Therapists harness the power of music to heal

Therapists harness the power of music to heal

2022-10-16

"Music soothes the soul." The old saying rings true to many of us, but did you know that there is real scientific evidence backing that claim? Music therapy is a relatively new form of therapy that can help patients overcome a variety of psychological and physical conditions. This form of therapy isn’t easily found in Taiwan, with only about 50 licensed therapists at a handful of hospitals. But these therapists make a real impact on patients who are hard to help in other ways. Here’s this week’s Sunday special report.

He claps along to the beat, playing a game with his teacher. This is 6-year-old Yuan-yuan, who’s thrilled to be listening to music in class. It’s hard to imagine that when Yuan-yuan first arrived in this classroom just over a year ago, he had no social skills and dared not even look at his teacher.

Chiu Wen-chi 
Music therapist
Why do I say he was not interacting with me? When he first came here, he was about 5 years old. Often, he’d be unable to look at me in the eyes. That means one thing. That he didn’t know how to react. He didn’t know how to respond to the situation. In our assessments back then, one salient point was that he made very little eye contact, and he had very little interest in interacting with others. Simply put, he was just in a world of his own, living in his own world.
 
Yuan-yuan has autism, and at times seems as if he were disconnected from the world. From a young age, he’s struggled to interact with others. He has trouble expressing himself and uses very few facial expressions. According to his father, he can be stubborn and frequently throws tantrums.

Chang Hsueh-feng
Yuan-yuan’s father
He acts up at the drop of a hat. Once he gets angry, he lies on the floor and refuses to walk. It doesn’t matter where we are. He even does it outside. He doesn’t care if there is water on the ground, or if there are people around, or security cameras. He doesn’t care. He’s angry and that’s that.
 
Yuan-yuan’s father sought early intervention therapy for his son, but the results were disappointing. But then, he found music therapist Chiu Wen-chi .
 
Chang Hsueh-feng
Yuan-yuan’s father
At the time, I was very frustrated. First, the therapy wasn’t helping. Secondly, it was a waste of time. Thirdly, I was spending so much time trying to find help for him, with little to show for it. To be honest, his temper wasn’t very good at the time. It was only in the last two or three years that he’s improved by leaps and bounds, with help with his social welfare organization and his music therapist.

Chiu Wen-chi
Music therapist
That level of human interaction is a bit too advanced for him. But for now we’re just asking him to interact with objects, for instance, by knocking one stick against another. He probably feels that he’s just playing with sticks, and not necessarily that he’s playing with a big sister. But even so, this is a great first step.

Chiu Wen-chi 
Music therapist
I create a structure in the music. For example, if we’re playing with a toy train, I will make a sound. When the train stops, I go quiet. Things like that. I pair his experience of playing with a sound. I create a pattern. Then, I change the pattern to induce him to interact with me. We’ve also begun to play with our voices. For example, when I sing, I might imitate the sounds he makes and compose a song out of it. I turn it into a song. For him, music is very important, because it provides him with structure. He doesn’t need to make a huge effort to focus on the teacher to access the information. There is no need. He can access it simply through his sense of hearing.

Music has helped humans to express themselves for millennia. But it wasn’t until after World War II, in the 1950s, that attention turned to music as a therapy, for soldiers suffering the trauma of war.

Wu Chia-hui
Fu-jen Catholic University Music Department
It is generally agreed that it started around World War II. The war led to many casualties, and many soldiers were injured. It left a lot of people with mental trauma. Over in the U.S. and in the U.K., there were musicians who wanted to help soldiers recover from their physical and mental wounds. They discovered that music could actually be helpful. The idea developed in the U.K. and the U.S., and after six or seven years, it started spreading to the rest of the world.

Scientists in the U.S. began studying how music could change human cognition and behavior. But it was only in 1980 that Taiwanese students started bringing the concepts they had studied overseas back to Taiwan. It was around that time that Chiu Wen-chi decided to become a music therapist. At the time, she was in a special music program at her high school, and she heard an alumnus share her overseas experiences with music therapy. Chiu was moved, and decided on music therapy as a career. Back in the day, no Taiwan university offered a major in music therapy, so she had no option but to study abroad. Chiu ended up going to the U.S. to obtain a master’s degree and pursue her dreams.

