Essay On Music Therapy

Those who discredit music therapy often do so based on limited knowledge on the subject. Often, music therapy is confused with music intervention. Music intervention is the private use of music to help channel emotions and destress. Examples of this would be if someone were to listen to relaxing music after a tiring day, to help re-focus on work and avoid distractions, or students performing music for a nursing home. However, where music intervention and musical therapy differ, is that music intervention is not administered by a music therapy specialist. Clinical music therapy is using proven methods based on scientific evidence to use the psychological effects of music for improving health, and can only be authorised by a trained musical therapist.

It’s very much a one-on-one experience, and would not be as effective in a group therapy situation- although they do work. However, for those one-on-one sessions, there is a high success rate and multiple case studies where it has been effective in accomplishing what the music therapists aimed to achieve for their patient. The most obvious case is with Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. On January 8th 2011, Giffords was shot in the head in Tucson, Arizona, during a shooting at a grocery store. As part of her recovery, she had to re-learn how to talk, as the language pathways in her brain had been damaged by the bullet. Part of this process, and the success, was attributed to music therapy. With the help of a few well known children’s songs and simple melodies, Giffords re-learned how to communicate, and, after a few weeks, was able to sing along. This is an example of effective music therapy.

In conclusion, although we don’t decisively know how music affects people the way it does, we know enough to be able to manipulate those effects in certain ways to help people cope with numerous disabilities and illnesses. Music therapy is extremely effective in helping improve communication abilities, and there are multiple success stories of patients who have been helped through music