music therapy
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What is music therapy?
Music therapy is a clinical discipline where music is used to address nonmusical goals. Music therapists employ techniques like music listening, songwriting, improvisation, and lyric analysis to achieve goals related to movement, cognition, speech and language, and mental health.
Music therapy can assist people of all ages with a variety of conditions. For instance, rhythmically driven music can help those with movement disorders, while sedative music can induce relaxation before medical procedures or during hospice care. Music also aids in communication and social development for children with autism and helps dementia patients recall memories.
Specialized approaches in music therapy include Nordoff-Robbins music therapy, neurologic music therapy, and guided imagery and music.
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How is music used in music therapy?
In music therapy, music is used to address nonmusical goals through various methods. These include music listening, songwriting, improvisation, and lyric analysis to fulfill goals in areas like movement, cognition, speech, language, and mental health.
Music therapists employ diverse techniques, such as rhythmically driven music to aid motor movement for those with movement disorders or sedative music to induce relaxation before medical procedures. For children with autism, music can facilitate communication and social skills, while for dementia patients, familiar music can help bridge memory loss, offering comfort and relaxation. Specialized approaches like Nordoff-Robbins music therapy and neurologic music therapy (NMT) are also utilized.
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Who can benefit from music therapy?
Music therapy is beneficial to individuals across various stages of life, from premature infants in neonatal intensive care units NICU to older adults in nursing homes and hospice care. It is a clinical discipline that uses tools and genres of music to address nonmusical goals, such as improving movement, cognition, speech, language, and mental health.
Music therapy can help children with autism to communicate and develop social skills, while for patients with dementia, it can help them recall positive memories, providing comfort and relaxation. It is also used in psychiatric hospitals, correctional institutions, and drug rehabilitation centers.
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What does a music therapist do during a session?
During a music therapy session, a therapist employs diverse tools and musical genres, tailoring the approach to the patient's needs and preferences. Interventions can include improvisation, lyric interpretation, original songwriting, and listening to familiar music. For those with movement disorders, rhythmically driven music may help motor movement, while sedative music can induce relaxation before medical procedures or during hospice care. In autism treatment, music can facilitate communication and social skills in young children, while for dementia patients, familiar music can help recall positive memories, offering comfort and relaxation. Some therapists are trained in neurologic music therapy to improve cognitive, sensorimotor, or speech function.
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How can music therapy help people with mental health issues?
Music therapy is a clinical approach that uses music to address nonmusical goals, including those related to mental health. Music therapists employ techniques such as music listening, songwriting, improvisation, and lyric analysis to help patients achieve goals related to cognition, movement, speech, and mental health.
Music therapy can promote relaxation, reduce reactivity to stressors, and enhance overall well-being. For patients with dementia, recalling positive memories through music can provide comfort, motivation, and relaxation. Music therapists are trained in psychology, neurology, and biology, which allows them to provide optimal services to patients.
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What are some different techniques used in music therapy?
Music therapy uses diverse techniques to address nonmusical goals, including enhancing movement, cognition, speech, and mental health. Therapists employ methods like improvisation, songwriting, and lyric interpretation.
Different approaches include Nordoff-Robbins music therapy, which uses improvisation and composition, and neurologic music therapy, which focuses on evidence-based practices for neurorehabilitation. Guided imagery and music aims to integrate emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual well-being components. Music therapy is also used in neonatal intensive care units to improve outcomes such as feeding in premature infants.
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music therapy, clinical discipline in which music is used to address nonmusical goals. Therapists use music listening, songwriting, improvisation, and lyric analysis as means of fulfilling goals in movement, cognition, speech and language, and mental health.
Music therapy is an allied health profession, delivering health services that are outside the scope of those traditionally provided by physicians and nurses. Because music is a familiar and powerful medium, it is conducive to application across the lifespan, from use in neonatal intensive care units to nursing homes and hospice facilities. Psychiatric hospitals, correctional institutions, and drug rehabilitation centres may also use music therapy.
