Music Therapy
What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music:
our mind and body, the nature in which we live,
the nature which has made us,
all that is beneath and around us,
it is all music.
-Hazrat Inayat Khan-
Music Therapy is a profession that is one of many contemporary understandings of music's role within healing, growth, and community. It is through therapeutic relationship, music-making and sharing, and the energy and process created together that healing, exploration, and change can occur. Music therapy takes place between a participant and a trained music therapist, with goals established together to help guide the process.
Music has been a part of connection, healing, and expression for millennia and continues to be a significant part of life, community, ritual, expression, and healing for cultures and peoples the world over. The significance of music’s place within life and the healing process has changed significantly within many colonized and western cultures. But the knowledge of ancestors of old – from every lineage and land – holds true: Music expresses, co-creates, and informs us of who we are as beings, communities, and ecosystems.
Photo by Clark Young