The Clinical Role of Music in Mental Health

One of the foremost roles of music are its consequential effects on the person. It influences mood, triggers chemical release in the body, and can act as a therapeutic method to soothe anxiety, stress, mania, and even mental and psychological disorders. Though not used as a primary cure in lieu of medicinal and medical means of cure and mitigation, early empirical evidence shows that it can temporarily alleviate psychiatric disturbances among patients. One of the early evidences is of State Hospital in Middletown, Connecticut during the 1950s, wherein an orchestra was organized during meal times for patients afflicted with mental disorders, resulting in what the superintendent at the time said: “Under it’s influence, these patients are quiet, self-controlled and observe as complete decorum as could be found in any dining room hotel.”

At the time, the emerging medical notion of music for mental health gained many proponents notably Dr. W. Simon who organized music therapy in a Veterans Administration hospital in 1945, Dr. Leonard Gilman who conducted a three-year long study of the use and effects of specific music to mental patients in Army Medical Center in Washington, as well as Henry Phipps who donated $500,000 for the addition of a musical department in Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of John Hopkins Hospital.

More than 70 years later, Dr. Alexander Pantelyat and Serap Bastepe-Gray co-founded the most prominent institution fusing science and art called Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine in 2015. It treats patients with psychiatric and neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and stroke, and rehabilitates the health of musicians and performers. Moreover, it is involved in rigorous research in collaboration with the Peabody Institute to study neuroplasticity and connections between the body and mind to music. Ten years later, it has become more than just a center for wellness, but also a refuge to musicians and artists seeking treatment that recognizes the distinct elements in their conditions. More so, the center’s primary scientific investigation using musical therapy encompasses more than the musician, further reinforcing the innate symbiosis of science and the arts.

References:

“Music as Medicine.” Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine, www.hopkinsmedicine.org/center-for-music-and-medicine/music-as-medicine#:~:text=Harpist%20Peggy%20Houng%20plays%20for,Alzheimer’s%20disease%2C%20epilepsy%20and%20stroke.

Podolsky, Edward. “Music and Mental Health.” Music Educators Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, 1953, pp. 66–70. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3387922.