Music and Mental Health

Music has been found to have various benefits for mental health, including improved heart rate, motor skills, brain stimulation, and immune system enhancement. Studies have shown that patients with mental illness show improvement after using music as an intervention. Music therapy is a type of therapy where music is used as the medium to help individuals. It is not just playing music, but involves a therapeutic relationship with a trained professional. Becoming a music therapist requires a four-year degree program and internship. Sessions can vary greatly depending on the client's needs and preferences, including singing familiar songs, learning instruments, and songwriting. Music therapy can be particularly beneficial for individuals with autism. It can also be used in schools as a form of mental health support. Growing up, I feel like music is what helped me through a lot of my toughest times, so I wanted to look into why that might be. And so I came across a journal called Music, Mental Health, and Immunity. And some of the things that it said music helped would be improved heart rate, motor skills, brain stimulation, and immune system enhancement, which all of those things you wouldn't really associate with music, but I thought that was pretty interesting. So I wanted to look more into that, and studies have shown that patients diagnosed with mental illness show a visible improvement after using music as a main intervention. Interventions can be both with the support of a trained professional and in a non-therapeutic setting. So I got in contact with a music therapist in Lake Oswego named Emily Ross to find out what music therapy is and how that could support mental health and what general therapy sessions may look like with a music therapist. I'm curious, how did you find me? I actually just looked up music therapists in general area. I actually grew up in Canby, so it's right next to Lake Oswego. So I kind of just like, I was like, well, I live over there, might as well try with that. But yeah, no, I just looked up kind of music therapy in Bend, and there was really nothing that I found. So I looked up music therapy in Portland, and then I, that's how I found yours. Because there's really not much. I've noticed that. I mean, like there's, it's not a very common thing around here. Well, it's not very common for people to have their own business for sure. That's, it's hard to do. It's, I'm actually in little support groups with other business owners of music therapy because it is tough to piece together a livelihood with people paying out of pocket because it's not covered by insurance and it's tricky that way. But then there are also music therapists who work for hospitals, for hospice, private schools. So there are music therapists around, but they don't necessarily have a website presence. I will just say that the United States has its own particular bent on it, and the world view is a little bit different. And I happen to appreciate the wider view. So I'll just speak from my own personal perspective, and there's a lot of different perspectives on this. But music therapy is basically a type of therapy where music is the medium with which we help somebody. So where talk therapy is using talk, then music therapy is using music. And it's not to say that the music is the magic that makes it happen. It's just a vehicle with which a therapist works. So we get a little defensive maybe when people say, oh, I'm putting in a CD or I'm putting on a playlist and that's my music therapy. It's like, well, music therapy is technically within a therapeutic relationship. It's not something you just do. In order to be a music therapist, it's a four-year degree program with a six-month internship. It's a big deal. It's not just like, I'm going to start doing music therapy because I like music, which I certainly wanted it to be that when I first looked at it. I was like, I have a degree in music. I want to be a music therapist. That sounds fun. And then I'm like, really? I have to go and get another degree? Really? So it's a long process to become a music therapist because the kinds of things that you learn are a lot of courses in psychology and, of course, courses in music. You have to learn theory and ear training and how to play piano and guitar and voice and all these things. And then how do you apply music to somebody who has a need? And so that's what we actually do. And most of us specialize a little bit because there's so many different types of people who could benefit from music therapy. So in my situation, I specialize in autism. I love working with autistic children and adults. And so on the ground, like in the sessions, what that means is that, first of all, I love offering clients as much autonomy and choice within the session as possible. And for my clients, just engaging in making choices is a big deal for them. Like in a lot of their world, maybe they're just told, go here, do this, stop doing that. And so in my sessions, it's like, well, what do you want to do next? Do you want to keep doing this or do you want to stop doing this? Do you want to, you know, do you want to do? So trying to let them have control over what we're doing. And then each session looks really different. Sometimes we are singing songs that are familiar to the client. Sometimes we are learning how to play an instrument. For example, I have a Celtic harp at my studio. I