Music As Therapy For Adolescents An Autoethnography

5/29/2019 Music as Therapy for Adolescents: An Autoethnography - Google Docs

Senior Capstone ℅ 2019

5-24-2019

Music as Therapy for Adolescents: An Autoethnography

Eduardo Gonzalez
Los Angeles Leadership Academy HS, egonzalez100604@laleadership.org

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zHzHDZgTQ3tG90QlQrw1TidlnXbuTDBLv-3ho4IQmqc/edit 1/14
5/29/2019
Music as Therapy for Adolescents
Music as Therapy for Adolescents: An Autoethnography - Google Docs
Gonzalez 1

Senior Capstone ℅ 2019

Music is a source that can change the way the mind deals with emotions and how an adolescent
perseveres that emotion. Through music therapy, the use of music is beneficial to develop the
mind to cope with different mental illnesses, such as depression, to allow those to express
themselves not only through a person level, but through a social level, and to just change the
overall mental state of a persons feeling and makes them feel a lot better as a person. The
overall question being answered ”How can music be therapeutic and help as a coping
mechanism to adolescents?” Through the work of Erkkila (2011), Miranda (2013), Haner (n.d.),
and various others, you can really see the use of music in the way of helping the mind. How
music and Music Therapy can help in reduce depression, help develop a person's social and
personal identity, and can change the overall mood of an adolescence. Music is a beneficial tool
to help anyone, and we should just use music as a way of letting loose and letting to emotions
flow.

Keywords: depression, social and personal identity, mood, music, music therapy
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge my family being as supportive as they can be, my peers and
teachers, and my loving girlfriend who helped me stay calm myself when stressing over this
paper.

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Music as Therapy: An Autoethnography
Eduardo Gonzalez
Los Angeles Leadership Academy HS, Los Angeles, California, USA
Abstract
Music is a source that can change the way the mind deals with emotions and how an adolescent
perseveres that emotion. Through music therapy, the use of music is beneficial to develop the
mind to cope with different mental illnesses, such as depression, to allow those to express
themselves not only through a person level, but as well as through a social level, and to just
change the overall mental state of a persons feeling and makes them feel a lot better as a
person. The overall question being answered ”How can music be therapeutic and help as a
coping mechanism to adolescents?” Through the work of Erkkila (2011), Miranda (2013),
Haner (n.d.), and various others you can really see the use of music in the way of helping the
mind. How music and Music Therapy can help in reduce depression, help develop a person's
social and personal identity, and can change the overall mood of an adolescence. Music is a
beneficial tool to help anyone, and we should just use music as a way of letting loose and letting
to emotions flow.

