Online study

Course Structure

The course offers three specific study areas split between ten modules. Each module is designed to be studied over three to four weeks, two hours per week. The course can be completed in ten months however students are welcome to take up to thirty six months to finish the course depending upon other life commitments.

Part One : Building human relationships

Part one explores building good human relationships as a practical transferable skill, the importance of the way we think about ourselves and others in our lives; the impact that this has upon the quality of our working relationships including its effect upon our music group participants.

Module One : Introduction : First steps
introductions to attachment / awareness / emotional intelligence / philosophy and humanism / person centred thinking / professional practice / the difference between music therapy and song therapy

Module Two : Human skills : Awareness of the outside
physics of sound / senses / child and developmental psychology / attachment theory group dynamics / survival theory / record keeping / observation

Module Three : Human skills : Awareness of the inside
insight / the human brain / emotions / judgement / clear thinking / listening skills / balance / the tao / mindfulness / meditation / group dynamics / critical thinking

Module Four : Human skills : Acceptance
rogerian thinking / positive regard / empathy / congruence / holism / reductionism existentialism / universal anxiety / the courage to be

Part Two : Song Therapy

Part two explores our practical music making and we identify the specific therapeutic outcomes that we can responsibly explore in recreational music making settings.

Module Five : Music as a friend
innate musicality / patterns / imprinting / conditioning / home / security / musical scales / play / adventure / self directed growth

Module Six : Music as a medicine
physics of sound / entrainment / resonance / harmonics / binaural beats / isochronic tones / bio rhythms / neurochemistry / neuroplasticity

Module Seven : Music as a language and song writing
communicative musicality / the pentatonic scale / music improvisation in recreation and education / creative self expression / song writing methods

Part Three : Health and professional practice

Part three offers an introduction to the health challenges some are facing in their lives and explores the professional responsibilities that we have to our music group participants.

Module Eight : Music and health
a brief introduction to music and ... stroke / brain injury / ms / parkinsons disease / learning disability / dementia / autism / stress / anxiety / depression / ocd / bi-polar / me / respiratory conditions / the blind / the deaf / end of life

Module Nine : Professional practice
ethics / first aid / dbs / human rights / code of conduct / data protection / safeguarding / consent and capacity / insurance / infection control / mental health act / confidentiality / health and safety / record keeping / limits of song therapy / phenomenology / the affirmation of emotion

Module Ten : Conclusion
song therapy / music as the therapist / a person centred physiological music intervention / self worth and self compassion / human spirit / the celebration of self directed positive change and growth / good endings / the courage to be / beauty / love / bliss

Reading

Our course celebrates the contribution that modern philosophers, psychologists and music therapy research have made towards the understanding of ourselves and the way that music affects our lives.

We particularly applaud those writers who can communicate complex academic ideas and theory in a way that we can all enjoy and understand.

This is so important on a course like our own.

To this end we introduce a number of established and highly celebrated authors and researchers including Oliver Sacks, Daniel Stern on Self and Other, Erich Fromm, Victor Frankl, Paul Tillich, Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, Carl Rogers, David Howe, Anthony Storr; the insightful and easy reading style of Donald Winnicott; the attachment theories of John Bowlby; the practical research of Mary Ainsworth and others. Stephen Malloch and Colwyn Tevarthen's book, Communicative Musicality. Finally, and not for the feint hearted, the more challenging thoughts of authors such as Gabor Maté, Carl Jung and Ernest Becker. Allen Ginsberg W.H.Auden and others also provide brief poetic reflections for us to embrace; helping us to develop an understanding of the common challenges in life that connect us all.

These deeper and sometimes profound reflections on life, love and music offer gentle, philosophical and theoretical frameworks for our music making;

music that is ultimately rooted in the natural, vibrating soul that lies inside us all, irrespective of our cultural influences and the extent of our formal music academic training or natural performance abilities

info@songtherapy.net        www.songtherapy.net