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Music has a unique ability to temper emotions. Research suggests that music could accomplish this by actually changing brain activity: music-like reports appear to develop activity in brain spaces similar to praise and emotions[1]Arjmand, Hussain-Abdulah. Emotional responses to music: Changes in the brain’s frontal asymmetry mark periods of musical change. Frontiers of Psychology. 2017;8:2044. .
Music therapy, first used in healing settings in the 1940s, can harness music’s ability to replace the way we feel and physical and intellectual health, proponents say.
Read on to find out how music treatment works, its benefits, and how to see a music therapist near you.
“There are many fanciful explanations for music treatment, but it means that we are therapists who use music as a tool to harness its effects on our body structure and associations, our memories and feelings,” says Carol L, a qualified music therapist. Shultis, Ph. D. , associate professor and director of music treatment at Converse University in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and co-author of the Clinical Training Guide for Music Therapist Students.
The first professional organization of music therapists, the National Music Therapy Association, was formed in 1950, shortly after doctors at veterans hospitals discovered that music treatment sparked innovations in the physical and emotional fitness of infantrymen recovering from World War I and World War II. World War II Mundial. La National Music Therapy Association merged with the American Music Therapy Association in 1998 to form the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). The AMTA defines music treatment as the evidence-based practice of music-related interventions to achieve healing goals. [2] What is music therapy? American Music Therapy Association. Retrieved 31/01/22.
Described in more detail, music treatment is an experiential form of treatment in which a user goes through assessment, treatment, and evaluation by participating in other types of music reports, writes music therapist Kenneth E. Bruscia in his ebook Defining Music Therapy. Music reports can include listening to music, writing music, or betting instruments.
People of all ages can benefit from music therapy, and no education or musical ability is needed, Shultis says. In fact, he adds, trained musicians find it difficult to interact freely in healing musical activities that might deviate from their education.
Music treatment is divided into two broad categories, called “active,” which means making music, or “receptive,” which means listening to music.
Music therapists use a variety of strategies and techniques, says Cassandra Mulcahy, MMT, a certified music therapist at Bridgeport Hospital (Yale New Haven Health) in Connecticut. Here are some examples:
Another musical treatment strategy is to advise Americans on writing song lyrics; Once the songs are written, the therapist helps them identify and compare the mind and feelings reflected in their lyrics, Shultis says.
Bruscia defines 4 types of reports as the 4 main strategies of music therapy, and his approach has many variations:
In general terms, here we present five models, or variants, of musical treatment within the 4 types of musical experiences.
Clients make music by singing, humming, or playing an instrument, with varying degrees of help from their therapist. These improv activities can help achieve healing goals, such as helping clients express themselves, overcoming difficult emotions, or getting better with others in a group. .
Developed in the early 1970s by violinist Mary Priestly, the concept of therapist-consumer relationship is vital in analytic music therapy, also known as analytically-oriented music therapy. The therapist and the consumer create together an improvised piece of music, the aim of which is to symbolically make explicit the consumer’s moods. The consumer verbally reflects on the room, with the aim of bringing their mind and inner feelings to the surface.
In an article published in 1972, Helen Bonny and Walter Pahnke described their paintings using music mixed with hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD to treat people with cancer and people who abuse alcohol. Bonny continued to expand a drug-free technique that involved depth, and classical music. This type of responsive music treatment begins by asking Americans to pay attention to a piece of music and listen to it to take advantage of how they feel. When clients communicate about the emotions and photographs that music inspires, the therapist can help them rewrite life scenarios that don’t serve them.
Neurological music treatment can help others with cognitive, motor, or sensory dysfunctions. This refers to the use of musical notes as part of protocols and quick techniques to adjust the body’s responses, Shultis says. Focusing on specific aspects of music, such as rhythm rhythm, rhythm, and melody can help other people in terms of speech, cognition, and movement by helping to establish new connections, or neurological pathways, in the brain that can function more normally.
Habitual music treatment is a form of habitual cognitive treatment that uses music to replace the habit rather than seeking to locate the cause. Several other people can benefit from this type of treatment, including young people on the autism spectrum, teens with developmental issues, and adults. with depression or older people. Music is used in a variety of tactics to replace habit: it can be used as a cue, as a way to focus attention, or as a compliment for a desired physical, emotional, or motor habit.
Everyone can benefit from the music treatment, even if not everyone wants to, Shultis says. Music treatment can be helpful for others who are nonverbal or have trouble expressing their mind and feelings. People in palliative care, young people with autism spectrum disorder, teens dealing with intellectual fitness crises and adults dealing with trauma are just a few examples of others who can take advantage of music treatment, he says.
