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Video Q&A
Is Music Therapy Just for Musicians?
No! Music therapy is for anyone who could benefit from music interventions. Every person on this planet has music in them: heart beats, movements, breath - all of those are rhythm. We also pick up on music structures that convey feelings or provide closure. Music therapists use the relationship that our clients have with music to elicit certain responses and ultimately work toward achieving their goals. Just like how speech therapy is not specifically for language majors and public speakers, it's for those who could benefit from speech interventions - same thing: music therapy isn’t specifically for musicians, but it's for anyone who could benefit from music interventions.
Where and with whom do music therapists work?
Music therapists work all over the place. We work with infants in the NICU, children with special needs in schools, teenagers and adults with mental health and recovery needs in rehab facilities, older adults in memory care units, hospice patients in their homes - that's just to name a few. And here at Tidewater Music Therapy, we have our own office where we see individual clients, and we can cater our room set-up to their needs. We also travel to individual homes and resident facilities to work with clients who aren’t able to travel to us. To quote a local music therapist, "Wherever you might be able to find a nurse, you can find a music therapist.”
What Goals do music therapists help clients achieve?
One of the great things about music therapy is that each client’s goals are crafted specifically for their needs, abilities, and hopes for achievement. For someone who’s working on speech, a goal might be “to increase vocal production of consonant sounds” and then the objectives might go into detail about specific consonants. For someone who’s struggling with social withdrawal, a goal might be “to increase spontaneous communication” and then the objectives might mention sentence length and subject matter. For someone in hospice, usually the goals are focused on quality of life rather than improving a skill. For each client, we write goals and objectives into a treatment plan and we document each session based on their work toward each bullet point.
What's the Difference Between Live Music and Music Therapy?
Live music is usually just for entertainment purposes and doesn’t take into account the listener’s reactions. Music therapy is clinical and evidence based, and it’s entirely focused on the client’s interaction with the music within the therapeutic relationship. For example, if a live musician is playing guitar and singing, and a child covers her ears, the musician will most likely just keep playing. If a music therapist is playing guitar and singing with a client who covers her ears, the music therapist responds by decreasing the intensity of the guitar strum and singing in a quieter voice. Musicians are trained to perform. Music therapists are trained musicians, AND we are also trained to pick up on all sorts of client reactions and responses to music interventions so that we can adapt and do what is best for the client’s success. With musicians, the focus is on the music. With music therapists, the focus is on the client.
Why Doesn't Insurance Cover Music Therapy Services in Virginia?
A lot of this has to do with licensure, which Virginia music therapists are still waiting for. Licensure means that a provider has been screened for safe practice in the state. Currently the Virginia government has approved music therapy licensure, but the committee in charge of paperwork hasn’t yet finished their process. A big reason why insurance doesn’t cover music therapy services is that we don’t have licensure yet. In their eyes, music therapists aren’t legitimate providers until we have license numbers. But we haven’t given up hope! When we officially have licensure, we will be fighting for the ability to bill insurance so that our clients don’t have to pay out of pocket for our services any more.