Historical development
The earliest musical instrument that has been found is a bone flute thought to be some 42,000 years old. Given this evidence and the long history of music in human culture generally, music therapy is thought to have ancient roots. Much of what has been studied and recorded about music therapy, however, has been done through the lens of Western ideas. As a result, the use of music as a therapeutic experience clearly has a Western bias. British researcher Peregrine Horden, editor of Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity (2000), distinguished the influence of āfirst-worldā music therapy (in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom) from the influence of traditional or indigenous forms of musical healing seen elsewhere in the world. There are numerous examples of indigenous healing ceremonies based on music and dance. In some African languages, there is no separate word for music and dance; they are one and the same.
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Often key to understanding the use of music as therapy is understanding the prevailing philosophy of healing and disease. The ancient Greeks, by the 5th century bce, had begun to distance themselves from a divine conception of disease (disease as retribution from the gods) and to concentrate on material causes, such as an imbalance of the four humours (bodily fluids); music, they believed, could restore peace and harmony to both body and soul. Greek philosophers Plato and Pythagoras wrote extensively about music and its effects, and they are often quoted in support of music, music education, and music therapy.
In the 1800s, with the refinement of the scientific method, music was investigated for the physiological changes it could effect. The first published study in music therapy appeared in 1789 and was called āMusic Physically Consideredā (author unknown). Dissertations on the subject published by American medical researchers included one in 1804 by Edwin Augustus Atlee and a second in 1806 by Samuel Mathews. Atlee and Mathews studied under American physician Benjamin Rush, a well-known advocate for the clinical use of music. Also in the 19th century, experiments with music therapy were performed for the first time on patients at an institution, Blackwellās Island Asylum in New York.
The field of music therapy experienced a surge of activity following World Wars I and II. Veteranās hospitals in the United States employed musicians to work with soldiers who today would be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Those experiences spurred the development of a professional music-therapy practice that included a college-level curriculum.
In 1950, after several attempts to start a professional organization in the United States, the National Association for Music Therapy was founded. A second organization with a somewhat different approach to practice, the American Association for Music Therapy (originally the Urban Federation of Music Therapists), was begun in 1971. In 1998 the two organizations joined to form the American Music Therapy Association.
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Two international associations of music therapy also were founded: the World Federation of Music Therapy, in 1985, and the European Music Therapy Confederation, in 1990. Those organizations presented conferences and provided oversight of educational programming, professional development needs, and research initiatives and advocacy. Training in music therapy was offered worldwide at both undergraduate and graduate levels. The clinical phase typically entailed more than a thousand hours of training.
Clinical practice
A variety of tools and genres of music are used in music therapy. Examples of interventions include improvisation, original songwriting, lyric interpretation, and listening to and singing familiar music. The music used depends on the patientās needs and preferences. For example, if a music therapist is working with a patient who has a movement disorder (such as those caused by Parkinson disease or stroke), rhythmically driven music may be employed to facilitate gross or fine motor movement. A music therapist may use sedative music to assist a person in achieving a deep state of relaxation in preparation for surgery, childbirth, chemotherapy, or a transition to hospice care. Those practices can also be employed to help individuals enhance their state of well-being by reducing overall reactivity to daily stressors.
In the treatment of autism, music can be an effective approach for young children who have yet to begin talking. Children on the autism spectrum are often drawn to music, which is in stark contrast to their often minimal responses to spoken language or environmental sounds. If music captures their attention, it can be used to facilitate their communication and social skill development. With patients who suffer from dementia, music therapists can bridge the loss of memory through music. The music of oneās youth is embedded deeply in the brain and can be accessed even late into the disease process. Recalling positive memories through music therapy can provide comfort, motivation, and relaxation when the person is anxious, agitated, or in need of completing activities of daily living, such as bathing or dressing.
Similar to other therapists, music therapists work within the context of a relationship. Music therapists are trained in psychology, biology, and neurology, which helps them deliver optimal services to patients young or old.