Music therapy is one of the alternative treatment methods which help to relieve pain and reduce suffering. Music has unique acoustic properties which influence the emotions and minds of patients. Music adds a perspective that frees us from conformity and puts us in touch with our authentic, spontaneous self. Positive emotions are essential to good mental health. Music therapy is most appropriate when patients experienced chronic pain and after the stroke. It is not appropriate during severe and acute pain conditions.
Therapists can use music with the effect of drugs. The concept of music (especially classical music) changes the perception of a stressful event and adds a sense of control, the power to choose your own attitude or response. This can lead to a discussion of the positive side of the middle years. Music therapy can also help build relationships with clients and colleagues. The defining attributes of the concept of music are positive feelings and relations, positive behavior patterns, and high spirit.
Both clients and therapists bring their respective knowledge, attitudes, feelings, skills, and patterns of behaving to the relationship. Indeed, referring to their interaction as a relationship indicates a sense of affiliation that bonds clients and therapists as well as an interdependency and reciprocity between them. Clients and therapists alike come to the relationship with unique cognitive, affective, and psychomotor abilities that they use in their joint endeavor of enhancing the clients’ well-being (Oldfield, 2006).
Therapists are responsible for encouraging this interchange of ideas, values, and skills. In an effective helping relationship there is a definite and guaranteed interchange between clients and therapists in all three dimensions. To be able to laugh at a tough situation provides temporary relief from fear and worry.
Some people have been raised to believe that music therapy is frivolous; thus music therapy would not be appreciated. If therapists try to use music and it offends, they should apologize and explain that intentions were to be helpful. Music therapy stimulates multiple interdependent body systems to start repair work. Visualization, which requires organizing and relating extremely complex sensations–color, size, perspective, and distance–can be impaired when brain tissue is damaged or diseased (Aldridge, 2005).
The four sources mentioned in a reference list were objective and credible. The information was found in theoretical books and researches written by qualified writers and professional therapists. All sources were credible and informative because they involved substantial research and a theoretical framework of analysis.
The sources underline that therapists should pay attention to the subjects of music and their impact on the health of clients. This will give a therapist a clue about their topics of concern. Psychological functions and consequences of music include the following: relief of tension; one supervisor of a telemetry unit puts on oversized, clown sunglasses and strolls down the hall when staff members are irritable. Release of hostility and anger; a Nerf basketball and hoop or a Koosh ball to toss in the staff lounge are helpful; denial of reality; music in the operating room that would seem offensive elsewhere helps staff diffuse tension; coping with disability and death; HIV-positive individuals practice their “death rattle” and laugh about it. The positive effects for nursing staff is that music:
- helps medical professionals to manage difficult situations and difficult clients;
- helps build cohesiveness in medical professionals -client and therapists -colleague relationships;
- helps intervene with clients’ anxiety, depression, and embarrassment;
- could be part of the routine or spontaneous.
Produced positive effects beyond the moment of music listening (Oldfield, 2006).
I did not discover contradictory information about the therapy and its impact on human health. All sources agree that using music therapy strategies before a crisis occurs in a work environment makes staff more willing to work together when tension can be great. Have a baby picture contest for staff. Provide a candy jar labeled “Grump Beans” for a grumpy day. Get involved in a community project where people can work together in an informal setting.
Organize a community project for colleagues that could be done in conjunction with the traditional Christmas party. Injecting music therapy into a situation changes the perception that the situation is so terrible that it cannot be handled. When patients are admitted to an acute setting such as the emergency room, they and their families want efficient, caring attention and treatment. Music therapy may be inappropriate unless initiated by patients or family members (Pavlicevic and Ansdell 2004).
A therapist will be able to distinguish between banter among clients and family members to ease tension, and the put-down music therapy that needs intervention. In chronic illness, music therapy may be a much-needed coping technique. Social functions include the following: coping with disruptive acts of hospital custom; establishing relationships; coping with social conflict; promoting group solidarity (Aldridge, 2005).
The same is true for diseases where music has had a poor record of success. Diseases such as MS, lupus, myasthenia gravis, arthritis, and chronic immune deficiency appear to be caused by imbalances of body energies. This lack of underlying harmony appears to Western medicine merely as a mysterious and vague set of symptoms with no easily isolated cause or agent. For these illnesses, a subtle diagnosis made by an experienced practitioner can indicate treatment that helps body parts work together to counter the disease (Sutton, 2002).
Disease history may provide occasions for music therapy that seem to be taken out of context when retold. All clients have positive and negative feelings about helping relationships; each also has biases about the other. Both have different priorities for working on particular health concerns. In America today, the culture is heterogeneous (with a variety of cultural groups), so that therapists and clients are likely to encounter different beliefs and values, particularly as the United States increasingly becomes home to people from all parts of the world. Music therapy invites interaction, puts others at ease; wins affection, and helps people cope with stress and fear.
Modem medical and nursing practices become two of the external forces immigrants encounter (Sutton, 2002). This encounter with the American health care system is loaded with choices for immigrants to make in deciding how much of their culture’s traditional medical practices they wish to maintain. The use of music with colleagues makes the workplace a more pleasant environment. Music therapy enhances closeness, which has social and work-related benefits.
The main questions have about the therapy are: Hoe to select a piece of music for a particular patient? Does ethnic origin influence the perception of music? I would use music therapy and recommend it to patients with psychological problems (such as mental disorders or distress), and chronically ill patients. In my research, I relied on all sources because they are credible theoretical studies reviewed by professional therapists and academicians (Aldridge, 2005).
In sum, music therapy is an effective alternative treatment method that helps many patients to reduce pain and overcome psychological problems. The attitudes of both clients and therapists will greatly affect whether they will work in harmony or discord, whether their respective knowledge will surface or submerge, and whether they will carry out the commitment of improving the health of individual clients. The major source of our value system is our culture.
References
Aldridge, D. (2005). Music Therapy and Neurological Rehabilitation: Performing Health. Jessica Kingsley.
Oldfield, A. (2006). Interactive Music Therapy: A Positive Approach Music Therapy at a Child Development Centre. New York,
Pavlicevic, M., Ansdell, G. (2004). Community Music Therapy. Jessica Kingsley.
Sutton, J. (2002). Music, Music Therapy and Trauma: International Perspectives. Jessica Kingsley.