Leveraging Our Innate Wiring for Music as an Agent of Healing
- Speaker:
- Adriana Barton
- Duration:
- 59 Minutes
- Format:
- Audio and Video
- Copyright:
-
May 20, 2023
- Product Code:
- POS059413
- Media Type:
- Digital Seminar
Description
Attunement to music is so widely shared that the inability to enjoy music of any kind is recognized as a neurological condition (amusia). This workshop will explore the features of music and rhythm that stimulate social and biological processes involved in psychological healing. Musical rhythms, brainwave entrainment and neurochemicals will be discussed in relation to music’s evolutionary role as a “social glue,” demonstrated to increase feelings of trust and interpersonal connection. Participants will learn about how music can double as a cognitive “flexibility primer” and as a portal into experiences of transcendence and awe.
Credit
Speaker
Adriana Barton Related seminars and products
Adriana Barton is a journalist specializing in health research and the author of Wired for Music: A Search for Health and Joy Through the Science of Sound (Greystone Books, 2022). A former health reporter at Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, she has written about medical research, neuroscience, visual arts, architecture, music and pop culture for publications including the Boston Globe, Reader’s Digest, Utne, Azure, Western Living and San Francisco Bay Guardian. She studied the cello for 17 years with teachers including international solo artist Antonio Lysy and former Cleveland Orchestra principal cellist Stephen Geber. Research projects have taken her to Syria, Jordan, India, Cuba, Zimbabwe and Brazil. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Adriana Barton receives royalties as a published author. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Adriana Barton has no relevant non-financial relationships.
Additional Info
Access for Self-Study (Non-Interactive)Access never expires for this product.
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Objectives
- Employ tailored musical strategies to clients needing temporary relief from symptoms of acute anxiety and depression.
- Integrate facilitated musical activities (e.g. group drumming or singing) into treatment plans for clients experiencing social isolation.
- Evaluate the potential benefits of guided music listening (especially rhythmic music) as a catalyst for embodied experiences and transcendent states that may offer clients an alternative to chronic distress.
Outline
Live music demonstration:
- Participants will learn – through samples of live music – how different tempos and musical characteristics stimulate specific arousal and affective states in addition to brain chemicals (e.g. dopamine), in ways that can be leveraged in therapeutic settings.
- This discussion of musical characteristics will refer to the “iso principle” – a music therapy technique in which the practitioner uses music to match the mood or heart rate of the client (“meeting clients where they’re at”) before gradually adjusting the tempo and other musical features to bring the client to the desired mood and/or physiological state.
- While the “iso principle” has been widely studied, individual responses to this approach may vary. Limitations include small sample sizes used in controlled experiments (including this 2021 study) and the potential to trigger distressing memories if practitioners unwittingly play music that has strong negative or traumatic associations for clients. (Prior conversations with the client about musical associations and/or using generative or improvised music as alternatives can reduce the risk of negative outcomes.)
Facilitated rhythmic activity:
- Through a group rhythmic exercise, participants will gain understanding of simple techniques that encourage coordinated motor movements (“interpersonal rhythms”) and brainwave entrainment, known to improve mental states and foster feelings of social connection among strangers in nonverbal ways.
- In therapeutic contexts, group drumming is emerging as a rhythmic intervention for mental health clients and youth who have experienced trauma, including African refugees.
- Limitations of rhythmic exercises in people experiencing trauma may include negative self-concept among clients (e.g. “I can’t do this – I have no rhythm”) as well as the need to consider culturally appropriate exercises (not all clients will relate to African djembe drumming, for example).
Discussion of music in relation to psychedelic therapies and transcendent states:
- Participants will learn about the role of music in amplifying the effects of hallucinogens such as psilocybin, and how music serves as a “hidden therapist” in emerging psychedelic therapies.
- Participants will gain an understanding of how listening to rhythmic music (without hallucinogens) can stimulate non-ordinary states of states of consciousness (trance). Music may serve as a “flexibility primer,” offering new possibilities to clients imprisoned in feedback loops of emotional and physiological suffering.
- Participants will learn about the emerging understanding of music as a portal to experiences of wonder, transcendence and awe – and growing research linking these states to increased well-being and psychological healing.
- Limitations: musical interventions for achieving transcendent states (with or without psychedelics) remain in the experimental phase in therapeutic settings. Similarly, music as a cognitive “flexibility primer” remains a hypothetical framework for psychological healing.
Further notes:
- Music listening activates the brain’s pleasure and reward pathways, stimulating neurochemicals that offer downstream benefits in the treatment of acute anxiety, clinical depression, stress and physical pain.
- The unifying effect of rhythm and song in large groups of individuals, regardless of familiarity, makes music a potential modality for addressing the “frozen separation from others” identified by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk as a signature feature in trauma.
- Similar to psychedelic agents such as psilocybin, rhythmic music can induce transcendent and non-ordinary states of consciousness, offering hypothetical benefits to clients who experience themselves as imprisoned in feedback loops of emotional and psychological suffering.
At the end of this talk, participants will be able to show they can:
- Employ tailored musical strategies to clients needing temporary relief from symptoms of acute anxiety and depression.
- Integrate facilitated musical activities (e.g. group drumming or singing) into treatment plans for clients experiencing social isolation.
- Evaluate the potential benefits of guided music listening (especially rhythmic music) as a catalyst for embodied experiences and transcendent states that may offer clients an alternative to chronic distress.
Target Audience
- Art Therapists
- Counselors
- Marriage & Family Therapists
- Nurses
- Physicians
- Psychologists
- Social Workers
Reviews
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