The American Music Therapy Association provides fact sheets detailing how music treatment can help others with a variety of physical conditions, including:
Music therapy was also found to relieve pain in people with cancer in a 2022 study published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management [3] Lichtl, Alexandria, et al. Music Therapy for Pain in Black and White Cancer Patients: A Retrospective Study. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. 2022. 64(5);478-485. .
“On a superficial level, music treatment can be a distraction, but it can also be a distraction to the internal mechanisms of pain,” Mulcahy says. “This can lower blood pressure and deepen breathing, as well as control core frequency simply by slowing down the rhythm of the music. “music. “
Music therapy activities can help relieve tension physiologically and allow other people to release negative and positive feelings, Mulcahy says. This makes music therapy a particularly effective treatment for treating the symptoms of depression.
“When we create live music, it reminds us that there’s a good-looking sense in the world,” he says. “When you’re depressed, it’s anything you tend to forget. “
The effectiveness of music treatment depends largely on the therapist’s skills and experience, Shultis says. There is sufficient evidence of the effects of music treatment in improving symptoms of many intellectual and physical fitness conditions, but there is less evidence on its long-term benefits. .
A 2022 meta-analysis of 15 randomized controlled trials involving more than 1000 older adults with depression concluded that active music treatment with a music therapist had a significant effect on reducing depressive symptoms in study subjects and with a much lower risk of medication side effects. 4]Dhippayom, Teerapon et al. Comparative Effects of Music Interventions on Depression in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis in Network. eClinicalMedicine. 2022;50:101509. .
An updated Cochrane review of nine studies published in 2017 concluded that when the music cure was combined with a folk remedy for depression (which can be explained as a mix of therapies, adding medications, and psychocure), participants of any age experienced less anxiety and greater functioning than with a folk remedy alone[5]Aalbers, Sonja, et al. Musical cure for depression. Review of the Cochrane database system. 2017(11): CD004517. .
Music therapy helped teens with emotional and behavioral disorders, particularly their communication skills and social functioning, according to a 2017 study published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Music treatment for children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders. Emotional and behavioral disorders: a randomized controlled trial. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2017; 58(5). 586-594. . After 3 months of treatment, participants showed an improvement in their self-esteem and a reduction in symptoms of depression.
In an initial small 2022 study published in Frontiers in Neurology, neurological music treatment with percussion instruments helped children with severe cerebral palsy develop eye contact and participation in motor activities with their therapists [7] Santonja-Medina, Clara Susana, et al. Neurological Participation in music treatment in young people with severe cerebral palsy. Frontiers in Neurology. 2022;13. .
In 2021, French researchers reviewing published studies on the effects of music treatment on youth with autism spectrum disorder found that improvised music treatment had a positive effect on social functioning in the maximum of the controlled studies they evaluated[8]Mayer-Benarous, Hanna, et al. Music treatment for young people with autism spectrum disorder and/or other neurodevelopmental disorders: a systematic review. Frontiers of Psychology. 2021;12. .
Italian researchers who reviewed 25 studies concluded that most studies showed positive effects of music therapy on mood, depressive symptoms, and quality of life in people with stroke or in people with epilepsy, sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease, wrote in the World Journal of Psychiatry in 2015[9]Raglio, Alfredo et al. Effects of music and music therapy on mood in neurological patients. World Journal of Psychiatry. 2015; 22 ; 5(1): 68-78. .
An organizational music intervention with others with Parkinson’s disease improved participants’ mood, alertness, and quality of life, but the researchers noted that there is no evidence of sustained gains in cognition, dual-tasking, and balance, according to their paper published in 2020. in Clinical Rehabilitation. [10] Pohl, Petra et al. Group Music Intervention in Parkinson’s Disease: Results of a Mixed-Methods Study. Clinical Rehabilitation. 2020; 34(4):533-544. .
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who reviewed studies on the effects of music healing on movement disorders, concluded that this type of healing and other rhythm-based interventions appear to help alleviate a variety of symptoms. They also wrote that there are limited but promising early studies supporting the musical cure for the remedy of Huntington’s disease and Tourette’s syndrome. [11] Devlin, Kerry et al. Music therapy and music-based interventions for movement disorders. Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports. 2019; 13; 19(11):83. .
Your number one doctor or therapist will likely recommend a qualified music therapist in your area. You can also search the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) online directory to find one. The AMTA provides guidance for studies and recommends checking the qualified professional. Gain prestige from prospective therapists by visiting the Music Therapist Certification Board (www. cbmt. org) website. You can also email the organization at localizarMT@musictherapy. org or contact them by phone: 301-589-3300.
In addition, many states, such as Wisconsin, Illinois, Oklahoma, and New Jersey, for example, have music treatment organizations that provide searchable directories of music therapists. Test online to see if your state has such a site.
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