Music Therapy: To Fix Bruises on Humans
The melancholic sound of a familiar melody can be therapeutic to some when life’s mishaps come spiraling down. SMC’s Center of Wellness and Wellbeing recognizes music therapy as a healthy alternative to express emotions and will offer a workshop on the subject on Tuesday, Nov. 19 titled Music and Mental Health: Using Music for Expression and Healing.
The workshop will be led by Dr. Loreno Meono, a success counselor, whose overall mission is to help individuals become more effective versions of themselves in their personal and professional lives.
To be clear on the definition of music therapy, one doesn’t need to be deeply knowledgeable on music as a whole to practice the exercise. Music therapy can be just as effective by simply listening to a tune as opposed to composing one. “It doesn’t take any real talent to participate in music therapy, so just about anyone can benefit from it,” said Dr. Meono.
Throughout the workshop, Dr. Meono will provide an overview of what exactly music therapy is and how one can benefit from it. According to the counselor, “Music therapy is a wonderful resource that can help a person build their social, emotional, physical, cognitive, and sensory skills. It can be used to accomplish a variety of goals, from coping with distress to improving communication and emotional expression.”
Meono provided an example of how singing or songwriting can be used for emotional expression. When someone is feeling blue, simply jotting down or relating to song lyrics can be curative. Relating to a song’s lyrics stems from a branch of music therapy called lyric analysis.
Dr. Meono defines lyric analysis as “taking a song and focusing on the lyrics in order to explore meaningful topics.”
Besides benefitting a healthy emotional state from the therapy, physical benefits can also be intertwined within the phenomenon.
Jeff Peterson started the Peterson Family Foundation in 2003 to honor his late wife, Karen Peterson, after losing her life to lung cancer in 2002. According to the foundation, children and teens with cancer who practice music therapy have shown physiological results such as relaxed muscle tension and improved respiration, just to name a few.
Doctors who work with children need to be “as creative as possible to minimize anxiety and all of the consequences of it physiologically to allow a child to be settled enough to heal,” according to Dr. Audrey Foster-Barber, a pediatric neurologist. “Music therapy absolutely plays a part in that.”
"Music and Mental Health: Using Music for Expression" will be held on Nov. 19 in HSS 253 from 11:15 a.m. to 12:35 p.m.