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Sarah Spearman

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

14 February 2018

Topic Proposal: M&M, Music and Mental Illnesses

Introduction/Overview

The purpose of my research will be to determine the impact music therapy has on people

who suffer from mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression. Many studies have been

conducted to determine if this type of therapy helps decrease negative feelings like anxiety,

anger, and sadness in patients. According to those who conducted a study on group music

therapy with co-occurring substance use disorders and mental illnesses, the efficacy of this

treatment is geared toward the expression of various emotions. It implicates that such emotional

expression promotes desirable effect shifts in people. Music stimuli excites pathway regions of

the brain which are responsible for emotional processing and memory. This sort of engagement

like certain other types of human activity can affect certain neurotransmitters and receptors, both

potentially lowering levels of “stress hormones” and promoting the releases of endogenous

opioids or pain killers such as dopamine. These neurochemical changes can result in a general

sense of euphoria. Results on past studies have shown music-based interventions have promoted

desirable emotional shifts among healthy individuals and adults who suffer from stroke and brain

injury, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. What is most interesting about this study of treatment is

to see if these positive effects seen in non-mentally ill people are present in those who suffer

from mental illnesses.

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The majority of my research that I have conducted has been gathered by reading various

online journals and internet reports. These include “Effects of Music Therapy on Hospitalized

Patients with Severe Mental Illnesses”. Many experts have given their thoughts, opinions, and

professional insight on the subject through these journals and reports, however, before I was able

to reach these golden sources I stumbled across many non- “scholarly” online webpages. Though

these sources consisted of little use to my research they still furthered my interest in the topic and

gave me more of an understanding of how music affects the brain and our mood. After our class

session in the library I was able to find more in-depth publications, such as the one listed above.

These scholarly sources provided me with reliable information and data that I will be able to use

in my final paper. For example, in the study of hospitalized patients with severe mental illnesses,

patients who underwent music therapy showed significant reduction of general and affective

psychopathology scores and symptom severity with respect to the control group.

In complete honesty, this topic was not my top pick at beginning of this assignment,

however, after mulling over it with one of my roommates it became more and more appealing.

She has extensive knowledge in the field of psychology and how the brain is affected by

different stimuli, and I think discussions we will have in the future about my work will be

extremely beneficial. I believe it would be wise to reach out to a Psychology professor to gather

their knowledge and insight on the topic. By doing so I may attain a greater understanding of

how our mind works, and how the minds of those with mental illnesses work as well.

This topic is fairly complex as the mind itself is a fairly complex area of study. What I

hope to understand is if those who suffer from mental illnesses can be treated with music therapy

and how. This idea of music being a form of treatment to the mentally ill has been debated over,

and there have been a great deal of extensive studies and experiments conducted on the matter.
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Delving into this information and finding what my audience will best comprehend is the

challenge at hand. There are many different perspectives and thoughts that professionals, such as

psychologists have about music therapy and if it can result in lasting, positive effects on the

mentally ill. Regardless of the amount of research conducted, there is no definite conclusion if

this therapy is affective or not, so the debate continues.

Initial Inquiry Question(s)

Does music therapy have an impact on those who suffer from mental illnesses? If so, are

these effects positive ones that help improve their mental state? Are these effects long lasting or

short term?

My Interest in this Topic

I am interested in the effect of music therapy on the mentally ill because I have a loose

connection to this topic. I was very involved in the theatre program in my high school, and this

past year we put on a production called “With Friends Like These”. This play took place in an

asylum in the 1960’s and every character, except the physicians, suffered from a different mental

illness. My character specifically suffered from multiple personality disorder. Other disorders

included, bipolar disorder, depression, capgras syndrome, schizophrenia, and severe amnesia. By

being a part of a production that portrayed such mental disorders, I now have the greatest respect

for people suffering from them. To portray these disorders accurately we had to become very

knowledgeable on these mental illnesses and get into the mindset of someone suffering from

them. Having gone through this experience and extensive research I began to wondered if there
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were other treatments, more natural treatments unlike medication, mental patients could undergo

to improve their mental state.

Next Steps

I plan to continue using the online resources available to me to progress my research. The

best resource thus far has been the library database where I can look through sources that have

been deemed “scholarly” and reliable. I also plan to utilize the websites ScienceDirect and

ProQuest to find more study and experimentation reports. I hope to find videos discussing my

topic. I have briefly browsed a few videos on YouTube under the accounts PsycheTruth and

Australian Music Therapy Association where experts are discussing the connection between

music therapy and the minds of the mentally ill. Along with these research tools, I plan to

arrange a meeting with a Psychology professor on campus. In this meeting I hope to discuss the

human brain and how it is affected by outside stimuli. I feel by having this meeting I will gain

valuable knowledge from a real-world professional on the topic that I will be able to utilize in

my final paper.