The Incident
I'm a very forgetful person, but remembering my incident is very heartbreaking. I
remember, I had just ended an abusive relationship. I was beaten, yelled at, and sexualy abused,
but that is a story for another day. The girl who I will be talking about, will be named Janet.
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This happened in my second semester of my sophomore year in highschool. After ending my
abusive relationship, I was in anguish. I felt as if the world was coming to an end, my world was
just simply falling apart.
It was in January, I remember crying during lunch alone. Then this beautiful girl, who I
did not know was going to be my light in my life, walked up to me. Just her saying in a worried
tone, “Are you ok?”, made me feel as if there was someone there for me, someone who can fill
my broken heart. I had known Janet since she was in middle school, and I remember teaching
her how to play guitar. She did something I never thought anyone would do for me. She gave me
her shoulder for support. I cried. All my pain was going away. From there on, I knew someone
actually cared for me. My world was slowly coming back to me. From that day of depression, I
remember always hanging out with her, talking to her during lunch, and talking to her whenever
we saw each other in the hallways. Everyday I spent with her, I grew to have a stronger and
stronger connection. Through the time I spent with her, I developed my music skills since she
would always tell me “I love the way you play guitar.” I really enjoyed the time that I spent with
her. Her warm hugs, the kisses on my cheek, her head resting on mine. After the semester
ended, she left, without saying goodbye. I miss her. She meant everything to me. She was my
motivation, but life goes on. Between my last abusive relationship, and this one I developed a
tendency to use music as a way of expressing my emotions. I am a rhythm guitarist using
different chords and strumming patterns to express myself. I now create calming music that is
both expressive in the way of my emotion, but also pleasing to the ear.
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Analysis
Introduction
Music is something that we all listen to and enjoy. It is everywhere; on the streets, in
your home, at a store, in a market, everywhere. At a young age, I was very involved in music
learning the trumpet as my first instrument, and given an introduction to musical notation. As I
grew up, understanding music was my passion.
Music Therapy is used to helps people with different shifts with a person's emotions in
the mind. It helps those with depression, the development of social and personal identity, and
changes their mood. I believe music is very therapeutic changing and developing the mind in a
positive way. For example, I use music to express my feelings. This year, I wrote my first ever
song with actual lyrics and I titled it “You.” I wrote this song to express my feelings towards
individuals that I really cared for. In contrast, social and personal identity is crucial in today's
society. You have the ability to express who you are, and demonstrate things you never thought
you can try to express.
Music for me, (especially with my time in high school) has really helped me through
depression. I had moments where I am in complete loss of thought, leading to simply playing
guitar to help me focus through a task at hand. During my incident, playing guitar was my way
to relieve my depression, put my mind at ease, and to focus on something different, to distract
myself. Dr. Hanser (n.d.) a Music Therapist, who graduated from Berklee College of Music,
states in her studies, “The results of the experiment revealed that subjects in the two music
conditions reduced their depression and anxiety, and enhanced their self-esteem and mood”
(Hanser, Para. 11) I believe music can really be beneficial to a person's mind. Not only does
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music help reduce stress, like its has for me, it has also enhanced my self-esteem and my overall
mood.
Music is a beneficial tool to help the development of adolescents while also help guide
the mind. Music works as a tool for concentration, and to achieve a better state of mind. It
reduces the amount of stress, it enhances personal/social identity, and helps with the overall
mood of an adolescent.
Study of Focus
From examining depression, social/personal identity, and mood Music Therapy
positively influences the mental and social development of adolescents. Music as a way of
coping can be very beneficial for the mind. We hear music on a daily basis, and we use music to
express ourselves in the form of art. Music is a very influential part of everyone's life. Music is
very impacting, changing the way we think, and the way music can cognitively impact the
development of the brain. Multiple studies introduce that music can be used as a way of coping.
Various scientist and doctors study the use of music in the brain to observe how it can
help with coping with depression, stress, anxiety, and various other mental problems. Using the
work of scientist and doctors like Nauert (2018), Dr. Hanser (n.d.), and Miranda (2013) music
can be beneficial within the use of music therapy and coping within various situations.
Depression
Music does have a positive influence in the development of adolescent teens. Doctor
Erkkilä (2011) with The British Journal of Psychiatry states ”Depression is a disabling disease
causing problems such as a reduction in quality of life and loss of general functioning” (Erkila,
et all,. para. 1). Depression is a serious disease causing one's thoughts to be obstructed with
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negativity. Depression also causes one to lose motive in their way of living, and causes them to
become inactive and uninterested in activities that must be done. Using music as therapy, you
regain motives and gain control of what activities must be done. Miranda (2013) in her article,
“The role of music in adolescent development: much more than the same old song” uses the
words of Gantz, Gartenberg, Pearson, and Shiller and claims, “Young people also listen to music
to relieve tension and distract themselves from worries. In other words, they use music to cope
with stress” (Miranda p. 13). There is a variety of musical influence in this world, and we
always listen to them. Music is a way to not only pass time, but to help develop our mind to find
a calm state of mind to get over depression. Clark (2018) in her article, “Music Therapy Can
Provide Natural Anxiety Relief and Treat Depression” states,
Music therapy has been found to significantly lower depression and improve
self-esteem in children and teens ages eight to six-teen with behavioral and emotional
problems, according to a new study by researchers at Bournemouth University and
Queen’s University Belfast in the U.K. the study, conducted in partnership with Every
Day Harmony (the brand name for Northern Ireland Music Therapy Trust), also found
that young people thirteen and over who had received music therapy, experienced
improvement in communication and interaction skills, compared to those who received
typical care alone. (Clark, 2018)
Using music as a way to cope, is extremely impactful to an adolescents that suffer with
depression through how influential music sounds. In music there are certain notes and chords
that really makes up the feeling of a song, it changes the overall mood of the notes. A certain
rhythm or a certain array of sounds can trigger the mind and cause one's self to change in mood
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in a drastic way. Michael (2017) in his article “Music and the brain: the neuroscience of music
and musical appreciation” uses the words of Plato and states
The link between music and emotion seems to have been accepted for all time. Plato
considered that music played in different modes would arouse different emotions, and as
a generality most of us would agree on the emotional significance of any particular piece
of music, whether it be happy or sad; for example, major chords are perceived to be
cheerful, minor ones sad. The tempo or movement in time is another component of this,
slower music seeming less joyful than faster rhythms. This reminds us that even the
word motion is a significant part of emotion, and that in the dance we are moving – as
we are moved emotionally by music. (Michal p.29)
The way music is composed can really change the setting in which the music is being played.
Through music therapy, you can see why music is very beneficial to an adolescents mind.
Figure 1. Graph of Different Psychiatric Tests (Erkkila, 2011 p.137)
There is evidence that music therapy has an impact to those who not only have depression, but
anxiety, and other mood disorders. In Figure 1, you can see the benefits of music therapy. In
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chart (a) is the depression rating scale in which you can see that with music therapy, has a
