Does Music Therapy Help Those In The Various Disability Communities? (An Opinion Piece With History)

Information Source: American Music Therapy Association

https://www.musictherapy.org/about/musictherapy/

Author’s Note: I am in no way a professional of any kind. Nor am I certified in any capacity. If you or someone you love feel that music therapy would be beneficial to yourself or someone you love then I highly recommend that all interested parties talk with their trusted medical professional. I am highly against self-diagnosis.

What Is Music Therapy?

Music Therapy is used to address the physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of a person(s) upon assessment. Music therapy can also help in areas of communication if the said person shows difficulty in that area. It is also important to note that clinical music therapy is the only professional, research-based discipline that actively applies supportive science to the creative, emotional, and energizing experiences of music for health treatment and educational goals.

What Music Therapy Is Not

While these examples of therapeutic music are noteworthy, They are not clinical music therapy:

A person with Alzheimer’s listening to an iPod with headphones of his/her favorite songs

Groups such as Bedside Musicians, Musicians on Call, Music Practitioners, Sound Healers, and Music Thanatologists

Celebrities performing at hospitals and/or schools

A piano player in the lobby of a hospital

Nurses playing background music for patients

Artists in residence

Arts educators

A high school student playing guitar in a nursing home

A choir singing on the pediatric floor of a hospital

Here are also some examples of what a Certified Music Therapist Does

Work with older adults to lessen the effects of dementia.

Work with children and adults to reduce asthma episodes.

Work with hospitalized patients to reduce pain.

Work with children who have autism to improve communication capabilities.

Work with premature infants to improve sleep patterns and increase weight gain.

Work with people who have Parkinson’s disease to improve motor function.

The idea that music has healing effects on people has been around since the time of Aristotle and Plato. But, it wasn’t until musicians starting going to veteran hospitals during World War I, and World War 2 that they began to see what impact music had on the soldiers affected by the war that the world started to take notice. The earliest reference to music therapy being acknowledged was in the year in 1789 in an unsigned article by a magazine called, The Columbian Magazine. By the 1800s, the value of music therapy was documented in two medical dissertations. The first was written by Edwin Atlee (1804), and the second written by, Samuel Mathews (1806.) Both gentlemen were students of Dr. Benjamin Rush who strong support was having healing prosperities to a person’s mental and physical state. It was also worth noting that New York’s Blackwell’s Island had its’ very first recorded music therapy intervention in an institutional setting. As well as its first recording of a systematic experiment in music therapy. (Corning’s use of music to influence or alter a person’s state of mind during psychotherapy.)

By the 1900s music therapy began to gain support by some short-lived associations. In 1903 a woman by the name of Eva Augusta Vescelius founded the National Society of Musical Therapeutic. Followed by Isa Maud Ilsen founded the National Association for Music in Hospitals (1926.) Harriet Ayers Seymour founded the National Foundation of Music Therapy. (1941.) Despite not being able to develop an organized clinical profession, they were the first to provide educational courses, books journals, specifically for the studying of music therapy. ( for more information on this topic please visit:https://www.musictherapy.org/about/musictherapy/

In the 1940s three major players brought music therapy to the forefront as a legitimate tool of professional and clinical practice. Their names were as follows: Psychiatrist and music therapist Ira Altshuler, MD. Championed for three decades in Michigan. Willem van de Wall, known as the first to champion for the use of music therapy in state-funded felicities and who also wrote the very first “how to” for music therapy entitled, “Music in Institutions” (1936). Lastly, there was E. Thayer Gaston, known as the "father of music therapy.” He was one of the major supports as far as seeing music therapy moving toward being seen as being educational and origination purposes.

In closing here is what I believe when it comes to the topic of music Therapy

It is pretty clear that music has a big impact on a person, and with frequent studies being done from a psychological and physical standpoint, it’s obvious that science and music go hand in hand when it comes to healing the body, mind, and spirit of a person(s) who is suffering. I personally believe that music does have the power to now only help someone from healing, but also music helps them deal with whatever it is they’re struggling with that cannot easily be healed. Such as emotional and or mental trauma, loss even an internal struggle. I also have a strong belief that music can and does help us to communicate with one another without using words. I also believe music has the power to connect people in a span of a moment, that you would otherwise not come across and or connect with.

I personally have had experience with both. Being a woman who happens to live with a very complex disability known as Spastic Hemiplegia Cerebral Palsy. Music has always been something that has always been there to help get through whatever I may be facing at that moment. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I am also a strong believer that music saves lives. Music is an extremely powerful tool and my opinion, and just like love can be universal music can be just as universal, create connections and bonds in the name of love and friendship. We all hold special moments and or memories in our lives and 9/10 time a song is probably connected to that moment in our lives. So I leave you with this question. Would you be able to live without the presence of music in your life? Do you think the world would be able to?