The 3 Foundations For Using Music In Therapeutic Settings
A brief introduction to a new 3-month online course for practitioners
This is a short high-level teaser for a new course that I developed and will launch the registration for soon. Live on Zoom, over a 3 month period. When interested to learn more, drop me a message via this contact form or complete this short survey.
Foundations for Therapeutic Music
Over the past years, I’ve spoken with many therapists about their hopes, questions, and challenges when bringing music into therapeutic work.
Therapists often feel that they lack sufficient skill or know-how to use music. Some point to not playing an instrument, while others cite a lack of music theory knowledge, or more broadly, a “not-enough” understanding of music.
The reality is that these notions are unnecessarily heightening the threshold to work with music. They are build upon false or incomplete premises.
Those of you who have joined some of my past workshops may recall me emphasising one central point: A primary competency for working with music therapeutically, is to (re)establish and sustain a relationship with music.
This was a starting point for defining the three foundations introduced in this article, and central to a new course I developed: The importance of developing (1) Therapeutic Musicality, applied with (2) Situational Flexibility, and rooted in (3) Multidisciplinary Integration
Therapeutic Musicality
Therapeutic Musicality is defined by the capacity to perceive, express and adjust musical qualities in service of a therapeutic practice.
Musical qualities are the building blocks of music and define it’s character (e.g. tone-colour, rhythm and melody). They are part of any auditory phenomenon, ranging from voice, nature sounds and machineries.
Therapeutic musicality does not reflect the mastery of a musical instrument, a vocal technique, music composition or production skills. It is also does not include the learning of music theory or intellectual frameworks. Importantly, neither does the development of therapeutic musicality depend on these.
Situational Flexibility
Many therapists fall in in the traps of searching for interventions and guidelines that can be copy-pasted. Some may collect playlists created by others, or follow a set of prescriptions of tracks to use for certain use-cases.
Although models and protocols have a clear value and function, when applied procedurally this can create several problems. One of them being an inherent distance between therapist and patient. A stranger suddenly stands in between, leading to overall reduction in attunement and person-centredness.
What is required is modular methodology, including a creative ownership by the provider over it’s expression. This is the secondary foundation to develop when working with music therapeutically.
Situational Flexibility is the capacity to modify ways of working to the dynamics of the context.
Situational Flexibility does not discard models, but sees them as starting points. It concerns the willingness and the skill to re-invent how models, protocols, guidelines and tools are applied in the reality of the practice.
They are recognised as abstractions and generalisations, that therefore per definition require to be modified to maximise safety, ethics and efficacy of the therapy offered.
Multidisciplinary Integration
Therapists and students of therapies tend to box themselves into one or a small number of modalities and orientations.
While this is an organic outcome of working within limited frameworks and areas of competence, it can narrow one’s effectiveness when responding to phenomena that are, by nature, multifaceted.
Both people and music are inherently complex, layered, and at times ambiguous.
Using music in therapy therefore requires an integrative attitude: an openness to multiple ways of being, listening, interpreting and responding. This is the third foundation for working with music in therapy settings.
Multidisciplinary Integration refers to the ability to hold and unify distinct paths of relating and sense-making simultaneously.
This is not only about recognising value in different disciplines and perspectives, but about seeing how they interweave as different expressions of the same underlying phenomena.
This integration allows the therapist to move more fluidly between perspectives (behavioural, medical, psychodynamic, musical, cultural, neuroscientific, somatic, etc) without collapsing into any single framework. Each lens will enrich and open up rather than limit the therapeutic processes.
A fresh, practice-oriented 3-month online course
The course is designed to help therapists build confidence, skill, knowledge and creativity when working with music.
It will run online on zoom starting January 2026, and offers three levels of participation: ranging from interactive working groups and live lectures to pre-recorded content and 1:1 mentorship.
The teachings will have a strong experiential component, including one month of designing playlists in small groups, frequent listening exercises, and applying the models and frameworks directly into practice.