greater impact than just standard care. Erkkila in his article “Individual music therapy for
depression: randomised controlled trial” states,
This trial has shown that music therapy added to standard care helps people with mild,
moderate or severe depressive episodes to improve their levels of depression as well as
anxiety and functioning. The response rate was significantly greater in music therapy,
compared with those who only received standard care. Effects were clinically relevant,
with effect sizes in the medium to-large range (ranging from 0.65 for depression to 0.49
for anxiety) (2011 p. 136)
Music therapy there is truly an impacting way to relieve adolescents from depression. Music is a
way to just relax and calm the mind, distracting, and overall develop it.
Social/Personal Identity
During the development of an adolescent, it is very important for an adolescent to
develop a social/personal identity within society. It is important for adolescents to find out who
they are, and to develop skills for themselves and the outside world. Miranda (2018) using the
words of Lerner and SteinBerg (2009) and Masten and Cicchetti (2010) states,
Adolescence is a period of transition and plasticity from childhood to adulthood, in
which transactions – between a self-determined (and predisposed) individual and his/her
changing (and stable) social environment – are intertwined within and across ecological
systems as they cascade over time. (p. 7)
Using music therapy is used to help an adolescents social/personal identity. Nauert (2018)
states, “Investigators also found that those who received music therapy had improved
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communicative and interactive skills, compared to those who received usual care options alone”
(Nauert para 3). Those within the field of music therapy can really see the influential impact
that is, using music to better a person's social/personal identity.
In continuation, music can be a way that an adolescent can express themself. Dr. Hanser
(n.d.) states,
Actively engaging in music, through singing, improvising, playing instruments and
writing songs, adds another dimension to the music experience. These visceral pursuits
enable individuals to express themselves by exploring their intuitive and creative side.
They involve mind and body as few other stimuli do, and as a result, can be effective in
focusing attention and gaining a sense of mastery. When individuals make music, they
are surrounded in a potentially powerful creative process that is uniquely their own. (n.d.
p.105)
Music can be a way to demonstrate creativity. With this creativity adolescents are able to
express themselves through both a personal level and a social level. Anyone can have a passion
for music, and those who use music can influence not only themselves, but also influence
others!
Mood
Mood can correlate to any state of emotion that you are feeling: happiness, sadness, fear
and so forth. During the development of an adolescent, it is crucial for the mind to be in a state
of balance between sadness and happiness. Miranda (2013) using the words of North (2000),
Saarikallio and Erkkilä (2017) and states, “Adolescents feel that music is a resource that can
fulfil some of their emotional needs, notably for the purpose of emotion regulation” (Miranda
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2018). Using music can regulate an adolescent emotions, and their emotional needs. Listening
to music can change your mood. For example, listening to soft indie music can calm down an
individual or in contrast, listening to heavy rock music can pump you up. Another crucial aspect
of mood is an individual's mood changes. Clark (2018) states,
One of the major reasons music therapy is so effective is that music can shift your focus
away from a stressful or uncomfortable event to something pleasant and soothing. In that
way, it serves as a distraction. But music therapy does more than just that; music can
help to reduce stress and anxiety through multiple pathways. It affects physiological
factors like heart rate and hormone levels, modulates the nervous system, and has
psychological effects, as well” (para. 4).
Furthermore, Nauert (2018) uses research from Queen’s University Belfast and states,
“Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast found children who received music therapy had
significantly improved self-esteem and significantly reduced depression compared with those
who received treatment without music therapy” (para. 2). Music therapy has many significant
impact. When self-esteem is improved and the reduction of depression, the mind of course will
act in a more happier state. Music therapy is used to help with those with different emotional
shifts using music, to help those respond better to their emotional needs (Younge, 2011, 0:52).
The use of music can really change the emotional state in which the brain is in.
Opinion: Music is Crucial to a Person's Living
Music in the development of the mind, is really crucial to an adolescence. I, myself,
really do agree that music can be a way to escape or to cope with a person’s depression, or to
find themself within a person or a social aspect, or to just generally feel better within there state
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of mind. Music is everywhere and we all respond to it, we all listen to some form of music.
After my accident I used music as a way to escape from my reality, and share my knowledge to
those that I have taught, and generally feel better about my life.
Through this research project I am truly able to see the scientific impact that music has
for the mind. Within the field of Music Therapy you can really see the impact music has on
adolescents. How it can reduce depression, and it can socially and personally change a person,
and how it can overall change the mood.
Conclusion
In conclusion, music is beneficial to the mind of just overall anyone, those who suffer
from a mental illness, those who just want to find a past times distraction, those who just want
to stand out and express themself. Music changes the way the mind is feeling; how a simple
change in chords or a note changes the way our mind deals with emotions. Since we all respond
in some way to music it makes sense to those who hear music to use it as a way of coping. To
use music as a way of helping the mind. Not only can music help one's mental state but it can
also help someone elses. Music is very influential and using it in therapy can be very
detrimental to a person's mental health. Music shifts the mind to make itself feel a certain way.
Music is the way our emotions flow. It is a way to relate to one another. Music is a way to
change someone's behavior.
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References
Clark, C. (2018). “Music Therapy Can Provide Natural Anxiety Relief and Treat Depression”.
University Health News. Retrieved from
https://universityhealthnews.com/daily/depression/what-is-music-therapy-find-natural-a
nxiety-relief-fight-depression-reduce-blood-pressure-and-more-with-this-alternative-app
roach/.
Erkkila, J., Punkanen, M., Fachner, J., Ala-Ruona., Pontio, I., Tervaniemi, M., Vanhala, M.,
Gold, C. (2011). “Individual music therapy for depression: randomised controlled trial”.
The British Journal of Psychiatry. Retrieved from
https://www.nationalelfservice.net/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/BJPsych-August-2
011-music-therapy-for-depression.pdf.
Hanser, S. (n.d.). “Music Therapy-Based Mechanisms for Coping with Stress and Pain” Berklee
College of Music. Retrieved from
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2326/f1a675c81791ea93533e7f577f82df415448.pdf.
McFerran, K. (2016). “Contextualising the relationship between music, emotions and the
well-being of young people: A critical interpretive synthesis”. SAGE Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295261470_Contextualising_the_relationship_
between_music_emotions_and_the_well-being_of_young_people_A_critical_interpretiv
e_synthesis.
Michal, T. (2017). “Music and the brain: the neuroscience of music and musical appreciation”.
BJPSYCH INTERNATIONAL. Retrieved from
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320812687_Music_and_the_brain_the_neuros
cience_of_music_and_musical_appreciation.
Miranda, D. (2013). “The role of music in adolescent development: much more than the same
old song”. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 18:1, 5-22, DOI:
10.1080/02673843.2011.650182.
Nauert, R. (2018). “Music Therapy Shown to Ease Depression in Kids, Teens” Psych Central.
Retrieved from
https://psychcentral.com/news/2014/10/24/music-therapy-shown-to-ease-depression-in-i
ds-teens/76529.html.
Younge, E, H. (2011, May 25). “Music Therapy & Emotions for Depression, Stress & Mental
Health Issues.” [Youtube]. PsycheTruth. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1R-r-VBySY


