music Therapy or Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy.

All music therapists are mandated to continue their education to maintain an updated evidence base for their approach.

Music therapy involves the individualized application of music by a board-certified music therapist. Music therapy is not the same as music as medicine or sound healing.

Examples of music therapy include:
* Work with Congresswoman Giffords to regain her speech after surviving a bullet wound to her brain.
* Work with older adults to lessen the effects of dementia.
* Work with children and adults to reduce asthma episodes.
* Work with hospitalized patients to reduce pain.
* Work with children who have autism to improve communication capabilities.
* Work with premature infants to improve sleep patterns and increase weight gain.
* Work with people who have Parkinson’s disease to improve motor function.

Music therapy is not:
* A person with Alzheimer’s listening to an iPod with headphones of his/her favorite songs
* Groups such as Bedside Musicians, Musicians on Call, Music Practitioners, Sound Healers, and Music Thanatologists
* Celebrities performing at hospitals and/or schools
* A piano player in the lobby of a hospital
* Nurses playing background music for patients
* Artists in residence
* Arts educators
* A high school student playing guitar in a nursing home
* A choir singing on the pediatric floor of a hospital

Music therapy processes vary greatly depending on the treatment context, resources available, and client goals.

To help answer this, these are questions that a music therapist would ask:

Who is the client? (e.g. my child or spouse)

What are they addressing in therapy? (e.g. self-esteem, anxiety, trauma)

What kind of music do they like and how do they relate musically? (e.g. they like singing songs from the 80s, talking about classical, dancing to salsa, recording their own music, remixing, or improvising with instruments).

Some interventions commonly used in music therapy in addition to traditional verbal techniques are:

Music listening
Song singing
Lyric analysis/discussion
Song-writing
Vocal, body, or instrumental improvisation
Beat making
Mindfulness and breathing exercises
Moving, stretching, dancing
Music assisted guided imagery
Music assisted relaxation techniques (i.e. autogenic relaxation, progressive muscle relaxation)
Instrument playing (piano, guitar, drums and other percussion instruments, digital/midi interfaces, etc.)

Receptive Experiences: Receiving music

* Music listening
* Song discussion
* Lyric analysis
* Music and Imagery
* Music assisted relaxation techniques
* Mindfulness and breathing exercises

Improvisation: Spontaneous music-making

* Vocal or instrumental improvisation
* Referential improvisation
* Non-referential improvisation
* Embodied music experiences (moving, stretching, dancing)

Composing: Structuring/planning music

* Music production/recording
* Song-writing
* Beat-making

Recreation: Re-creating familiar music

* Familiar song singing
* Musical activities
* Instrumental re-creation

Not at all. You don’t need to own any instruments, or have a musical background to benefit from music therapy. Our clients begin the music therapy process by exploring their innate sense of music with the nonjudgemental support of the therapist.

Music represents a uniquely human experience and opportunity. Music and the creative arts (e.g. visual, dance/movement, literary) have been utilized for unique purposes in virtually every known culture — it can be referred to as ‘the universal language’. Using music in therapy offers boundless creative possibilities for the therapeutic process.

Research in the last 75 years has demonstrated that music can support therapy in various treatment contexts because of the powerful ways it affects our brains and bodies. Research outcomes have been particularly positive in trauma care, memory care, rehabilitation, childhood development, depression, anxiety, and procedural support.

Researchers are continuing to explain music’s obvious capacity for creating transcendent experiences, expressing meaning beyond words, and it’s significant role in human development.

Music therapy is found in NICUs, PICUs, special education, trauma care, psychiatric units, refugee camps, hospice and palliative care, brain injury rehabilitation, community centers, and in-homes.