Resources & references

The COVID-19 pandemic created a major transformation in the delivery of music therapy services worldwide as they moved online. Parents and their children with visual impairment participated in online music therapy sessions. Parents indicated that the programme was a valuable family resource that supported bonding and interaction. A discussion of the findings is followed by implications for practice.

This article examines two cases of military service members treated with music therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury, and other psychological issues, highlighting how music performance can support personal growth, rehabilitation, and community change.

Read an article exploring the paralells and contrasts between Western music therapy and the Senegalese Ndëpp healing ritual. The author further explores the role, approach, and limits of music therapists in an increasingly globalized world, including the importance of interdisciplinary dialogue when supporting individuals from different cultures.

This scoping review explores Bruscia’s (1987) clinical techniques for improvisational music therapy as they relate to music therapy in autism research to determine the most commonly used clinical techniques in music therapy with clients with autism. The work was undertaken as a preliminary step in a pilot study to explore how the techniques can be represented in terms of individual ways of playing, musical relationships; and how the use of the techniques impacts the participant’s experience of musical connection, influence, and expression.

Read an article exploring the neural changes observed in dementia patients following a music therapy program targeting cognitive function. Results suggest that music therapy may increase the connectivity of compensatory neural networks used to improve and maintain cognitive performance.

Read an article exploring the ways that a music therapist uses music therapy sessions to support families to engage with music-making with their multiply disabled preschool children outside of the music therapy space. Specific characteristics of the resources and tools provided are discussed.

Click here to read another study on the same research project by the same author.

This study aimed to investigate clinical effectiveness of a structured eight-week mindfulness-based music therapy (MBMT) program on improving mood regulation in older women with blindness. 

Read an article exploring two case studies of the interdisciplinary collaboration between music therapists and medical social workers in end-of-life periods for patients in intensive care units (ICUs). The ways that each professional complements the other are highlighted. 

This qualitative study explores the lived experience of inter-active listening (IAL), an individualized music therapy experience in which the therapist plays music or sings while the patient engages through listening. The study found that a receptive music therapy referred to as IAL was associated, in cancer patients in an acute palliative care unit, with increased emotional and spiritual well-being and a greater sense of connection to self and others.

This study presents a community music therapy program for adults with developmental disabilities combining instrumental/vocal group performance with American Sign Language (ASL) music interpretation groups. Results indicated the program was successful in fostering community engagement, social networking, and building friendships.

Read a study exploring the perceptions of autistic individuals on the potential functions of echolalia in music therapy sessions. Results show a disconnect between the perception of these autistic participants and conventional literature written by non-autistic authors, which provide an opportunity for music therapists to limit their assumptions of autistic behaviour as described from the observer point of view. Notably, the connection between music and echolalia is also discussed, which may be of particular interest to music therapists.

This article explores a music therapy project for and by trans and nonbinary people called Phoenix Song Project. It explains what coproduction practices in music therapy are, summarizes the project's journey so far, and provides the authors' reflections.