Music Therapy for Mental Distress and Illness
What would you do if I told you there was a therapy for a range of mental illnesses, with researched results, that didn’t involve medication and is free?
What would you do if I told you there was a therapy for a range of mental illnesses, with researched results, that didn’t involve medication and is free?
You may scoff! But there is growing evidence that music therapy can help people with lived experience of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, schizophrenia, and dementia.
Music therapy is the use of music in a supportive way to help people with lived experience. It generally means more than playing music to people who need help. More often music therapy focuses on inviting people to make music themselves. It generally involves singing or drumming, as these are musical expressions that are flexible, social and do not require a great deal of skill to start.
Here is a definition of music therapy:
“Music therapy is the professional use of music and its elements as an intervention in medical, educational, and everyday environments with individuals, groups, families, or communities who seek to optimize their quality of life and improve their physical, social, communicative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health and wellbeing. Research, practice, education, and clinical training in music therapy are based on professional standards according to cultural, social, and political contexts. ”– World Federation for Music Therapy2
Music therapy typically involves one or more initiators who collaboratively bring in people attending therapy to contribute to the music expression. Music is a very social act, and it is no surprise that there is a benefit from social connection. Music is also very often emotionally expressive – even cathartic. In this way, playing in music therapy may be similar to the catharsis found in psychotherapy. Music can have a calming effect; excellent for reducing circling thoughts, be they anxious or depressive. Finally, playing music takes up your concentration, so you may focus less on problems that are occurring to you.
Although not really measurable on psychiatric scales, music may even have a spiritual effect, encouraging personal growth.
Although not a common area of research, data is emerging supporting the efficacy of music therapy. Researchers Wang and Agius find that music therapy may benefit people with depression, including post-natal depression, giving them “new aesthetic, physical and relational experiences”. They also find some evidence that music may help people with lived experiences negotiate some of the negative experiences of schizophrenia (such as lack of emotional expression). Bibb finds that “Registered Music Therapists (RMTs) use targeted music therapy techniques to influence behaviour, improve cognition and communication, and develop emotional awareness and competence.” Grocke , working with a team of researchers, finds that group music therapy may enhance quality of life and spirituality of people with severe mental illness. Further research is on the horizon.
Beyond this research, there also lies the field of the therapeutic relationship one can have with music at the personal, individual level. Playing or writing music can be an important form of self-soothing and self-expression. Writing candidly now, I can say I take great comfort from being able to play my guitar at times of anxiety, and I am sure there are others with similar experiences.
To end with the words of David Crosby, “Everybody’s saying music is love, everybody’s saying music is love…”
Dr. Richard Schweizer, Policy Officer at One Door Mental Health richard.schweizer@onedoor.org.au.
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Dr Richard Schweizer
1Golden, T.L., Springs, S., Kimmel, H.J., Gupta, S., Tiedemann, A., Sandu, C.C. and Magsamen, S., 2021. The use of music in the treatment and management of serious mental illness: a global scoping review of the literature. Frontiers in psychology, 12, p.880.
Silverman, M., 2022. Music therapy in mental health for illness management and recovery. Oxford University Press.
Bibb, J., 2021. The role of music therapy in Australian mental health services and the need for increased access to service users. Australasian Psychiatry, 29(4), pp.439-441.
2https://wfmt.info/wfmt-new-home/about-wfmt/
3Wang, S. and Agius, M., 2018. The use of music therapy in the treatment of mental illness and the enhancement of societal wellbeing. Psychiatria Danubina, 30(suppl. 7), pp.595-600.
4Bibb, J., 2021. The role of music therapy in Australian mental health services and the need for increased access to service users. Australasian Psychiatry, 29(4), pp.439-441.
5Grocke, D., Bloch, S., Castle, D., Thompson, G., Newton, R., Stewart, S. and Gold, C., 2014. Group music therapy for severe mental illness: a randomized embeddedâexperimental mixed methods study. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 130(2), pp.144-153.