Applied Podcast

• How CSU educators are changing lives through music therapy
• Brainwaves Research Lab
• Dr. Jess Rushing collaborates on publication about music therapy for premature infants

• Bachelor of Music, Music Therapy Concentration
• Music Therapy M.M.
• Music Therapy Ph.D.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (00:00):
So I mostly work with children on the autism spectrum and one situation that really stands out to me is working with a child who was really auditorily sensitive, meaning sounds were just too much. And if you think about our world and our environment, the sounds aren’t always kind. You don’t get to control sound when you go into a store, into a school, even sometimes in the home. When I initially met this child, they had earphones on, then they had a hood over their earphones and then a hood over their hood. So they were basically blocking out the world in terms of sound. And you might look at that and say, well, why would you put them in music therapy? It’s an auditory based therapy. But they were referred to me and by the end of a 30 minute session, we had the hoods off, the earphones off, and the child was engaging in music making experiences where they were in control.

(00:52):
And that stands out to me because I think one of the things that music does and does really quickly is provide a sense of safety. We’re in this together, there’s structure, so it’s really, really predictable, but there’s also movement and motion that happens in music that allows for creativity and for change. So we can create a predictable environment for a child who does have those sensitivities, where they feel safe enough to take off their hood, to take off their earphones and engage with us and even be loud in that engagement because it’s so predictable. And then as a therapist, I can begin taking just small steps to push that child a little bit farther and so they can begin to experience the world in different ways and not have so many reactions.

Beren Goguen (01:43):
Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Applied podcast. I’m Beren Goguen. Recently I spoke with two faculty members from CSU’s Music Therapy Program, Dr. Blythe LaGasse, who you heard speaking just before this introduction, has spent more than 15 years specializing in music therapy for children on the autism spectrum. She also coordinates the music therapy Masters and PhD programs at CSU. Her colleague, Dr. Jess Rushing has worked clinically with people of all ages from infants to the elderly. Her expertise includes both clinical work and private practice. Dr. LaGasse and Dr. Rushing, thank you so much for being here. Let’s jump in. How exactly does music therapy help people differently compare to other forms of therapy?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (02:31):
There’s a lot of therapies for individuals who have different variety of needs. However, something really unique about music is the humanness of engaging with music and how it brings out our creative selves along with many skills that are involved with music. So when you have individuals, for example, with neurodevelopmental disabilities, being engaged in music is another way for those individuals to express themselves, but also to learn different skills such as social skills. We can look at a music engagement and really think about how engaging with someone else in music is a very social experience. And what music therapy does is we use that creativity and that interest in music in order to further individuals skills. So if I have a child who has a neurodevelopmental disorder and they need to work on social skills, then I’ll engage ’em in a creative, fun music activity where they’re naturally engaging with me socially. And then my work as a music therapist is to help them bridge those skills from the music environment to the non-music environment. So we teach skills and we can help individuals to meet their goals through creative music making processes.

Beren Goguen (03:36):
I know for a lot of people, music in general is just therapeutic, and so it makes sense that that could function as kind of a gateway to open up other pathways and it’s kind of what it does in a way.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (03:49):
Absolutely. So people have a desire to engage with music, and what we do in music therapy is we start with that desire to engage in music, create meaningful and exciting music experiences where we then embed intentional use of music to meet goals. So if you have someone who already relaxes with music, the music therapist can then take that a step farther to help them learn how to have relaxation processes or cope with stress or to have other ways of engaging with music that help them to meet their goals. So there’s a lot of ways we can use music and people already naturally use music. The music therapist just expands upon that to help people really meet those goals, whatever those may be.

Beren Goguen (04:30):
Right. If you look at human history and pre-history, music almost existed before language or at least is as old as primitive language. It’s something humans have been using and doing since the Stone age, really.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (04:43):
Absolutely. There’s this inherent humanness of being engaged with music. And music provides opportunities for community, for socialization, for engagement. So there’s so much that we get out of music to begin with that we can then look at how music actually changes our brain and how it interacts with us. Just for example, you said that people have engaged with music since the beginning of time, well music actually changes your brain. So as you engage with music more and more, you develop different pathways in your brain and you have different skills that really are facilitated by that engagement in music. And then the way music is naturally stored in the brain allows you access to skills that you may not otherwise have access to. For example, if you have someone who has had a stroke and they lose the ability to speak, that person will almost always maintain the ability to sing. So they’ll be able to sing because there’s areas of the brain that weren’t damaged by the stroke that are in charge of singing, even though they can’t speak. And then the music therapist helps them by singing, relearn how to speak. So music’s really cool in how it interacts with our brain and activates our brain, but also the community aspects it as well.

