Music & Art Therapy at Ozark Trails Promotes Positive Change in Students
Parents looking for effective therapy methods to help a struggling young boy or girl can learn about Music & Art Therapy at our therapeutic boarding school in Missouri.
Ozark Trails understands that parents want to send a child to a safe, monitored environment where their child receives personal care, and individual therapies that help heal emotional, behavioral and mental disorders–whether brought on by trauma, foster care, adoption or family genetics.
And while the young child or teen enrolls our therapeutic boarding school for counseling, treatment, and improving academic/life skills, Ozark Trails also helps students improve emotional and physical health through Music & Art Therapy, led by licensed therapists.
What is Music & Art Therapy?
“Music therapy is the prescribed use of music to effect positive changes in the psychological, physical, cognitive, or social functioning of individuals with health or educational problems.” (American Music Therapy Association, 2014)
“Art therapy is the purposeful use of visual arts materials and media in intervention, counseling, psychotherapy, and rehabilitation; it is used with individuals of all ages, families, and groups.” (Edwards, 2004; Malchiodi, 2012).
“Each discipline has been applied in psychotherapy and counseling with individuals of all ages, particularly children, for more than 70 years.” (Wheeler, 2014).
Music & Art Therapy at Ozark Trails Opens Students to Better Choices
“Studies have shown that participating in music and art can alleviate pain, help students manage stress, promote wellness, enhance memory, improve communications, aide physical rehabilitation, and give them a way to express their feelings.”
According to the American Art Therapy Association, Art Therapy gives boys and girls “a way to explore their feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage behavior and addictions, develop social skills, improve reality orientation, reduce anxiety, and increase self-esteem. A goal in art therapy is to improve or restore functioning and his or her sense of personal well-being.”
Music Therapy in Child/Adolescence Behavioral Health : Allows for self-reflection through the use of a variety of music-based activities./Fosters social and communication skills by making music with others./Inclusive of trauma-informed and wellness-based models of care. /Helps young people identify how their thoughts and feelings influence their behaviors, choices, and identity development/Teaches young people how to self-regulate and to help them develop healthy coping skills.
Childhood behavioral health conditions that music therapists work with include, but are not limited to: • Behavior disorders • Mood and anxiety disorders • Attention deficit / Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) • Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) • Trauma • Substance use disorders.
Music & Art Therapy Improves Student’s Behavior at Ozark Trails.
“Music not only provides an emotional benefit to patients, but a physical one as well. Each of us have a parasympathetic system and a sympathetic (fight or flight) system, and music has a way of recalibrating this nervous system so our body’s innate healing mechanisms can kick in. Music also activates the dopaminergic areas on the brain that inspire happiness and reward in the child. Additionally, oxytocin, a hormone associated with bonding and memory, is released and creates an even stronger sense of kinship between the child and their music therapist.”
Clinical Art Therapy can be effective for adolescents who usually see it as a nonthreatening form of treatment. The art that the adolescent produces can help the therapist gain some idea of the youth’s concerns and life circumstances, especially those situations that are too risky to reveal or too personally embarrassing to relate. In addition, Art Therapy can be used to: Improve sensory-motor function/cultivate emotional resilience/foster self-awareness/promote insight/enhance social skills/reduce conflict/improve cognition/foster self-esteem.
That’s why Ozark Trails offers Music & Art Therapy in addition to Individual and Group therapy. We want each student to experience effective counseling as well as improve daily life at school, and back home with family.
If you want to learn more about how Music & Art Therapy helps students open up and heal at our therapeutic boarding school, please call (417) 278-6868 now.
Sources:
https://www.thecmf.org/blogs-and-news/creative-healing-music-as-therapy/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071468/
https://www.musictherapy.org/assets/1/7/MT_Child_Adolescent_Behavioral_Health_2019.pdf
