Music and Mental Illness
By Ally Kongshaug 7th hour
5 Sources
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/nov/23/agnes-jacket-jocelyn-pook-hearing-voices
3. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/183/3/193.full
4. http://www.room217.ca/newsletter/index.php?article=219
5. http://weill.cornell.edu/music/
6. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/nov/23/agnes-jacket-jocelyn-pook-hearing-voices
Media Influences on Music and Mental Illness
2. Agnes's Jacket: A Psychologist's Search for the Meanings of Madness, by Gail Hornstein, was written when she discovered a patient at a mental hospital that had made a coat with hospital uniforms and embroidered with largely indecipherable words and phrases.(2)
3. Hearing Voices, by jocelyn Pook, is a song that was inspired by Agnes's jacket. (2)
Interpersonal Communications of Music and Mental Illness
Down Syndrome Child Playing a Drum
This a picture from a video clip on youtube.com of a young girl and her therapist doing a session of music therapy.
Music Therapy Symbol
This is a symbol for a music therapist's business. She teaches young children with mental illnesses how to play simple instruments.
Music Therapist and Mentally Ill Man
This is picture of a student music therapist at a nursing home in New York City. She is singing to a man with alzheimer's.
Positive and Negative Effects of Music and Mental Illness
~ Music is a medicine for the mentally ill. (source 4)
~ They are generally more accepted throughout society because they are very creative. (source 6)
~ Music is most helpful for teens and children dealing with a mental illness. (source 8)
~ Music is calming, relaxing, and intellectually stimulating. (source 8)
Negative Effects:
~ It can reveal a dark side in the person that is composing the piece of music. (source 4)
~ Composers have major perfection issues when writing their music. (source 5)
~ It's hard for them to accept us because we are not as creative as them. (source 6)
~ Music will sometimes affect the emotions of a composer, causing their music to jump around and have various tempos and rhythms. (source 8)
Advances for Music and the Mentally Ill
Another advancement is that researchers have discovered that it can be a psychological stimulus in a hospital environment. For example, when you walk into nursing homes that are like hospitals you tend to hear music playing in the individual's room or sometimes in the hallway. They play music to try to get the elderly to participate in certain activities throughout the day.