Music therapy
In general, music therapy is understood as an expression-oriented, psychodynamic treatment method that includes different methods. What they have in common is the targeted use of musical means - including breath and body awareness within a therapeutic relationship to restore, maintain and promote mental, spiritual and physical health.
In the meantime, there are numerous definitions of the term "music therapy" in music therapy literature, which are oriented towards the music therapy concept or the underlying psychotherapy model and therefore differ more or less from each other. This is expressed in various terms such as music-oriented psychotherapy, music psychotherapy, systemic music therapy or anthroposophical music therapy.
In the relationship between client and therapist, music is a medium that encompasses everything that sounds (sounds, rhythms, harmonies, melodies, noises, silence) in the therapeutic context. Improvisation with instruments, songs or composed music are used depending on the method applied. The effect of music unfolds through communication within the therapeutic relationship in the joint musical activity. Music therapy enables the patient to express and communicate, to experience and to act experimentally. Not only the psychological state reacts to the music, but also the vegetative nervous system: pulse, blood pressure and breathing.
Music therapy is a process, for which the relationship between therapist and client is of essential importance. Music supports and facilitates contact and makes it possible to shape and experience relationships in a sensual way. Mental structures and processes are reflected in the musical process. Music allows the client to get in touch with the core of her being and to open up access to individual resources. In this context, the verbal processing of the experience plays a key role.
(Definition of music therapy by the Swiss Professional Association for Music Therapy SFMT)