Music therapy can benefit you or your loved one’s recovery journey in numerous ways. Used in conjunction with traditional approaches like individual therapy, group work, and medically monitored detox, holistic offerings like music help affirm the essential body-mind connection in healing. If you’re looking for addiction therapies in the Phoenix area, contact Calvary Healing Center today. Staff are available at 888.492.5113 or online and are eager to answer your questions about the center’s array of effective addiction therapies.
What Happens in Music Therapy?
Naturally, every music therapist will approach the work somewhat differently. Nonetheless, several core techniques regularly show up in this impactful holistic approach:
- Analysis – With their therapist’s guidance, a patient listens to a song and then talks about its meaning. Both lyrics and other musical elements, such as rhythm and melody, are fair game. Analysis serves patients by giving them content other than their own lives with which to engage. This, in turn, can actually prove a highly effective way to indirectly process more personal experiences.
- Active music listening – Therapists may use specifically chosen musical tracks to effect changes in their patients’ moods. For example, playing music that stimulates delta brain waves may help patients struggling with anxiety or insomnia.
- Improvisation – Useful in both individual and group settings, improvisation gives patients a direct form of self-expression. Using sound, tough concepts like escalation and de-escalation can be more accessible and feel easier to approach. In group settings, improvisation also encourages cooperative social interactions and mutual support.
- Songwriting – Another powerful tool for self-expression, songwriting can help patients address their feelings in a creative and validating way. Like all forms of artistic creation, the work is not only helpful for processing but can increase self-esteem.
- Working with instruments – While less common, music therapy might include training on a specific instrument. For many patients, simply engaging with existing music, improv, or songwriting is the best strategy for self-expression and therapy. Nonetheless, for others, developing more concrete skills with an instrument provides a healthy outlet for energy and a valuable distraction from cravings.
Holistic therapies, such as music therapy, have been shown to be beneficial to the recovery process.
What Are the Benefits of Music Therapy for Addiction?
Music therapy can positively impact patients’ physiology, personal power, and social behavior. Firstly, in terms of physical effects, music can reduce the body’s production of the stress hormone cortisol and trigger higher production of feel-good chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. These changes are especially important for people in recovery because they directly combat withdrawal symptoms. Early recovery often temporarily upends brain chemistry as the body works hard to set a new baseline for feeling good, or even just functional, without addictive substances.
Music’s impact on personal power comes from the positive feedback loop it creates. The more they engage with everything from lyric analysis to full-out participation in music-making, the greater the patient’s benefits. Music can help distract from cravings, promote self-regulation, and improve attention and memory, to name just a few individual benefits. Emotionally, it’s also well-known to elevate mood and provide a healthy avenue for coping with regret, guilt, shame, and other challenging feelings common during recovery.
Finally, on a social level, music therapy can promote cooperation and community. When patients experience this form of treatment within a group setting, they can directly engage with their peers in recovery to create something larger than any one individual’s contribution. Even if patients engage with music therapy in the company of their therapist alone, the social impact can be great. After listening to and discussing another person’s composition during a session, for instance, patients often feel less isolated. They may discover that difficult themes and emotions they’re working through are, in truth, relevant to others the world over.
Learn More About Music Therapy at Calvary Healing Center
If you or your loved one is living with addiction and is ready to begin the healing journey, contact Calvary Healing Center today. Call 888.492.5113 or fill out the secure online form to learn more about music therapy and other holistic therapy options.