Music Therapy

Music therapy mobilizes music — produced (active: singing, instrumental playing, improvisation) or listened to (receptive) — as clinical material to release a preverbal expression and establish an intersubjective encounter through sonic dialogue. A discipline with millennia-old roots, it became institutionalized after the Second World War from the observation of hospitalized veterans. It is one of the most versatile non-pharmacological interventions, indicated in mood and anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress and psychotic disorders. Its schools (Nordoff-Robbins, Bonny's GIM, Alvin's free approach) share a common foundation while differing in the patient's active or receptive role.

This therapy is covered in detail (principles, indications, protocol, level of evidence) in Volume 6 of the Mémento des Psychothérapies. See the volume.