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What is the History of Music Therapy as a Health Care Profession? |
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The idea of music as a healing influence which could affect health and behaviour is as least as old as the writings of Aristotle and Plato. The 20th century discipline began after World War I and World War II when community musicians of all types, both amateur and professional, went to Veterans hospitals around the country to play for the thousands of veterans suffering both physical and emotional trauma from the wars. The patients' notable physical and emotional responses to music led the doctors and nurses to request the hiring of musicians by the hospitals. It was soon evident that the hospital musicians needed some prior training before entering the facility and so the demand grew for a college curriculum. The first music therapy degree program in the world, founded at Michigan State University in 1944, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1994. The American Music Therapy Association was founded in 1998 as a union of the National Association for Music Therapy and the American Association for Music therapy.
The music therapy must be considered an active treatment by meeting the following criteria:
1. Be prescribed by a physician;
2. Be reasonable and necessary for the treatment of the individual’s illness or injury;
3. Be goal directed and based on a documented treatment plan;
4. The goal of treatment cannot be to merely maintain current level of functioning; the individual must exhibit some level of improvement.
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