Seeing the Entire Picture - Part 2

Working as a music therapist often means that you have the privilege of seeing clients in a different way than other professionals.


In my music therapy room, kids are often engaged, looking happy, and participating actively in the therapeutic experiences. They will stop screaming when they know that it is almost time to sing, dance, and play. They will hold their behavior in the "acceptable" range for the duration of the session and, many times, for well after the closing song.


Why is this the case?


We know that music affects the brain differently than other stimuli. There are many researchers who study the effect of music on the brain, and there is lots of research that helps us, as therapists, to explain the mechanisms that occur in the brains of our clients.


Now, I don't know exactly what goes on in the brains of my clients since I don't have a fMRI machine or a PET Scan machine. I can only see their faces, their movements, their responses to music and therapeutic musical experiences.


In the past several days, there has been a discussion about music therapy and fun. Some folks have stated that we do not do music therapy just so a client has fun - fun and enjoyment is irrelevant to music therapy as a modality. These folks appear to be very research-based and brain-based. The other camp seems to think that without fun, music therapy cannot be accomplished.


I think that both groups are correct.


How is that for staying neutral?? (Sarcasm intended.)


Music therapists do themselves an injustice if they are not aware of the physiological changes in the brain and body when music is played. They do themselves a much larger injustice if they believe that music therapy is only centered around fun. We have to start to assimilate the information given to us by folks that study the effect of music on human beings into the rationales that we develop when planning music therapy interventions.


Who is going to assimilate this information? 


I gotta tell you, I don't think that music therapy researchers have much time to do this task. They are busy studying specific effects of music on therapeutic outcomes. They do not often have the luxury of developing a therapeutic relationship with their subjects. I think this task falls to those of us in the trenches of clinical work.


I have the advantage of working with a relatively stable population of clients. I get to know them pretty well, and I am able to observe their responses to music over time and over mood shifts. I can see what different forms of music do when presented to my mercurial clients. I do not know exactly what is going on in their brains, but I can start to make some guesses if I take the time to read the research of other professionals. This helps me to see the entire picture of music and the role music takes for my kids.


For the next several weeks, I am going to use Google Scholar to start to read some of the non-Music Therapy research out there that examines the effect of music on the brain. I will see if I can start to assimilate that information into my therapeutic planning. I will also try to share some of that information here.


Last year, in Cleveland, Dr. Ani Patel shared some of the research results that he had found, and he also told us that we needed to step up and provide the other side of the story. He emphasized that researchers could give us the glimpse into the brain, but that we needed to tell them about the rest of the picture.


Let's do that.


(By the way, the picture at the top of this post was taken on the campus of the University of Chicago in 2005.)