Resources & references

Watch interviews with music therapists Carla Navarro, Pedro Vinuesa, Maria Martinez-Gil, and Paula Ramirez describing what music therapy is, who it can benefit, and how it can help. Client testimonials are also included. 

Listen to music therapist Marcela Lichtensztejn describe music therapy, including its therapeutic benefits, how it can be applied clinically, who it can benefit, and how it can affect the brain. 

Music therapist Natalia Garbarets explains what music therapy is, how it differs from musical education, and what are its benefits.

Read about a therapy program by an art and music therapist for transgender, nonbinary, and gender-questioning youth, supporting gender identity exploration and learn about the challenges and opportunities encountered during its pilot implementation.

Music therapist Kevin Kirkland explains how he uses rapping to help persons with mental health and substance use issues to process their experiences and express themselves. 

This article explores how music therapy can serve as a self-care management resource for improving self-efficacy and mediating the relationship between vulnerability factors and health outcomes for patients with sickle cell disease. Accordingly, it is important for appropriate patient reported outcomes to be used within practice and research to capture these important domains and improve our understanding of how music therapy can help individuals with chronic pain achieve meaningful outcomes.

The Canadian Music Therapy Podcast celebrated two years of episodes in February 2023. Hosted by music therapist Adrienne Pringle and business leader Cathy Thompson, the bi-weekly podcast shines a bright light on the impact and work of music therapists across Canada. This reflective article features Adrienne’s and Cathy’s personal explorations of themes and ideas that emerged from a close examination of the podcast transcripts from the first 40 interview-based episodes. 

This study aimed to investigate the impact of Remini-Sing RCT, community-based therapeutic choirs led by music therapists and offered to individuals with dementia and their caregivers. Preliminary results  showed a decrease in anxiety and depression. Considering the limited number of participants, the article also addresses the issue of  recruitment and retention of participants, to help future research and improve sustainability of such programs.

This article introduces an adaptation of the music therapy and autism specific AQR-instrument. The author developed this adaptation following the requirement to report on the outcomes of his work at a school for children with autism. After introducing the AQR-instrument, the author describes how his adaptation enables him to produce bar charts illustrating client progress. 

This article summarizes findings from a research article that explores the musical skills required to be a music therapist. Findings were gathered based on the opinions of a dozen music therapists in the United States and have implications for the education and  training of future music therapists.

Click here to read the research study referenced in this article.

This article provides recommendations for music therapy practice and research among individuals with chronic pain using sickle cell disease as an exemplar condition. The research on music therapy for chronic pain management has shown that music therapy is particularly helpful in improving people's pain-related self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is well recognized to play an essential role in effective management of chronic pain.

The purpose of this theoretical paper is to examine current literature in developmental psychology in order to discuss how music therapy can foster resilience in early childhood. Music therapy can help prepare young children and their families for handling adversity, increase parental sensitivity, and create multiple opportunities for families to develop adaptive interpersonal interaction patterns.