From an Empirical Approach to Scientific Evidence: Reflections on Music Therapy and Psychiatry

Abstract

This contribution on the review of Music Therapy in Psychiatry written by Windle and Carr, covering history, current evidence, and future directions in western culture was carried out considering the Benenzonian model-oriented system of ideas and practice on music and non-verbal therapy. The authors analyzed a great number of evidence-based studies on the effects of music therapy as a psychosocial intervention on people with mental illness in different inpatient settings. Windle and Carr’s contributions to a taxonomy of music therapy interventions are valuable and clarifying. From the methodological point of view, the research findings contribute to scientific professional training in EBMT.

The questions asked, invite the readers to reconsider their own ideas, knowledge, and related practices in the field of mental health to facilitate a new synthesis. Despite the similarities among the artistic expression specialties that allow to the symbolization of predominantly non-verbal intrapsychic processes all over the world, the “art-based practices” differs greatly according to the culture where the therapeutic process is realized, the training and the status of the professional music/art therapist in that context, and the incidence of the patient’s culture when making the diagnosis of mental health problems.