Mental health

Mental health covers a large field that includes young people and adults with emotional challenges, diagnosed mental health problems, or those within public health services who have, for example, addictions, personality disorders and other functional mental health disorders.

Breakthrough research in mental health

Where psychoanalysts would normally use talking and thinking, music therapists use music to interact and reflect verbally and musically with clients. This helps clients to:

• express their emotion for better self-awareness, insight and identification of feelings
• develop connection through synchronicity, shared language or non-symbolic linking
• bond, build relationships and experience a sense of community
• have structure and order when feeling agitated, manic or psychotic
• explore free improvisation to help facilitate their growth, confidence and reflection.

Our recent research and publications

• Odell-Miller, Helen (2017) Music therapy in mental health. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 9 (1). pp. 11-24. ISSN 2459-3338
• Ghetti, Claire and Chen, Xi-Jing and Fachner, Jörg C. and Gold, Christian (2017) Music therapy for people with substance use disorders (Protocol). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (3). ISSN 1469-493X
• Gavrielidou, Maria and Odell-Miller, Helen (2016) An Investigation of Pivotal Moments in Music Therapy in Adult Mental Health. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 52. pp. 50-62. ISSN 0197-4556
• Ettenberger, Mark and Rojas Cárdenas, Catherine and Parker, Mike and Odell-Miller, Helen (2016) Family-centred music therapy with preterm infants and their parents in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Colombia – A mixed-methods study. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy. ISSN 0809-8131

If you are interested in collaborating with CIMTR to help advance research and practice in this area, email us at [email protected]