Music Therapy: Definition, Benefits, & Research​

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
Music therapy uses music to promote psychological healing and well-being. That’s right—scientific evidence says mindful music listening can be good for you.​
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Many of us like to augment or shift our moods by listening to music. I know plenty of people who use music to inspire them through their training runs, their gym routines, or even just their morning commutes. In recent years, I have discovered that some songs—every several months, I find another one that pulls this off—will reliably move me to tears. Sometimes, this is exactly what I want: I am on the edge of feeling
something very deeply, and listening to music will unlock more of those emotions, whatever they are.

Playing and making music seem to be just as powerful for us. There are endless interviews with successful artists where they describe how their music gives voice to something inside themselves they could not otherwise express. In the last year or so, I have found a similar power in music, albeit on a far lesser scale. Processing my experiences through songwriting has become a way to honor the feelings I’m having.

Since these experiences are so common, and music is so powerful for so many of us, should it come as any surprise that music therapy is a real, established mode of psychotherapy, with its own scientific journals, professors, and training programs? Let’s take a look at this fascinating subfield of psychotherapy and see what the benefits of music therapy may be.​
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What Is Music Therapy? (A Definition)​

Music therapy is the clinical application of experiences involving music to help people improve their mental health or quality of life (McCaffrey et al., 2011). Music therapists use their knowledge of psychotherapy, music theory, psychoacoustics, and other fields to create healing experiences for their clients. People are often referred to music therapists by other health care providers, but you can begin working directly with a music therapist if you wish.

Music therapy is not generally recommended as the primary treatment for substantial, highly impairing mental health disorders such as anxiety or depression; however, it can have a complementary role in treating such disorders (McCaffrey et al., 2011). Music therapy as a primary treatment is more often utilized for general help with things such as developing or enhancing one’s motor skills, cognitive functioning, or self-regulation.

Benefits of Music Therapy​

When properly delivered by a trained music therapist, music therapy clearly provides some psychological benefits, according to a review of nearly 100 studies (Lin et al., 2011). It is clear from this research that simply listening to music on one’s own will not achieve these effects. Instead, for a client to experience these benefits, it is important for them to have (a) a structured and purposeful experience, and (b) interactions with a therapist.

These are findings that make sense to me as a therapist. While simply listening to music can help me channel and deeply feel my emotions, that’s only the first step. Next, I need to talk to somebody else to describe what I’m feeling and thinking—that’s when I start to process what’s going on and I can grow from the experience. As a musician, I can also attest that it is the creating of my own music, more than the playing of somebody else’s music, that has moved me. And with my therapy clients, I have seen that emotions felt in isolation, without a process for integrating the emotions into a new understanding of oneself, is often not as productive.

While we’re on the subject of the benefits of music, perhaps you are aware of the Mozart effect—the idea that listening to Mozart, especially as a child, would make you smarter. Unfortunately, when scholars review all the studies that purport to show the effects of listening to classical music on intelligence, they find little evidence of true effects. They also show that studies conducted by the same few researchers are the only ones to consistently demonstrate substantial, positive effects (Pietschnig et al., 2010; Oberleiter & Pietschnig, 2023). So while there is evidence that listening to music may have a calming effect on us from a very early age (Standley, 2012), we should not expect listening to classical music to make us smarter.

Music Therapy History

Music therapy as a subfield of psychotherapy was formally established in the 1950s in the United States (Landis-Shack et al., 2017), leading to the establishment of music therapy programs in schools for therapists across the country. In the present day, music therapy is used regularly with children and adults in schools, youth centers, hospitals, and prisons, although most music therapy probably happens in private therapy practices. Music therapists are expected to have received specialized training in music therapy, at the bachelor’s level if not the master’s level, and to be accredited by a statewide agency.

Music Therapy Research

Psychological research into how music therapy works shows clearly that we have emotional responses to listening to music, with most of the significant regions of the brain being affected by listening or playing (Koelsch, 2009). In particular, brain regions that are involved in our emotional processing and in our senses of reward and pleasure seem to be activated by music.
 
Perhaps because music is a powerful sensory stimulus, it seems to engage our attention, memory, and senses in powerful ways (Koelsch, 2009). It is not fully clear from the research conducted thus far how playing or listening to music changes us, but it may have to do with music’s ability to call on many parts of our brain at once and bring them into communication with each other (Altenmüller & Schlaug, 2015).
 
Perhaps it is this combination of effects—bringing up emotions, engaging our senses and our memories, and making us embodied in the moment—that creates a powerful impact when we have certain experiences with music. For example, I can still recall the first time I heard several songs I consider foundational to my teenage years and adult life; hearing them again causes that moment in time to resurface along with all the associated emotions. From there, I can easily see how making music with a person I really trusted—like a music therapist—could be an even more powerful experience.​

Music Therapy Techniques

Music therapists, like other therapists, should provide a general treatment plan to their clients, describing how they will use different music therapy techniques to achieve the client’s goals. This might include activities such as improvising musically, listening to music, singing together or on one’s own, and discussing feelings and thoughts as they come up while engaged with music (Wigram et al., 2002). Clients may also try moving to the music, such as through dancing, in order to access their emotions and deepen their experience.