Beren Goguen (05:58):
That’s really fascinating. Could you explain a little bit more on a basic level, and maybe you already did some of the neuroscience behind why music therapy is effective?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (06:07):
Absolutely. So what we know about music in the brain is that music activates all areas of your brain. So as you engage in music, your brain is active and there’s some areas that are even more active or will be more synchronized with music activity. So for example, if you are to move your hands in the air right now, you’re going to activate your motor cortex. And if you’re playing the piano, you’re also activating your motor cortex. But as we engage with music, we have more synchronicity in the brain, meaning there’s more things that are happening in time together. So we have different neural patterns, we have different areas that activate and those different activations actually give us access to skills. For example, as your learning to talk, speech is primarily left lateralized in the brain, whereas singing is bilateral in the brain, it activates both sides of your brain.

(07:00):
So with singing, we actually have this ability to learn language. We have the ability to remember things, we have the ability to learn concepts, and that’s why the ABCs with song are so much easier to remember. Not only that you can learn that concept through song, you know the alphabet, but then years later, how many adults, when we’re trying to alphabetize something, we sing the ABC song in our head in order to file a paper. So it’s not only a way to learn, but it’s something that’s so cemented in our brain and stored so well in our brain that it lasts and persists throughout our lifetime.

Beren Goguen (07:37):
Right, that makes a lot of sense. And you do a lot of singing in elementary school to reinforce the learning.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (07:44):
Absolutely. And that’s activating those language areas, your areas of your brain. There’s a real overlap between singing and how we take in information and learn that information.

Beren Goguen (07:55):
So probably we should sing more after elementary school throughout the rest of our education. Maybe.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (08:01):
We probably should, yes.

Beren Goguen (08:03):
Nice. So my understanding is that people have been practicing music therapy for more than half a century, but it’s only more recently become formalized. And so I’m curious, how has the practice changed and evolved in the last few decades?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (08:17):
I think the practice in music therapy has changed and evolved as we’ve learned more about the human condition, human functioning, neuroscience and music. Initially we saw, especially with veterans coming home from combat, that music was really useful. But then as time has gone on, now we know that not only can music help with alleviating stress and some of the difficulties of coming back say from combat, but music can also help with rehabilitation. It can help an individual relearn how to walk. It can help people relearn how to speak. So there’s a lot of capacities in music that seem really mysterious at one time, but now we have the science to understand why those behaviors or those skills are gained more quickly with music and how music can really help to drive what we would call neuroplasticity or changes in the brain.

Beren Goguen (09:05):
Would you say children really benefit significantly from music?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (09:08):
Absolutely. In many different ways. I mean, we have the benefits of engaging with others and learning social skills, learning linguistic skills, et cetera. But there’s also this element of music and emotional regulation where music can be super helpful for children who are having a difficult time, which all children have difficult times. And then we can use music as a way to help them learn to self-regulate calm down, to take a breath. I think it’s because children are so interested and engaged with music that we can use it as a vehicle for helping with really hard skills, such as emotional regulation. That’s hard for young children. It’s hard for many adults as well, but when you use a calm down song or a way of counting and breathing through music, it’s much more approachable than looking at a child and saying, okay, you just need to breathe. Because the song naturally leads them into the process and through the process so that they can engage in that regulation piece.

Beren Goguen (10:04):
And so that comes back to where you’re using more of your brain and your body is more in sync.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (10:09):
So using more of your brain, we would have to look at that and what that means. But if you look at a child who is dysregulated, speaking to them oftentimes doesn’t help with dysregulation. They get more dysregulated or more frustrated in the situation. But if I begin to sing a song, they can immediately connect with me. I can even have rocking or other ways of movement that can help that system to calm down or to better regulate. And it’s so natural through music, whereas the same thing spoken might not be accepted as well, or they might not even be able to hear it and cope with it. Strong is just such a natural way to engage with children.

