Culture & Leisure

Music brings you health

Photos & text by Annie Chan

There are numerous kinds of music, such as Hip-Hop, Jazz, Heavy Metal and so forth. But music therapy is different from listening to music.

Music therapy is an interactive therapeutic process that addresses the psychological, emotional, physical, cognitive and social needs of people through well-planned and creative uses of musical means, like listening to music, singing and playing the musical instruments.

Music therapy was first started in the United States of America by a group of soldiers. They started it because they could not forget the pain of the Second World War. Since then, music therapy has gradually developed to a profession in over 40 countries around the world.

Nowadays, music therapists have to be registered. They have to study music, psychology and the formation of different mental diseases, like autism and depression. And, they must pass an internship before their graduation.

There are around five registered music therapists in Hong Kong . Yau Wang, being one of them, has held a lot of talks to introduce music therapy recently.

She said, “As a music therapist, I have to design music therapy programs to meet therapeutic objectives so as to allow every client to strengthen, improve and develop their own abilities.”

Generally, it takes Miss Yau about a month to assess the needs of a client. She will then set the objectives and plan programs that address the client's needs.

“I feel the assessment part is essential in the whole therapy. It is because if the music therapist can't notice the main needs of their clients, the therapy would probably fail,” Miss Yau said.

After the assessment, she chooses the music that suits the client. She said that the selection is totally depends on the client's needs. “But I mainly use classical music throughout the therapy,” Miss Yau added.

Most of her clients are children. They suffer from various kinds of mental diseases, like autism, speech delay and ret syndrome.

She said, “Music is vital in children's growth. It can enhance their concentration on work. Music is also easily approachable by children because most of them like singing and dancing in groups.

“They are generally more willing to communicate with others under this atmosphere. It does help develop their social skills.”

Besides children, Miss Yau said that adults with emotional problems could also seek help from music therapists.

“There are mainly two kinds of services offered to adults. One is to build up self-esteem and confidence in depressed adults. Another is just for relaxation, as many adults face a great deal of pressure in daily life,” she said.

Miss Yau said that the greatest difficulty in working as a music therapist in Hong Kong is that the lifestyle of Hong Kong people is too fast.

“Normally, it takes at least half a year to see the effect of music therapy. But Hong Kong people are impatient. If they cannot feel any change in the first month, they will leave and never return again,” said she. “An autistic child may need half a year to adapt to the new environment. Only when he is more familiar with the surroundings, would he then be more willing to correspond. So there is no short cut in building a close relationship with clients.”

Another difficulty that music therapists must face is that Hongkongers may think it is simply the same as singing class in kindergarten.

“Music therapists use music as a medium, but that does not make us unprofessional. We have to draw our clients' attention and help them to settle their emotions through different activities.

“The normal music class is only for educational purposes. But we are well-trained and therefore know exactly how to handle these patients. Music therapy, therefore, has a healing purpose,” Miss Yau said.

She explained further, “Music therapy must involve assessment and suitable program design. It must be arranged from a professional music therapist. People often choose music on their own for relaxation. It is definitely not music therapy,” she said.

Music therapist uses different kinds of musical instruments throughout the therapy.