Fridays w/ Faculty: Associate Dean Rebecca Zarate, College of Fine Arts
Anxiety is now identified by the World Health Organization as the most prevalent global mental health concern that is on the rise (WHO, 2016). Yet, not much is known about ‘anxiety’ and the specific symptoms, or how we can have an impact on them in music therapy. There are several approaches, and music psychotherapy is one of them. A unique component of this approach is the dialogical, affective processes that occur in clinical improvisation. Core components of this method include the use of empirically supported techniques that alleviate symptoms of anxiety and panic–related responses such as fear of the worst, heart pounding, shortness of breath, dizziness, and sweating palms. An example of this would be integrating tempo and steady beat (De Witte, Lindauf, et al., 2020 and De Witte, Orkibi et al., 2022) and voice, breath, vocal-based work on playing/singing to, about or as the symptoms shape a dialogical process in alleviating, decreasing and eventually minimizing the specific symptoms identified by each client for sustained time. This collaborative musical journey, when specifically targeting the symptoms, allows for an exploration of the affective life of anxiety in individuals, and integration of brain, body, psychology, and physiology to be activated and worked with to shape change.