Beren Goguen (10:50):
So I actually read about an 11-year-old boy named Jimmy who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor at four months old. He’s receiving care at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh for his entire life essentially. And in the post, every time Jimmy goes to the hospital, which he does often for MRIs, his first request is always to visit with a music therapist there. And I actually watched a video of him in the hospital room wearing a gown and a mask and singing and playing instruments with his therapist before an MRI. And I could really see the joy that it brought him. And Jimmy’s mother said that the music therapy is such an important part of his life. And so when we think of hospitals, we often think about very sterile, utilitarian kind of scary, unpleasant places. And so in my view, music therapy can really be a powerful tool to lessen the stress and anxiety for children, especially like in pediatric medicine. Is music therapy usually covered by insurance or is that something that people can usually get access to or does it just really depend on where you are?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (11:54):
A lot of it depends on where you are. There are a lot of music therapists that work in facilities like hospitals providing the services that you were just speaking about. And those are usually part of the care team in a hospital. But for an individual in the community to receive services, there are services that are paid for by Medicaid waiver or other programs that have funding. And that’s usually the route that people would go in order to receive services, especially for children. However, it depends greatly on what state you live in and how different funds are managed in that state.

Beren Goguen (12:28):
Right, and what programs they have available.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (12:30):
Correct.

Beren Goguen (12:30):
Do you think more hospitals should invest in music therapy programs?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (12:34):
I think hospitals that were to invest in music therapy programs would see a benefit pretty quickly. If you think about a scenario with a child who’s about to undergo a invasive procedure, all of the anxiety that can be brought forth through just knowing that you’re going to be in that medical procedure can make that procedure so much harder. So if you have a music therapist present and they can help to regulate, calm the child, keep ’em engaged and active, then their transition into that procedure will be much more smooth than if they did not have that service. So we see where music therapists and facilities actually help with the workload because we’re able to help individuals to regulate better. We’re also able to co-treat, music therapists oftentimes co-treat with speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, because there’s those unique ways that music activates the brain and can help someone to have very nice coordinated skills or responses that help with the whole treatment process. So the music therapist as a part of the treatment team helps the whole treatment team to serve those individuals better.

Beren Goguen (13:39):
Have you found in your experience that most doctors and health care professionals accept and appreciate music therapy? Has it been fairly widely adopted or do you think it’s still something that’s evolving?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (13:53):
I think it’s still evolving. I think people who see a music therapist in action and see the power of what music can do in the medical setting or in the developmental setting are usually sold pretty quickly because we have, I think, an amazing capacity to tap into creative ways of being that are so closely tied to functional skills and activities of daily living that many people are trying to achieve in those settings. So I always think that seeing is believing, that if you come and work with or watch a music therapist and see how they apply music in a way that’s really intentional and specific to that individual’s needs, you’ll see a different use of music, but a use of music that can really augment treatment.

Beren Goguen (14:41):
From what I’ve read and seen, I’m on board and especially as a parent, if my child had to get a procedure, I can see how this would really help.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (14:51):
So I mostly work with children on the autism spectrum, and one situation that really stands out to me is working with a child who is really auditorily sensitive, meaning sounds were just too much. And if you think about our world and our environment, the sounds aren’t always kind. You don’t get to control sound when you go into a store, into a school, even sometimes in the home. When I initially met this child, they had earphones on, then they had a hood over their earphones and then a hood over their hood. So they were basically blocking out the world in terms of sound. And you might look at that and say, well, why would you put them in music therapy? It’s an auditory based therapy. But they were referred to me and by the end of a 30 minute session, we had the hoods off, the earphones off, and the child was engaging in music making experiences where they were in control.

(15:44):
And that stands out to me because I think one of the things that music does and does really quickly is provide a sense of safety. We’re in this together, there’s structure, so it’s really, really predictable, but there’s also movement and motion that happens in music that allows for creativity and for change. So we can create a predictable environment for a child who does have those sensitivities, where they feel safe enough to take off their hood, to take off their earphones and engage with us and even be loud in that engagement because it’s so predictable. And then as a therapist, I can begin taking just small steps, right fit challenge to push that child a little bit farther and so they can begin to experience the world in different ways and not have so many reactions, for example, to sound and to better integrate those sounds, know what they can respond to, what they can ignore.

