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Modern people face pressure from all sides: fast-paced lives, busy work, mental tension and fatigue... “Depression” and ‘anxiety’ have become the most common emotional problems that plague the public, and they are characterized by their mutuality. Facing these mental pressures, spiritual healing and relaxation have become the desire of more and more people. Music has won people's favor with its artistry and agility, and has become an important outlet for releasing emotions.
2024/11/08
We can all feel that music has a certain healing effect, especially when there is the impact of major life events, people often choose to relieve their emotions through music. But when music is played, what are we listening to? What changes do we experience? Why can music be used in mental health work? How does it work?
Do you ever feel the urge to cry when you hear certain music? Does music sometimes bring back memories that you'd forgotten? Why does music seem to have the power to soothe the soul? Even a crying baby can quickly calm down to it.
Music** can provide us with a very rich sensory stimulation**.
For example, when you are at a performance, you can hear the sounds on the stage, which is an auditory stimulus. At the same time, if you are near the speakers, you can also feel the vibration of the sound waves, which is a tactile stimulus. You may even dance to the music, which is an experience of kinesthetic stimulation.
A rich sensory stimulation can keep people's attention for a long time. In general, rich and moderate stimulation is conducive to our mental health.
Music is a social form of non-verbal communication.
Whether it is singing in a choir, playing an instrument in an ensemble, dancing or acting, music is a process of communicating emotions and information, which inevitably involves interpersonal communication and interaction.
Many children with special needs, or adults who have been isolated in hospitals for a long time, can slowly relearn how to communicate with others, improve their language skills, and control their own behavior through music activities.
Photo/pexels
We must first clarify the concept that listening to music is not the same as music consultation.
Music consultation is a systematic intervention process. Consultants must strictly follow the plan to complete the three stages of assessment, intervention, and evaluation.
The counselor needs to establish a counseling relationship with the client using music-related activities, such as listening, singing, instrumental performance, music composition, lyric composition, improvisation, etc. These activities will lead to changes in the client, including physical, behavioral, emotional, linguistic, psychological, and other aspects.
The level of intervention in music counseling for the client can generally be divided into three levels.
In this level, the goal of the consultation is generally achieved through various musical activities, rather than through introspection or psychological analysis. It focuses on “here and now” experiences and observable behaviors.
The goal of activities at this level is to enhance normal psychological defense mechanisms and promote the ability to control behavior correctly. Many group music consultations work at this level.
Level 2: re-education, introspective and process-oriented music counseling
can also be referred to as cognitive level intervention. At this level, music activities are accompanied by verbal communication between the counselor and the client, and verbal communication becomes an increasingly important component.
In this process, the musical activities are primarily geared towards emotions and ideas, and the emphasis is on exposing personal thoughts, feelings and interpersonal response problems. The focus is on the experience of the “here and now” and the interpersonal response process between the counselor and the client. The aim of the counseling is to establish and promote appropriate behavior patterns.
**Level 3: Reconstruction, analysis and catharsis-oriented music counseling **
This level can also be referred to as subconscious exploration. Music and subconscious activities have a significant common feature, namely non-verbal nature.
At this level, the patient's subconscious content is used to rebuild new psychological defense mechanisms, deepen self-understanding, promote self-control over impulses, and more mature instinctive motives and internal drives, thereby achieving the goal of rebuilding the personality.
Intervening with the client at the above three levels can achieve different counseling effects, which is the intervention mechanism of music counseling.