Music therapy

Music therapy is an interpersonal process in which a trained therapist uses music and all of its facets—physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual—to help clients to improve or maintain their health. In some instances, the client's needs are addressed directly through music; in others they are addressed through the relationships that develop between the client and therapist. Music therapy is used with individuals of all ages and with a variety of conditions, including: psychiatric disorders, medical problems, physical disabilities, sensory impairments, developmental disabilities, substance abuse issues, communication disorders, interpersonal problems, and aging. It is also used to improve learning, build self-esteem, reduce stress, support physical exercise, and facilitate a host of other health-related activities. Music therapists may encourage clients to sing, play instruments, create songs, or do other musical activities.

One of the earliest mentions of music therapy was in Al-Farabi's (c. 872–950) treatise Meanings of the Intellect, which described the therapeutic effects of music on the soul.verification needed Music has long been used to help people deal with their emotions. In the 17th century, the scholar Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy argued that music and dance were critical in treating mental illness, especially melancholia. He noted that music has an "excellent power ...to expel many other diseases" and he called it "a sovereign remedy against despair and melancholy." He pointed out that in Antiquity, Canus, a Rhodian fiddler, used music to "make a melancholy man merry, ...a lover more enamoured, a religious man more devout." In the Ottoman Empire, mental illnesses were treated with music. In November 2006, Dr. Michael J. Crawford and his colleagues also found that music therapy helped schizophrenic patients.

Albert Einstein had a lifelong love of music (particularly the works of Bach and Mozart), once stating that life without playing music would be inconceivable to him. In some interviews Einstein even attributed much of his scientific intuition to music, with his son Hans recounting that "whenever he felt that he had come to the end of the road or into a difficult situation in his work, he would take refuge in music, and that would usually resolve all his difficulties." Something in the music, according to Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein in Psychology Today, "would guide his thoughts in new and creative directions." It has been said that Einstein considered Mozart's music to reveal a universal harmony that Einstein believed existed in the universe, "as if the great Wolfgang Amadeus did not 'create' his beautifully clear music at all, but simply discovered it already made. This perspective parallels, remarkably, Einstein’s views on the ultimate simplicity of nature and its explanation and statement via essentially simple mathematical expressions." A review suggests that music may be effective for improving subjective sleep quality in adults with insomnia symptoms. Music is also being used in clinical rehabilitation of cognitive and motor disorders.