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5/29/2019 Music as Therapy for Adolescents: An Autoethnography - Google Docs

Music as Therapy for Adolescents: An Autoethnography

Music as Therapy: An Autoethnography

Los Angeles Leadership Academy HS, Los Angeles, California, USA

I'm a very forgetful person, but remembering my incident is very heartbreaking. I

just simply falling apart.

tendency to use music as a way of expressing my emotions. I am a rhythm guitarist using

grew up, understanding music was my passion.

you can try to express.

From examining depression, social/personal identity, and mood Music Therapy

Provide Natural Anxiety Relief and Treat Depression” states,

problems, according to a new study by researchers at Bournemouth University and

improvement in communication and interaction skills, compared to those who received

typical care alone. (Clark, 2018)

and musical appreciation” uses the words of Plato and states

we are moved emotionally by music. (Michal p.29)

Figure 1. Graph of Diﬀerent Psychiatric Tests (Erkkila, 2011 p.137)

depression: randomised controlled trial” states,

for anxiety) (2011 p. 136)

During the development of an adolescent, it is very important for an adolescent to

Adolescence is a period of transition and plasticity from childhood to adulthood, in

which transactions – between a self-determined (and predisposed) individual and his/her

systems as they cascade over time. (p. 7)

that is, using music to better a person's social/personal identity.

Actively engaging in music, through singing, improvising, playing instruments and

of mood is an individual's mood changes. Clark (2018) states,

psychological eﬀects, as well” (para. 4).

Opinion: Music is Crucial to a Person's Living

Music in the development of the mind, is really crucial to an adolescence. I, myself,

and how it can overall change the mood.

change someone's behavior.

University Health News. Retrieved from

The British Journal of Psychiatry. Retrieved from

College of Music. Retrieved from

well-being of young people: A critical interpretive synthesis”. SAGE Retrieved from

BJPSYCH INTERNATIONAL. Retrieved from

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