Music Therapy Research Paper

Musical Treatment for Improving Health Condition of Patients with Cancer

Merve Keskin

Boğaziçi University

INTRODUCTION

Throughout history, music has been performed as a therapy. According to Bonny(1986), since music is a great deal of a part in our environment, it is considered as harmless form of effect. In Greek mythology, Apollo is the god of music and healing. In Egyptian temples, music was used to heal psychological disorders. Plato and Aristotle were compromised on the fact that music affects both soul by purifying the emotions and the body with its soothing effect. Before 400 B.C.E., Hippocrates who is known as the “Father of the Western Medicine” used music for his patients with mental disorders. Al-Farabi –Turco-Arabian

(Bonny, 1986) Music therapy is a practice of using music with the presence of music therapist in terms of emotional, mental, spiritual, physical and social features of it to advance their physical and especially mental health. The research also shows, music treatment increases the quality of life, expression oneself, self-awareness, positive-socialization. When combining of musical treatment with medicine, the effect of the traditional medicine is seemed to be more effective. The main reason of this paper is that, research shows while affecting emotional health and social relations, music therapy helps patients with cancer dealing with pain caused by chemotherapy by means of decreasing the

Contact: In this stage, the music therapist and the patient begin a relationship. In cancer patients, it is important to focus on “self”

2. Awareness: Awareness of needs, desires and feelings occur.

3. Resolution: Self-satisfaction and relief are experienced as an output of the processed issues, emotions and feelings. The soothing effect of music therapy sessions decreases the patients’ anxiety. Bailey (1986) states that the patients generally feel reattachments to the life and the environment in which they live. He indicates they manage to find balance and resolution because balance is one of the first thing that cancer patients lose as it is stated in Rykov’s (2008) case study.

“I feel isolated with cancer. Because it’s happening to me, I feel isolated. Most people don’t actually know what it feels like. I feel like I’m on the top of a very high mountain and the tip is very sharp and I could lose my balance at any minute. That’s isolation.”

One of the most important things in music therapy on cancer patients is the response to the music as it is emphasized in the study of Nordoff and Robbins (1997). In the resolution phase, it is crucial to identify where the patients response to the music, what determines the choice of music and what kind of music will be the next. (Nordoff and Robbins, 1997) As Bonny (1972) states, the response will determine the future route of the