The Curative Effects of Music Therapy
We listen to our favourite tunes to soothe and entertain us. We listen to them to help us evoke emotions that we wish to let out. But, more than its entertainment value, music also has a more practical use in the form of music therapy.
As both a field of scientific research and allied health profession, music therapy is an interpersonal procedure where a trained therapist uses music to help people with physical, psychological, mental, social, and spiritual problems improve and maintain his or her health and well being. Many scientists and doctors believe in the healing powers of music. In fact, in both World Wars, live music was played on the hospitals' sound system as part of a special regimen to help soldiers recover from their war trauma. Today, it is also used in clinics to help calm nervous patients, an idea pioneered between the 1960s and 1970s by renowned French cellist Juliette Alvin.
Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins, both renowned composers and music therapists, then introduced the Nordoff-Robbins approach to music therapy. The theory of this form is that everyone can respond to music regardless of how ill, depressed, or disturbed they may be. Thus, music is played to improve communication, encourage change, and allow people to live their lives more creatively and resourcefully.
Today, music therapists are helping children and adults alike recover from learning disabilities. They are also very active in the field of palliative care, geriatrics, and forensic psychiatry. Furthermore, just recently in 2009, a team of researchers found out that music therapy helps in the treatment of people afflicted with schizophrenia, dementia, and agitation. It is very much likely that we are only starting to discover the deeper, curative effects of music.
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