(16:38):
And by doing that, they can learn how to be more present in their environment. They can be in school, they can go to stores, they can walk down the street with their parents and not have so many responses to everything around them. So it stands out to me because here we have a child who blocks out the world and then by the end of treatment with them, they actually don’t need the headphones anymore. And then they can see how they have built their strengths and how they have built their ability to engage differently with the world. And they don’t have to rely on some of those accommodations. And I’m not saying that those accommodations are bad. They’re actually really smart. If you have trouble processing sound, it makes a lot of sense to block that sound. The question then becomes, is there a way by which you can help the individual to engage with the world through music that allows those headphones to no longer be necessary, and maybe they then only need them in particularly loud environments or particularly chaotic environments. And that’s what we do in music therapy. We look for what that individual’s goals are. Here’s a child who wants to engage with others, they want to be involved in school and in music, and things like that.

(17:51):
So how can we use music as a way to make it safe, to make those steps towards their goal, whatever that may be for them.

Beren Goguen (17:58):
How long does that process typically take? I imagine it can vary.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (18:01):
Yeah, it varies on the child and the approach and how we work with children depends on their comfort level, their music ability. So when they come in, how are they hearing pitch? How are they hearing rhythm? Do they hear it as an integrated sound source or is it isolated and more not as well integrated to them? And then how we can look at steps towards their goals. And I think it’s important to point out that music therapy is in an effort to help that child to be more “typical”. It’s an effort to help them engage with the world and meet their goals, knowing that with their neurological differences, we’ll have accommodations and supports. But music is so structured and so acceptable to many people that we can work towards those goals in a way that feels safe and structured.

Beren Goguen (18:52):
Are all music therapists board certified? And what does that mean? I’m just curious.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (18:57):
Yeah. Board certification is a indication that the individual has gone through an approved training program and that they hold the requisite knowledge to go in and start serving individuals with that credential. So not all individuals who use music and healthcare are board certified and not all individuals need to be board certified. For instance, you have volunteers in a hospital providing music. However, that intentional and goal-based use of music would be best applied by a credentialed individual who has the training on how to apply music, how to respond to situations, and how to really meet individual’s needs and abide by healthcare policies, things of that nature.

Beren Goguen (19:43):
So in terms of higher education and a program like the one you coordinate, what are some of the benefits of continuing on to maybe a master’s degree or even a PhD?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (19:53):
Music therapy is a bachelor’s level entry profession. Continuing on with a master’s allows individuals who are credentialed to get greater depth of understanding of music therapy and to increase their competencies in clinical services and learning about neuroscience and keeping current and information. In our program, we provide different ways for individuals to really expand their knowledge and their areas of interest where they’re working so that they can provide the best services to their clients.

Beren Goguen (20:24):
CSU obviously offers a master’s and a PhD. How do you find your students are using their education in the field?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (20:32):
What I’ve seen in our master’s and doctoral program is that individuals come in with clinical experience. So they’ve already been in the profession, they’ve been helping other individuals, their clients through music as a way to meet goals and outcomes, and then engaging in graduate level education as a way to really deepen their understanding of what they’re doing, develop new skills and a heightened awareness and sense of clinical decision making comes from engaging in further education. What I like about our program is it’s very hands-on, that you know the faculty and we work with the students to meet their clinical goals. For example, in their coursework, students are working one-on-one with faculty to gain feedback in their own clinical sessions. So they bring in their clinical sessions, what they’re doing in the real world, and then they have someone with expertise and knowledge in that area to help them look at next steps for pushing their services in order to help the individuals meet their outcomes either more quickly or in different ways or to problem solve when an individual may be having difficulties.

Beren Goguen (21:42):
Right. So I imagine the collaborative nature of the program and being able to discuss ideas with peers is very helpful.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (21:50):
Absolutely. We even have a class where we have one on-campus weekend that all of our distance students come to and all of the students bring in their clinical problems. So they bring in the areas where they would like feedback, and they get, of course the client’s permission and then the whole group together watches videos and provides solutions, ways of looking at things differently and really helping one another out. And that collaborative effort and helping an individual, the client receive better services is a really rewarding experience because that student goes back to their clinical practice with lots of different ideas to try, and then the class continues and we discuss back and forth as they’re actually trying the things that we spoke about on what’s working, what’s not working, and what else they can do. So I really like that in the moment, taking information from education back into your actual practice to make changes.