have a piano at my studio. I have one young man who has been learning skills on the guitar. And that's different than music lessons, because it's really about his self-esteem and his confidence and his feeling successful more than how many chords can he play or how well can he play them. And so he's getting a lot of enjoyment out of it. And that is my goal, is that he's getting joy out of it. Some examples are, like, so on the more supported end of things, it might look like I'm bringing in the song, Don't Worry, Be Happy, and I'm taking out some of the lyrics and leaving blanks and letting the client put in the words that make sense for them, and then we'll sing it together. That would be like a very supported version of that. An example of the other end of the spectrum would be if I had a pretty high-functioning person, like somebody who was like you and me, you know, maybe needing therapy, but functioning in the world so they can talk and they can talk about their feelings, then I might just say, well, just tell me a little bit about this thing that's on your mind. And just listening to them and writing down some key words and actually listening to the way that they say the words so that maybe if they're saying, you know, my mother, you know, and then it would be like, mother, that's actually an interval, mother, you know, and then we would actually start to build a song around literally the words and the intervals that they give me. And then gradually then just saying, well, what about this line? You know, here's a line that you said. Would you, should we put this in the chorus or do you think this is more of a verse? What do you think is the overlying theme here? Can we, you know, what's going to make sense for a chorus? And then here's one style of music, here's another style of music, which one do you like better? So offering a lot of instrumental support and music writing support while the client is providing choices and the bare bones of like, this is what we're singing about. Some people do songwriting with clients and that can look really different depending on what sort of client you're working with. For example, if you're working with someone at the end of their life, you can do like a life review and write a song about all the things that the person values from their life. And it could even be something that they save and give to their grandchildren or something like that. Sometimes we do songwriting just to process emotion. Sometimes we do songwriting just to elicit creativity. There's all sorts of different ways to do that. Sometimes we improvise. And one of the things I love is that autistic folks don't tend to get too caught up in their heads the way non-autistic folks do. And so they can be very free to play whatever they feel like and that's really fun. So I support that musically. And sometimes we move to music. Sometimes we do action songs or, I mean, some people do dancing. I don't really do dancing. I don't know if I can say most, but I will say that mental health is an area. And I have been, for the past two years, I've been actually going to Salem Public Schools. And there's one alternative school where they, first of all, let me just say that in Oregon, it's really hard to get a job. It's really hard to get music therapy into the schools because the schools don't recognize music therapy as a service. And it's one of our big frustrations because some other states have a music therapist for every school district. And after, at the end of the pandemic, we approached some schools and said, look, you have funding for mental health. We have the ability to work with folks that maybe don't want to process stuff verbally. Maybe processing non-verbally would be more effective for some of these folks. And so we actually got into an alternative middle school. And we have a program and we call it Music for Wellness. And the middle schoolers self-refer. So there's a form that they fill out and they get to fill out, answer questions like I'm having really big feelings right now or I'm having a hard time concentrating in class. So they check off boxes. And then they can also fill out like what's their favorite kind of music. Do they have music that they particularly dislike so that we can know to avoid that. And then, again, it's about choice making and it's about letting them express things without making them talk about it and giving them an area where they can actually focus on an artistic expression in a safe environment. And it's something they can look forward to. So there's all kinds of benefits within that particular school setting that are lovely. What about the like instrumental portion of it with like them playing instruments? How do you go through with that one? So let's see. So again, there's a range. So sometimes, so there are instruments, maybe you remember this from grade school, that there are like little xylophones where you can actually take some of the bars off. And so if you take off, if you know which bars to take off, you can give somebody a xylophone that's basically tuned to all the correct notes in the song that you're doing. Like if you're doing a blues, you can like set it up so that it's a blues scale on your xylophone or you can set it up in a pentatonic, which is like kind of like playing all the black keys on the piano so that it's all, there's no dissonance. It's very, very tonal sounding. And so you can play a variety, you as