Music Therapy: About the Program

"Students develop advanced music therapy clinical skills in an academic health center setting."

The two-year Music Therapy program was founded in 1975 as a section of the Creative Arts in Therapy Program (Art, Dance/Movement and Music Therapy) at Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital. The Music Therapy program is designed to help students develop advanced music therapy clinical skills in an academic health center setting. It was the first music therapy academic program to be approved by both the National Association for Music Therapy and the American Association for Music Therapy (the two merged as the American Music Therapy Association in 1998).

The program is the only music therapy education model housed within an academic health center. This merger of health sciences and the arts provides both the learning atmosphere and the depth of resources for modern music therapy education. It is unique in that faculty members include mental health and medical professionals who assist students in integrating music therapy with current developmental, mental health, and medical practices.

Didactic, clinical and supervisory aspects are balanced to provide a foundation of theoretical knowledge and practical application. The curriculum integrates knowledge of music therapy with current theoretical approaches to assessment and treatment within mental health, medical and education areas.  

The curriculum includes classroom and clinical field placements that occur throughout the length of the program. Students integrate classroom learning of theory and clinical foundations with music therapy treatment experiences with patients/clients in clinical settings under the supervision of a skilled music therapist. Individual and group supervision help to form a balanced understanding of the theory and music therapy practice.

All students in the program take the core courses and modality courses in their specific arts therapy (see Curriculum). Students from all three Creative Arts in Therapy Modalities, Music Therapy, Art Therapy and Dance/Movement Therapy, take core courses together. This core curriculum provides a theoretical, developmental and clinical foundation upon which Art, Dance/Movement, and Music Therapy are based. Students also take courses in their own arts therapy modality which is described later. Through core and modality courses, clinical experiences and supervision, students develop their own clinical style from a broad range of theoretical approaches.

Core courses in the Hahnemann Creative Arts in Therapy program average 30 to 35 students; music therapy modality courses average 7 to 12. Music therapy skill classes take place in a studio equipped with two pianos, a wide variety of melodic, harmonic, and percussive music therapy instruments, electronic musical equipment; stereo and video equipment, relaxation mats; and a computer.

Program components include:

• Supervised adult and child clinical placements in psychiatric and medical units of local hospitals, schools, and many other specialized treatment settings in the Philadelphia area;
• Daily interaction with music, art and dance/movement therapists, physicians, psychologists, and other health professionals as teachers and supervisors;
• Application of clinical musical improvisation and adapted therapeutic musical experiences;
• Integration of music therapy findings with mental health and medical sciences;  
• Basic understandings of art and dance/movement therapy and their relation to music therapy;
• Interaction with students and educators representing all of the health sciences
• Extensive exposure to current psychotherapeutic, medical, and developmental treatment models;
• Student presentation of research at local, regional, and national conferences;
• Research opportunities within: medical settings - including heart failure/transplant, neonatal unit, pediatrics, labor and delivery, bone marrow transplant mental health, including in–patient and out-patient adult and child psychiatry, consultation/liaison psychiatry, school settings - normal and special education (including autistic, multiply handicapped) community settings, including family court visitation program music therapy theory and method development: the field and practice of music therapy, development of specialized clinical methods.