Beren Goguen (22:47):
If someone listening is a parent or a teacher or anyone working in a field with children, what is something that they could do right away in terms of working something like this into their program or just learning more about it that would be helpful for them?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (23:07):
They’re welcome to look at the resources on our website. There’s also the American Music Therapy Association that has a lot of different resources as a part of a land grant university at Colorado State, we do provide music therapy services within our own clinics and into the community and where we can’t provide services, we refer out into the community to services that would be appropriate for an individual and their needs. We do actually encourage community members in Northern Colorado to reach out to us if they’re interested in learning more.

Beren Goguen (23:38):
That’s awesome. I didn’t know that. Is there anything else you’d like to share about the work being done in your field or at CSU that our listeners might want to know?

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (23:46):
I think something that’s unique to Colorado State is that we have in the music therapy area, an interdisciplinary and collaborative neuroscience research lab. It’s called the Brainwaves Research Lab, it’s co-directed by myself and an occupational therapist, Dr. Patty Davies leads the lab, and then Dr. Bill Gavin is also involved with the lab. We have students from psychology, neuroscience, occupational therapy and psychology that work in the lab. And one of the things that we do is research music processing. So we do electroencephalography and we see how individuals brains respond to musical stimuli.

Beren Goguen (24:25):
Wow.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (24:25):
It’s super interesting and super fun and we have lots of different research opportunities with the university through the lab and then research opportunities in the community as well with what we’re doing with music.

Beren Goguen (24:36):
I’m going to check it out.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (24:37):
Yeah.

Beren Goguen (24:38):
Well, thank you so much for coming in.

Dr. Blythe LaGasse (24:40):
Thank you for having me.

Beren Goguen (24:44):
Thanks again for tuning in. If you’d like more information about CSU’s music therapy programs, you can find more information in the show notes. And now we’ll transition into my chat with Jess Rushing. My understanding is that music therapy can improve quality of life for people struggling with illness, developmental disabilities, depression, and other disorders. So how exactly does music therapy help people differently compared to other forms of therapy?

Dr. Jess Rushing (25:10):
Thanks for that question. That’s a really good one. I thought maybe we could first talk about mental health since that’s one of my areas, and about one in five adult Americans live with some sort of mental illness. So we know the famous quote where words fail, music speaks, or we all know how we go to music to change our moods or maybe elicit a certain mood that we’re working for. But okay, so consider now that a music therapist who is a trained musician with trained therapeutic skills holding at least a four year degree with 1200 hours of clinical supervision, is working with you to specifically witness and help guide you in maximizing on those experiences. So you can listen to music on your own, of course, which is super valuable and you can be intentional about it too. But you could work with a music therapist that can help really maximize on what’s possible because of music and because of how it interacts with us as humans, both from a physical, emotional neuroplastic capacity and all these other ways that we learn about in school and how we’re trained to integrate it.

(26:15):
So that’s just one way, the fact that you have a professional that can work with you. On Thursday afternoons, I facilitate a women’s mental health drumming group. So thinking about the physical act of drumming is one way that music is different than other types of things because you’re actually making music. And the cool thing about music therapy is we designed the experiences that don’t require you to be a musician to be successful in engaging in. The drum group was started when a community member approached me with a request for a fun creative space for women to come with mental health challenges, and they were specifically interested in drumming related to PTSD. I was like, okay, we can do that. And I love that the community was initiating that.

(27:00):
There’s just such a history of I’m a faculty member, I do this thing, let me invite the community here. But this was a neat opportunity to have the community as the key stakeholder from the very beginning of the services we were going to offer. So this made a lot of sense, especially in respect to what we know about how trauma is stored in our brain. So often when someone is in their trauma, their reasoning or their thinking brain, your prefrontal cortex is not as accessible if at all. Therefore, something like drumming is more able to meet them. If you’re in your trauma, your sympathetic nervous system is really activated. So that fight, flight, freeze system. And so you’re physically experiencing something, it’s a somatic sensory experience.

