Essay Sample about Music Therapy

HISTORY OF MUSIC THERAPY 

Music Therapy was first referenced in a Columbian Magazine “Music Physically Considered” in 1789. This was followed by two different medical dissertations published in the early 1800s by students of Dr. Benjamin Rush. Rush was “a physician and psychiatrist who was a strong proponent of using music to treat medical diseases.” (History of Music Therapy | American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), n.d.). One of the most important uses of musical therapy was after World War I and World War 2, where it was part of the healing process of veterans who had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Although, it should also be noted at this time that while endorsed by the Surgeon General of the United States, music therapy was not fully recognized as a viable form of medical-based therapy. In 1944, Michigan State College (now Michigan State University) offered the first-ever bachelor’s degree in Music Therapy. Currently, there are 100s of colleges across the United States that provide Degrees in this area. Perhaps the most well-known is Berklee College of Music, where one can earn their Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy. 

WHAT IS MUSIC THERAPY? 

There are two types of music therapy: receptive and active. “In receptive experiences, the client listens to music and responds to the experience silently, verbally or in another modality…the listening experience may be focused on physical, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, or spiritual aspects of the music, and the client’s responses are designed according to the therapeutic purpose of the experience.” (Bruscia 1998). Active music therapy involves the actual patient engaging in their own music-making, which could include any of the following: vocalizing, rapping, chanting, singing, playing instruments, improvising, songwriting, composing, conducting, etc. 

HOW DOES MUSIC THERAPY WORK? 

The heart of music therapy is to tap into humans’ predisposition to connect with music on a deeply emotional level. Playing and listening to music seems to improve a person's physical and emotional well-being who has suffered from trauma. Music is said to help patients cope with emotional trauma and physical pain and can evoke emotions such as joy. Because it is thought that music offers an excellent bond to humans in the world, offering this type of therapy expands communication options to those who use it as they can be connected to those around them through it. Music therapy takes the benefits of music and applies them to a therapeutic model. Thereby harnessing the power of musical endeavors and playing to the neurons and pathways in the brain, and restructuring them if need be. While said to help on various emotional levels and with various traumas, musical therapy holds great power in dealing with the brain. Patients with dementia or brain damage may use music to help communicate, as music is processed on different pathways throughout the brain than verbal speech. One example of this method seemingly working in the lives of those with traumatic brain injuries is Gabby Giffords. In 2011 Mrs. Giffords was shot in the head in an attempted assassination; 19 people were shot in the attack, and six perished. In the YouTube video “How Gabby Giffords is using music to rewire her brain after being shot,” part of her healing journey is attributed to her playing the French Horn (PBS NewsHour, 2021). 

SOURCE OF AUTHORITY 

In research for music therapy, the premise of the entire therapeutic method is the belief that music transcends languages, values, cultures, neurological transmitters and speaks directly to the rhythm and nature found in all humans. Music has been produced since the first humans were on earth, as instruments have been found in archeological digs of ancient peoples. The oldest instrument claimed to be found was a flute, carved from a bone, in the caves in Slovenia. Secular methods of dating artifacts say the instrument was made 50,000 years ago. 

THEOLOGY OF MODEL 

Music therapy does not speak to the existence of God or the belief that God is at all involved in the healing process to medical music therapy. One may acknowledge the spiritual nature of music in general, but in studies of this therapy, not once was God mentioned or any source of a higher power. Music and love for it are always described as intrinsic knowledge already growing in the person. If one does not believe that God created every living thing, then music is attributed to the essence of a man because they exist. Interestingly enough, music, as it influences the spiritual nature of a person, is universal. Shamans use music for healing rituals in the jungles of Papua New Guinea and Church Services in the slums of Kawangware, Kenya.