a therapist can play a variety of chord progressions that will sound good with that. And then they can play whatever they want and there's no wrong notes. So that's one way where if a client just wants to freely express and just play along, and that can be along with a song that you're singing, it can be a song about what you're doing. Like sometimes with my kiddos, I sing about the fact that we're playing xylophone and that my client, I'll use my client's name, my client is playing the xylophone, Emily's playing the guitar, we're having fun, it's a Tuesday afternoon, you know, and I'll just sort of sing about our experience to help them, ground them in like here's where we are, you know, and this is language about real life. And then with other clients, it might be more fun to sing a song that they love. You know, it could be a song off of a playlist or it could be a song off of a, sometimes it's off of a video game, you know, whatever song it is that they love, then we can add instruments to it. I think there's something really beautiful about making music with another person. And I take that from my own childhood of like being in band was really important to me and I didn't ever really like practicing at home, but I really liked going to band and having a spot and having other people play around me and my part fit in with other people. And it's amazing that even when you're just improvising with one client, you get that clicking in where your music is actually making sense together, and you can feel it. And I think that's super valuable, especially number one, when we've been isolated from the pandemic. Number two, when there's isolation due to depression or anxiety, you know, all the things that keep us from connecting with each other, when we can actually physically be in the same room and make music together, I think it's so valuable. Just that piece, just even without anything else, just making music together already has value and then all the other stuff is good too. And it's terrifying, honestly, as a therapist, because you are starting from zero and you are just like free floating in the air and just going, what is the client going to give me? And then how do I help them feel satisfied with what we're coming up with? While music therapy feels less direct than traditional talk therapy, there can still be challenges with accessibility and cost. In terms of accessibility with a non-professional setting, music is a big part of everyday life. You hear it everywhere you go, whether it's in stores, playing from people's pockets, or in strange places like elevators. But at the other end of the spectrum, many people enjoy creating music, whether it's with a guitar or pre-recorded beats. But how can that be implemented to help with mental well-being? Once you identify the issue you're trying to fix, you can find what type of music will work best for that situation. But the biggest issue that is faced is that music is subjective. So a song that one person finds calming may cause anxiety for another. So I have friends that listen to smooth jazz for studying, but for me, it kind of gives me anxiety. So there's more obvious answers, like when you're trying to get motivation to exercise, you listen to upbeat music, but it can go a little deeper than that. In a Harvard Health article, the author mentions the ISO principle, where you listen to music to match your current mood, and then gradually change the genre to help shift your mood. This method is particularly helpful when your mood doesn't seem to budge. But another way you can use music is to help identify what you're feeling. One way this can be done is by listening to various songs and seeing which lyrics and tunes resonate the most with you. The other is to challenge yourself to write lyrics to get a better understanding of your situation. So it's like journaling, but with, I guess what feels like more of a purpose. Making music can also bring back a feeling of control in a person's life. So it's up to them to create lyrics, chord progressions, and instruments to use. This also helps with self-confidence as they get to create something they enjoy from scratch. A common issue that is found today, especially after COVID, is a lack of social outlets. Since music is so universal, it is fairly easy to find others who share the same passion. These social outlets can be as big as a concert for your favorite band, to a small get-together with other musicians. So long story short, music can be used in day-to-day life, but since the average person doesn't have the psychological background of a music therapist, obviously it will not be as effective, but it's still a great way to feel just a little bit better in your day-to-day life. Music therapy is a great option for those who want to be in a therapeutic setting, but may find traditional talk therapy vulnerable, or they're not sure if they're able to get their feelings out. And you can get that connection, as Emily said, with someone making music with you, to where if you're especially feeling lonely, then you can take advantage of that, or if you're just trying to get your control back in your life, or you want to just feel a little better about yourself and build confidence, then music therapy is a great option. But if you cannot access music therapy, then as I said, there are still ways you can incorporate music into your life, and it is still extremely beneficial for you. .