Writing the Book on Music Therapy Research
It’s a practice that can be traced back to pre-christian days. Some of the earliest “case studies” are documented in the Bible.
Yet even though music therapy has proven beneficial throughout the centuries in treating all sorts of disorders—from autism to shell shock to pain control—it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that therapists had a written guide book on how to conduct research specific to their field. That book, Music Therapy Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives, was the work of Barbara Wheeler, director of U of L’s music therapy program.
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Barbara Wheeler, director of U of L's music therapy program, practices what she studies and teaches, sharing therapeutic musical moments with a patient of Louisville's Norton Audubon Hospital.
Published by Barcelona Publishers, a specialist in music therapy publishing, the book met with international acclaim and earned Wheeler a 1999 Publication and Research Award from the American Music Therapy Association.
Music therapy has been defined as “the skillful use of music and musical elements by an accredited music therapist to promote, maintain and restore mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health.”
Wheeler’s book comprises 24 chapters and 600-plus pages that are edited and authored by “eminent researchers and scholars” in this field. The book outlines exactly how therapists should apply research standards and methods to situations involving music therapy as well as how to find a topic for their investigations, design a study or obtain grant funding.
When Barcelona Publishers went looking for a person who was qualified to develop such a book, Wheeler was the natural choice. Wheeler has been active in music therapy since 1969 and is a licensed psychologist, too.
“In fact,” she says, “the reason I pursued a Ph.D. in psychology was so that I could get additional background for my work as a music therapist and to develop my research skills.”
Wheeler also is an international authority on music therapy, having served as a keynote speaker at conferences in Japan, Australia, England, Korea, Germany and Slovakia as well as in the United States. In addition she is a consultant for the National Music Therapy Research Group at the University of Melbourne, established to increase knowledge of music therapy and advance the profession in Australia.
Her broad background was just what the publisher sought.
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Paula Dowdy, a sophomore music therapy major at U of L, also brings music to the sick.
Wheeler thinks she had another edge, too. Her own clinical experiences and studies give her a connection that is sometimes missing in music therapy research, she says.
For example, she recently was part of a team that published two experimental studies about the effects of music therapy on the mood and social interaction of people who had traumatic brain injuries and strokes. The researches found that those who had music therapy in group sessions seemed to interact better than those in individual sessions and that the more sessions the person attended, the better he or she did.
Wheeler also is involved in an ongoing project in which she videotapes normally developing children engaged in musical activities to gain a better understanding of the stages they go through in their social, language and emotional development. The idea is to put this information to use in learning how to better assist children with disabilities.
Wheeler currently is working on a second edition of Music Therapy Research that will reflect changes occurring in the field since the book’s initial 1995 release.
One of the biggest changes, Wheeler says, is how qualitative research—which addresses questions such as how people feel along with their values and processes—has expanded.
“Qualitative research has seen a lot of growth in music therapy in the last 10 years, partly because of what was written in my book,” she says.
Wheeler recently conducted her own qualitative research that might help music therapy attract and retain professionals. In her study, she explored the feelings of pleasure a music therapist derives from working with children with disabilities. The results could help all music therapists better appreciate their work and maybe reduce the incidence of “burn out,” she says.
