Music and LGBTQIA+ Mental Health
Music is a beautiful form of self-expression, empowerment, and enrichment. Playing, listening to, or reading music can be as healing as it can be fun.
In fact, music is even utilized in therapeutic ways for many mental and physical health conditions.
Music therapy is the evidence-based clinical intervention used to form and accomplish personal goals such as anxiety reduction, management of mental disorders, and self-improvement.
The therapy is performed by mental health professionals with specialized training in the field. It is a fully recognized and accredited method of treatment and encompasses a broad spectrum of musical interventions.
The best part? You do not have to know anything about music to do it.
While the treatment can be useful to anyone, the LGBTQIA+ community receives unique benefits. Today, we will go over those benefits as well as how the therapy itself works.
How does music heal?
Well, it’s not the music that is doing the healing. Simply playing the piano or humming to your favorite Lizzo song will not cure your depression (as much as we wish it would). Rather, music creates a space for conversation, expression, and self-exploration.
Music therapy can be performed in many ways. Depending on your needs and goals, the method can vary.
Some popular musical therapies include:
Writing or singing songs about a topic.
Improvising with instruments.
Listening to music.
Re-creating musical pieces.
Now, you do not have to be good at any of those things. Most people who engage in music therapy are not the next Mozart or Ariana Grande. You only have to be willing to try!
Remember that music therapy is different from listening to your Spotify Sad Hours playlist at three in the morning. You do not listen to or play music and stop for the day.
With music therapy, your therapist will guide you to discuss the activities before and after you do them.
You may talk about what a particular song means to you, why you played that note instead of another one, or how a musical piece made you feel. These practices can help you understand why you express yourself the way that you do or why you associate certain sounds with feelings and memories.
Knowing this information about yourself can show you gaps in your thinking, and repressed emotions, and help you work through difficult feelings. Such information can give you the power to overcome your mental health challenges.
How does it benefit LGBTQIA+ people?
As with art therapy, musical interventions aid the LGBTQIA+ community in unique and specific ways. Since music is an art form, there are similar benefits between the two treatments. To learn more about how art therapy is good for the community, click here.
To understand music therapy's contribution to LGBTQIA+ mental health treatment, we need to remember the factors at play. The community faces extensive discrimination that causes many of us to repress our authentic selves. People in the community may have learned to hide their emotions and personality to protect themselves from hate and rejection.
While anyone can face discrimination and slight, the LGBTQIA+ community faces it at astronomical rates compared to most other groups. Harmful consequences have appeared because of the hate we face.
According to The State of the LGBTQ Community in 2020, “many LGBTQ people report altering their lives to avoid...discrimination and the trauma associated with unequal treatment.” When we alter our lives drastically to meet the requirements of the standard (read: heteronormative and cisnormative society), we damage our mental health.
Music therapy is a way to express yourself without directly revealing anything. It is a safe way to ease your real self out of its shell. Also, LGBTQIA+ often spend a lot of time repressing their behaviors and expressions to avoid seeming performative or simply standing out. Music gives people a space to act, feel, and express without limitations.
By practicing music therapy, you can slowly reveal your true self that has been hidden for so long. Your therapist will be there to guide you through it, accept it, and flourish with the new realizations.
However, self-expression is not the only benefit it has for the community. Music therapy can also help us understand the world around us and how we interact with it.
Too frequently, LGBTQIA+ people have a negative or hostile relationship with society. With high rates of violence, homelessness, poverty, workplace discrimination, housing discrimination, and more, it can be hard for us to interact with our environments freely.
Young LGBTQIA+ people are especially vulnerable to this. Sadly, 36% of LGBTQIA+ youth have been attacked or threatened because of discrimination against their sexual orientation or gender identity. A recent survey by the Trevor Project also showed that 73% of youth faced anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination.
Musical interventions may be helpful to LGBTQIA+ youth and adults because it allows people to engage with the world in an unfiltered way. There are no limits or bounds to music (just like emotions!).
While we cannot show people sadness itself, we can express it through music. We play sad music when we feel down, upbeat music when we are happy, and hype music when we are excited.
I know I always put on Butter by BTS when I’m going to see my friends!
As we can tell, music therapy can have a vast number of benefits for the community. If you want to try it out and find yourself through music, there are many resources available to get started.
However, before any LGBTQIA+ person can access all the wonderful things about music therapy, they must find a professional who is aware of how to treat LGBTQA+ patients. A study conducted in 2013 asked over 400 music therapists if they felt prepared to assist sexual/gender minority patients.
The results showed that “half of the respondents did not feel adequately prepared to work with LGBTQ clients.” That is why it is vital to find out if your provider is LGBTQIA+ friendly before beginning treatment. Thankfully, there are resources available to assist with the process. You can read our article on how to find an LGBTQIA+ therapist by clicking here.
Do you have any suggestions for getting into music therapy? Leave a comment to help your fellow readers!
Are you a music therapist? Check out the AMTA LGBTQIA+ Best Practices: https://academic.oup.com/mtp/article/30/2/158/1138763
Sources:
https://soundwellmusictherapy.com/music-therapy-with-lgbt-clients/
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/state-lgbtq-community-2020/
