Music Therapy is an ancient and natural form of therapy used both consciously, or not, to remove accumulated mental tension, calm down, and concentrate.
Music Therapy (MT) uses music to help a person’s psychological state. Its development is similar to that of modern medicine using long-accumulated observations to develop treatment.
First officially recognised as a legitimate treatment in the early 19
th century the popularity of MT only grew. By the 20
th century, England had developed the first program of MT following this up with a centre exclusively for this purpose 15 years later. Around this time Germany also began to recognize, and capitalize, on the benefits of MT and in 1985 founded the Institute of Music Therapy.
Today, in the US, there are over 3000 practitioners of music therapy and 24 colleges that offer training.
These days MT is used to help with the management of chronic pain. It's to help children with behavioral problems and even is particularly effective for dealing with the recovery of abuse victims. Music therapy is particularly useful over some other more ‘tradition’ talking therapies as it over comes one particularly firm barrier, language and understanding.
How each individual practitioner of music therapy who conducts a session can have a fair amount of variation. However, the fundamental aim remains the same. To create an environment of trust between the practitioner and patient. It's also to give the individual a positive experience which helps them to deal with whatever issue, physical or psychological.
Music plays an undeniably large role in our everyday life. It can evoke feelings and memories from years ago. It can make you cry or it can make you smile. At its root this is what MT is built on.
There's more information on music therapy here, a great tool to get children to express their emotions and increase self confidence.
Melisa writes for
star-writers.com
