How Often Will You Have Music Therapy in Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centers?

Music therapy is a relatively new form of therapy used in today’s drug and alcohol treatment centers. It’s not considered conventional, but it has helped to soothe many recovering alcoholics and addicts during their time in treatment. The majority of today’s treatment centers may take advantage of modern music therapy techniques to enhance the quality of recovery and relaxation you have during your stay in rehab. How often you will have music therapy in a modern treatment center depends on the kind of treatment center you’re entering.

Today’s medical detox rarely use music therapy during a short-term stay. Most patients will be dealing with physical effects of withdrawal such as sweating, nausea, vomiting, tremors, and other unpleasant physical side effects. For this type of short-term, medical rehab, you’d be less likely to see music therapy incorporated. However, other types of treatment centers now commonly use music therapy when patients are open to the idea.

Types of Rehab

Drug and alcohol rehabs range from short-term, moderate-term, long-term. Short-term rehabs sometimes have light music therapy programs that use music once in awhile to calm patients. Music itself can be very soothing in times of stress. Casual use of music to calm patients is probably the most common type of music therapy, but it doesn’t delve very deep into the advantages of more advanced methods of deploying music in drug and alcohol programs.

More involved approaches to music therapy have evolved over the years and include two primary types: receptive and active. In receptive music therapy, patients will passively listen to music and then be asked to engage in some type of interpretation or simple activity. Active music therapy allows patients to actually make their own music in a way that helps them express the feelings they have inside.

Music Therapy in Substance Abuse Treatment

Receptive music therapy is the most common approach in inpatient rehabs. People are able to listen to pieces of music, absorb the music, and then even discuss it with their peers. They may be asked to share their own thoughts on music and discuss how it makes them feel. A simple exercise might be selecting a song that positively affected them most during their life and then playing it for the group to share in that experience. The group might then experience the song from their peer and then share their own songs or feelings about that song through writing or talking together for a half hour. Music therapists are able to take the power of music and use it to make recovery more pleasant.

Not all music therapy sessions will be simple discussion. Some therapists may incorporate art therapy into the music therapy as well, asking group members to draw their feelings from certain pieces of music. This is just one example of a potential exercise, and therapists now are able to use music creatively in different therapy exercises. Individual music therapy sessions can be as productive as group sessions. Some therapists will have patients listen to music or even make their own music in an effort to bring new revelations to light during therapy or to simply use music as a way to tap into emotions. A skilled music therapists knows how to bring out the best of music to progress substance abuse therapy further.

Finding the Right Tune

Drug and alcohol treatment centers have devised a broader array of different therapies over the years in order to help patients combat the discomfort of early withdrawal and longstanding recovery challenges that they face. Music has always been beautiful to the human race. When the right composition is selected, a human being feels their emotions shift to more pleasant places.

Music has a powerful effect on human emotions. The ability to listen to a song and be transformed for an instant is a nearly universal human experience. The song can change the person for a short time. Expert music therapists know how powerful music is,and so they will carefully select the type of music that is played during rehab. For example, you wouldn’t want to select songs that might be a trigger to someone. Since a large number of addicts and alcoholics probably listened to music during their using days, you would want to select music that doesn’t prompt a recall of those experiences. When used properly, music therapy can soothe, calm, and positively transform people in recovery. To learn more about programs that offer music therapy, call us at 844-639-8371.

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