Each of these techniques may be used differently, depending on a client’s needs. It might make more sense for a client who has little difficulty describing their feelings to create their own song, while a client who has more difficulty finding those words might listen to songs instead and try to find lyrics with which they identify. Another technique is to listen to music to enter a more imaginative state, such as through visualizations of what one is hearing.

Music therapy is also often offered in group settings, where participants then have the opportunity to process their reactions together. This may be particularly helpful for people who have experienced trauma separately or together, such as people with PTSD or members of the military (Vaillancourt, 2012).​

Music Therapy for Mental Health​

It is clear that music therapy can have positive benefits for people’s mental health, whether they have a specific mental health disorder diagnosis or are just seeking to improve their overall psychological well-being (McCaffrey et al., 2011). Reviews of the literature suggest that music therapy may serve as a helpful complement to more traditional therapies and can have powerful short-term benefits, but there is not enough research to say for sure whether it provides long-lasting benefits (McDermott et al., 2013). For example, we know that music therapy may help people recovering from stroke, but the research has not been conducted in scientifically rigorous enough ways for scholars to say with certainty that it is helpful (Bradt et al., 2010).

Music Therapy for Anxiety

While research has not been conducted specifically on whether music therapy is effective in treating anxiety, it seems clear that music therapy does reduce stress levels in its participants (de Witte et al., 2022). This seems to be because listening to music, at least, reduces our overall levels of physiological arousal and is known to lessen unpleasant emotions and feelings, such as worry and nervousness. In fact, it seems to even affect activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that is responsible for assessing for threats in our environments.
 
Here's an interesting example of the principles of music therapy in action: People who are about to undergo surgeries may be affected by the music that is playing when they enter the operating room or when they go under anesthesia. Enough research has been done on this topic that it is recommended that doctors and surgeons take into consideration which songs might be most comforting for patients to hear just before they are sedated (Wakim et al., 2010).​

Music Therapy for PTSD

Since music seems to affect the regulation systems in our bodies, it perhaps should not surprise us that people with PTSD may benefit from music therapy (Landis-Shack et al., 2017). Although as with other mental health disorders the research base is not especially strong, it is likely that through reducing bodily arousal, increasing positive emotions, and aiding in emotion regulation, music therapy may help people with PTSD to experience fewer of the debilitating symptoms associated with their diagnosis. It seems that it may be especially helpful for improving negative mood in people with PTSD (Landis-Shack et al., 2017).

Music Therapy for Depression

People with depression may experience short-term benefits to their mental health from music therapy, even if they are not receiving traditional psychotherapy for depression at the same time (Aalbers et al., 2017). For people who are receiving psychotherapy for depression, receiving music therapy at the same time seems to provide additional benefits for their mental health (Erkkilä et al., 2011).

Music Therapy for Autism

People with autism experience a broad range of social challenges, such as difficulty understanding social interactions and communicating with others, but receiving music therapy may help them overcome some of these challenges (Geretsegger et al., 2014). Whether or not they are receiving other forms of psychological care, children with autism in particular may benefit from music therapy.

Music Therapy for ADHD

Finally, in terms of specific mental health disorders, there is some evidence to suggest that people with ADHD may have an easier time focusing and may become less hyperactive when they are treated therapeutically with music (Dolğun, 2018).

Quotes on Music Therapy

  • “Music opens the window of the soul to let the nectar of life come in.” — Debasish Mridha
  • “When we sing, our neurotransmitters connect in new and different ways, releasing endorphins that make us smarter, healthier, happier and more creative. And when we do this with other people, the effect is amplified.” — Tania de Jong
  • “Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.” — Kahlil Gibran
  • “Research shows that at least some musical education has a positive impact on social and cognitive development of children. And these effects are long lasting—better hearing, better motor skills, improved memory, better verbal and literacy skills.” — Alan Harvey

Articles Related to Music Therapy

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Music Therapy

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Music Therapy​

We are still not entirely sure how and why music therapy is helpful to clients, although the evidence is steadily accumulating (Hillecke et al., 2005). Unlike other forms of psychotherapy, music therapy does not have as much of a rigid, testable format—there are fewer manuals and standardized treatment protocols upon which psychotherapists can base their treatments. While this is an important consideration, I think it should not dissuade you from trying music therapy if the idea appeals to you. If you’d like some more information about what music therapists do day to day, I recommend watching this video from the National Health Service in the United Kingdom:

Video: A Career in Music Therapy

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