Chiu Wen-chi 
Music therapist
As they say, “Patients aren’t a disease. They are people.” Even if you’ve studied abnormal psychology, you only understand the disease, and not the person in front of you. So when I interact with patients, I really try to keep that in mind. I try to understand people by interacting with them. I’m not just trying to understand their condition.

Today, only Taiwan Tunghai University and Fu-Jen Catholic University offer courses in music therapy. Graduates with a bachelor’s degree must undergo 1,000 hours as interns in order to be granted a music therapy license. This license is issued by the Music Therapy Association of Taiwan, and is not considered a professional license by the government.

Wu Chia-hui
Fu-jen Catholic University Music Department
Of course, the best thing would be for there to be legislation on musical therapists. To have licenses that are recognized by the government. That’s how it is in many countries. For people seeking musical therapy, for the greater public, such a license is a form of assurance. That way they can know what to look for in a music therapist, see whether they are qualified.

This music student playing the guitar is Yeh Ting-yun. Mondays to Fridays, you’ll usually find her in a white robe, as she’s an oral surgeon.

Yeh Ting-yun
FJU Music Department master’s student
Extracting wisdom teeth is one of the most common procedures I perform as an oral surgeon. When I perform these operations, I can clearly feel when patients are anxious and nervous. And I also noticed that when their anxiety levels are higher, their tolerance for discomfort drops significantly. So now, if I’m going to pull out a wisdom tooth, I might ask the patient if there’s any music they’d like to listen to.

Yeh applies what she learns in class to her workplace. She says music therapy has the potential to help in many medical situations.

Yeh Ting-yun
FJU Music Department master’s student
Music therapy is being used in rehabilitation programs for stroke patients. There is a lot of data and evidence that says it can be useful in post-stroke rehabilitation. It has a very pronounced effect on patients. For instance, there was a case of a congresswoman in the U.S. who suffered a stroke and was later unable to speak. She was a politician, so she used to be able to speak very eloquently before the stroke. But afterward, she couldn’t speak at all. Thanks to music therapy, she was able to speak again.

Because music therapy is unregulated by the central government, anyone can claim to be a music therapist. People who need therapy may be afraid to seek it out, for fear of paying money for a scam. This fear has fueled doubts and concerns about the entire therapeutic field.

Wu Chia-hui
Fu-jen Catholic University Music Department
Physiological feedback can be measured via changes in physiological indicators. You can also use functional magnetic resonance imaging to see the changes in the brain. Or you can also use assessment scales to measure changes to patient’s psychological dimensions. You can observe the patient’s behavior. You can compare objective behavioral patterns to see changes in the person. All these are quantifiable indicators.

What’s the science behind music therapy? Does it have a measureable, positive effect? The answer is yes, according to one neurosurgeon.
 
Chan Lung
Shuang Ho Hospital
When we listen to music, the frequencies from the music enter our brain, and that affects the shape of our brainwaves. For example, when we are nervous or anxious, our brain waves are faster. When you hear a lullaby, or mellow tones, and your brain receives that, your brainwaves actually slow down and you feel less agitated. It’s all about nerve conduction and nerve connections. So actually, it’s just like what they said in ancient times: “Music can cultivate your temperament.” It really can help.

Currently, only about 4% of the hospitals in Taiwan offer musical therapy. When it is on offer, it’s usually in the areas of early intervention therapy, adult psychiatry, geriatrics and hospice care.

With help from professional music therapy, Yuan-yuan is now able to make eye contact. He’s even making attempts to speak.
 
Chang Hsueh-feng
Yuan-yuan’s father
Ever since the music therapist started working with my son, he’s become livelier. At other organizations, therapy classes have a set process. But for me, and my personality — I don’t like education styles that are very rigid. I feel very constricted by that. When I first saw the music therapist on a video platform, I thought it was very special. It so happened that she was treating a child with a condition similar to Yuan-yuan’s. It was almost the same.

Music therapy is still in its early stages in Taiwan, and there are people who have reservations about its potential. But if you’re wondering whether music can help, one look at the smile on Yuan-yuan’s face, and you’ll know the answer.