We all know talk therapy can help mental health, but music therapy can give some amazing results.
by Scott Selmer
Are you feeling scared, stressed, anxious to the point that you feel that your life is unmanageable and so out of control that you can’t cope? Or maybe you have recurring thoughts of harming yourself or others?
You’re not alone.
In the past year more than 41 million adults received mental health counseling or talk therapy to address such problems.
But if talk therapy isn’t for you, you may want to try music therapy.
Music can speak a deeper language to some people, which is why some therapists believe it can be shaped into a different kind of therapeutic tool. Through a combination of rhythms and tones, music therapy directly tap into a person’s emotions, bypassing the cognitive part of the brain altogether, music therapists say. This allows a person to experience what cannot be articulated and potentially to process things that might not otherwise be understood in a traditional talk therapy setting. The powerful emotional effects of music can change the way a person is feeling – helping lighten a low mood.
“Music has a way of positively impacting your emotions. Through the right music you can convey comforting messages to the brain,” said Megan Shelly, a board-certified music therapist practitioner.
In a publication called “Music Therapy Maven,” Kimberly Sena Moore, a board certified music therapist, associate professor in the Bower School of Music & the Arts at Florida Gulf Coast University, describes a music therapist as someone who uses all aspects of music to work toward a client’s therapeutic goals.
The music therapist takes timbre, rhythm, tempo, instrumentation, melody, and a host of other musical elements into consideration when deciding how to use music in a session, Kyle Fleming is a senior music therapy major at Wartburg College in Waverly, IA writes. Something as subtle as what type of beat is being used (“four on the floor” dance beats compared to an “oom-pah-pah” waltz beat) can induce a physiological reaction that will either inhibit or assist a client in his or her therapeutic goals.
Jessica Devillers, a board-certified music therapist who concentrates in providing hospice care in Minnesota said that she employs music therapy in a variety of ways for her patients in end-of-life situations.
“It can provide relaxation and pain management, overall emotional wellbeing and it can help her patients with reviewing and processing the end of their life,”Devillers said.
Music therapy was used in the U.S. military during the Second World War to treat physically and mentally injured soldiers. Mental health professionals began using the practice shortly thereafter, and it has become a form of treatment of mental conditions alongside other types of psychotherapy, according to research done by the Cleveland Clinic.
The Certified Board of Music Therapist estimates that there are <how many? If you dont know how many, then delete this sentence.> board certified music therapists currently practicing in the U.S.
“One difference between talk therapy and music therapy is the patient’s participation in the session,” Shelly said. “While talk therapy may focus heavily on interactive communication between the therapist and the person, music therapy can impact the brain without requiring such interaction.”
“Music therapy programs can be custom designed for the patient,” Shelly said. When Shelley went through her divorce, she used music therapy herself.” It helped me to think things through at that time in my life.”
Peter Meyer, a board-certified music therapist, said he has experienced the benefits of music therapy in his own life. He said he was hospitalized for a serious heart condition that traditional medical treatments could not manage.
During his hospitalization his heartbeat was exceeding 200 beats per minute and his medical team was unable to get his heart rhythms under control.
He said a team of music therapists intervened and through a music program customized for him brought his heartbeat down to an acceptable level, enabling his physicians to perform life-saving surgery
“The results can be dramatic,” Meyer said.
He has also seen patients experience life-saving results. “We were confronted with a suicidal patient who was so upset that he couldn’t verbally articulate his feelings other than that he was going to kill himself,” Meyer said. “When you’re in a crisis verbal processing goes off-line because the body is trying to defend itself, but music goes through that.”
Meyer said he helped the patient to express his rage and disillusionment by translating the patient’s emotions into notes and chords on his guitar and playing them to the patient in real time.
“When the patient screamed, I played a discordant chord that was reflective of the patient’s rage. When the patient cried, I played notes that reflected his sadness.”
Through that impromptu musical interaction, the patient came out of his suicidal state and said he was ready to return to intensive therapy.
“We saved a life that day,” Meyer said.