Music Therapy is a therapeutic approach that uses the naturally mood-lifting properties of music to help people improve their mental health and overall well-being (K.S. Aigen, 2013).
Music therapy involves a dual-process approach, the active process involves a role in creating music, whereas the passive process involves listening or responding to music. There are some therapists who use a combined active and passive approach while interacting with music (J. Chung & C. Woods-Giscombe, 2016). According to R. MacDonald, G.Kreutz & L. Mitchell (2012), there is a variety of approaches that are established in music therapy, including:
- Analytical music therapy: This encourages you to use an improvised, musical “dialogue” through singing or playing an instrument to express your unconscious thoughts, which you can reflect on and discuss with your therapist afterwards.
- Benenzon music therapy: This format combines some concepts of psychoanalysis with the process of making music. Benenzon music therapy includes the search for your “musical sound identity,” which describes the external sounds that most closely match your internal psychological state.
- Cognitive behavioural music therapy (CBMT): In CBMT, music is used to reinforce some behaviours and modify others. This approach is structured, not improvisational, and may include listening to music, dancing, singing, or playing an instrument.
- Community music therapy: This format is focused on using music as a way to facilitate change on the community level. It’s done in a group setting and requires a high level of engagement from each member.
- Nordoff-Robbins music therapy: Also called creative music therapy, this method involves playing an instrument (often a cymbal or drum) while the therapist accompanies using another instrument. The improvisational process uses music as a way to help enable self-expression.
- The Bonny method of guided imagery and music (GIM): This form of therapy uses classical music as a way to stimulate the imagination. In this method, you explain the feelings, sensations, memories, and imagery you experience while listening to the music.
- Vocal psychotherapy: In this format, you use various vocal exercises, natural sounds, and breathing techniques to connect with your emotions and impulses. This practice is meant to create a deeper sense of connection with yourself (E. Monti & D. Austin, 2017).
A heuristic working factors model for music therapy focuses on the pragmatic therapeutic aspects in the clinical fields. It currently consists of five factors:
- Attention modulation or attentiveness factor – Music has an auditive quality that has the power to attract attention on several sensual modalities. As music has various factors associated like distraction, relaxation, autolytic effect, it is used in several aspects such as an auditive signal for waking up (for example- the alarm clock event) or as a distraction from stressful events or as something which helps people to concentrate on other sensory stimuli (D. Schwender et al., 1991). The typical clinical use is in pain therapy and also with autistic children.
- Emotion modulation or emotional factor – Neuroscientific research indicates that music is processed in the emotional brain (e.g., limbic system, gyrus cinguli, and the paralymbic cortical regions) and has the power to modulate emotions even complex emotions in humans, as it involves direct emotional activation as well as the recall of emotional events associated with musical and auditive experiences. In recent years research has been conducted on the so-called thrill or chill effect, which is an emotional and physiological reaction to music often associated with getting goose pimples (J. Panksepp, 1995; A. Gabrielson & W. Lindstrom, 2003). Emotion modulation is common, especially in the psychotherapeutic use of music to directly evoke emotions, to recall emotional memories, and to learn more flexible emotional reactions (H.V. Bolay et al., 1998; T. Hillecke 2000). It is very important to study the emotion modulation potential of music precisely because most psychological disorders and mental illnesses can also be described as emotional disturbances
- Cognition modulation – As music is understood to represent neurocognitive capacity, the neuronal processing of music as well as its complexity is comparable to speech (S. Koelsch et al., 2000, 2002). Understanding the music means thinking and creating the significance and experience which is generally subjective in nature. This factor implies subjective and cultural meanings for music as well as psychological, cognitive associations connected with specific musical experiences. Music is also known to facilitate recall of episodic memories (J.A. Sloboda & P. Juslin, 2001). Cognition modulation is clinically used to change subjective cognitions and meaning patterns, and is also important in music guided imagery techniques (H. Bonny, 1978). Some music therapists use music to induce a hypnotic trance and to alter states of consciousness (A. Ditirich, 1987).
- Behaviour modulation or motoric behavioural factor – The basic assumption of the neuroscientists is that music evokes rhythmic stimulation in the frontal brain and associated neural structure thus, having a useful possibility to evoke and condition behaviour, such as movement patterns, without the necessity of conscious will. The association of music and dance is well known. Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) is therapeutically used in gait rehabilitation of stroke patients and in the treatment of movement problems, for example, in Parkinson patients (M.H. Thaut et al., 1997, 1999).
- Communication modulation or interpersonal factor – psychotherapeutic music therapy represents a complex paradigm of nonverbal interpersonal communication (H.V. Bolay, 1983). It can be observed as a kind of community-building effect of music, for example, songs and music of sport fans, or music at the campfire. Many cultures use music to evoke the communal spirit and to enhance group cohesion. Communication modulation is often used in a clinical setting for the learning of interpersonal competencies, especially in group music therapy.
At present, music therapists often work in hospitals, substance abuse treatment centres, or private practices, while sound therapists may offer their service as a component of complementary or alternative medicine. According to American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) music therapy offers benefits with different mental and physical health challenges to people experiencing problems like anxiety, stress, cardiac conditions, chronic pain, diabetes, verbal and nonverbal communication difficulties, emotional dysregulation, low self-esteem, negative mood, impulsivity, respiration problems, substance abuse disorders, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and neurological disorders including brain stroke (A. Raglio, L. Attardo, G Gontero, E. Groppo, E. Granieri, 2015).
You may also want to skim through the techniques and benefits of music therapy.
– Urveez Kakalia and Annesha Datta.