In the West, music therapists work in psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitative facilities, medical hospitals, outpatient clinics, day-care treatment centres, agencies serving developmentally disabled persons, community mental health centres, drug and alcohol programmes, senior centres, nursing homes, hospice programmes, correctional facilities, halfway houses, schools, and private practice.<\/p>\n
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As one can see quite clearly, they are required everywhere. However, they are not conventional healing tools and are, at best, adjuncts. Music helps pamper the right environment and that is good enough.<\/p>\n
What is the history of Music Therapy as a healthcare profession?<\/p>\n
The idea of music as a healing influence that could affect health and behaviour is as old as the writings of Aristotle and Plato. The 20th century discipline began in the West after World War I and World War II when community musicians of all types, both amateur and professional, went to veterans’ hospitals to play for the thousands of veterans suffering both physical and emotional trauma from the wars.<\/p>\n
The patients’ notable physical and emotional responses to music led the doctors and nurses to request the hiring of musicians by the hospitals. It was soon evident that the hospital musicians needed some prior training before entering the facility and so the demand grew for a college curriculum.<\/p>\n
The world’s first music therapy degree programme was founded at Michigan State University, USA, in 1944. Music therapy did not emerge as an organised profession until 1950 with the establishment of the National Association for Music Therapy and, thereafter, the formation of the American Association for Music Therapy in 1971. The two associations merged in 1998 to form the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the West, music therapists work in psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitative facilities, medical hospitals, outpatient clinics, day-care treatment centres, agencies serving developmentally disabled persons, community mental health centres, drug and alcohol programmes, senior centres, nursing homes, hospice programmes, correctional facilities, halfway houses, schools, and private practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-therapy"],"yoast_head":"\n