Beren Goguen (27:47):
It’s not just your mind that’s going through that…

Dr. Jess Rushing (27:49):
Yeah, and maybe you’re not even able to think about why it’s happening or let me give myself a personal insight about it. Right now, body’s not experiencing that. So something physical drumming can address where you’re at right now or can help you access more insights and ways of thinking about things when it wasn’t as accessible before. For example, one of the things that I was talking with some of the members about what’s important about this group? What are some of the mechanisms that help it be? And one of ’em said the physical act of being in the room with people in a non-cognitive based way. So sometimes we’re just drumming. Sometimes we do talk. In fact, we extended the group by 15 minutes recently because we didn’t want to sacrifice any of the music making, but we wanted more time for processing and being with each other in that way.

Beren Goguen (28:39):
So it goes to the way when you’re with people in a social situation and you’re trying to think of what to say, and you have all these sort of socialisms that you have to be aware of, when you take that out of the equation and just focus on the music, people can be a little different.

Dr. Jess Rushing (28:55):
Yeah, absolutely. In fact, that’s some of the findings from the research is that in doing these drumming experiences, social resilience is improved as well as connection and things like that. And we focus on that a fair amount in order to be catalyst for maybe challenging ways that you think about your environment and your relation dynamics that are impacted by trauma or other things that have happened to you by creating this safe space where you can be, as they have said, your authentic self. One of the things I think that indicates that the group is valuable is when people come, even when they didn’t feel like doing anything or they’re in a bad place or they’re not feeling great, and they’re like, well, I know I’m not feeling great, but I can come to the group and it doesn’t matter.

Beren Goguen (29:44):
Right. Yeah, that’s important.

Dr. Jess Rushing (29:46):
And they don’t have to say anything. They can be making music with other people or they do. Sometimes they do. They’ll also stay stuff like, none of my friends know what I’ve been through, but I share it here.

Beren Goguen (29:56):
Support groups can be an incredible tool for people who are struggling with things like that.

Dr. Jess Rushing (30:01):
So why is the music the thing, is it can come at it when you don’t necessarily have words to describe it or it can open up a space where you feel more able to access it.

Beren Goguen (30:13):
I’ve done a little bit of drumming and I can say from personal experience that the physicality of it is kind of disinhibiting or you can kind of free yourself a little bit to just kind of express yourself through that music and it’s not the same as talking about something.

Dr. Jess Rushing (30:33):
Yeah, definitely.

Beren Goguen (30:34):
So I can see how that could be therapeutic.

Dr. Jess Rushing (30:37):
I guess a couple other things I wanted to bring up. Silverman talks about this third to first person phenomena and things like lyric analysis, which is one of the things we do in music therapy. We’ll take a song and maybe it’s one you liked or maybe it’s one we think speaks to you, what you’re experiencing, and we’ll talk about the narrator, either the character in the song or the artist of the song or something as the third person. But what happens is people often respond in first person, so there’s a shift and they’re able to, well, we’re talking about the song, but suddenly we’re talking about you and what you’re experiencing, and you have a way to connect those dots.

Beren Goguen (31:13):
Right. It’s using that as almost like a lens to take a different approach or an angle.

Dr. Jess Rushing (31:20):
So that’s a different than, hey, tell me about your problems. Like, hey, let’s look at the lyrics of this song. Which ones stand out to you? What might be something that people relate to?

Beren Goguen (31:31):
So I imagine people who are a little apprehensive about traditional therapy might be more open to something like this or get more out of it.

Dr. Jess Rushing (31:39):
Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite stories was a mother who during covid, got put on the hospital unit pre-labor for a potential emergent labor situation. So they had to just monitor her until the baby was born, and she got referred to music therapy, and we did telehealth for a couple of weeks during Covid, and she was worried about being anxious and depressed, maybe worried about postpartum depression. And she expressed that she wanted to connect with art, some things that she had done before that she had lost. So we did some music with her and we curated the music list and she was in charge of the art. And then we used our sessions to process what it was like for her. And so she got in touch with this coping skill that she hadn’t access the way she had before. And then she was also concerned about when she had the baby, how do I keep my mood up? What about breastfeeding in the middle of the night? I am really struggling with that. So we made some different playlists with her in collaboration with her, and she used them and at the end of our, I don’t know, eight weeks or 10 weeks together, I can’t remember how long it was, she said to me, I’m so glad I did this. I didn’t want to have to go to therapy. Like, oh, well, I’m not going to tell you this, but you’ve been in therapy for

(32:57):
A couple months with me, but I’m glad you feel that way. I am glad you feel like you were able to overcome these challenges. And…

Beren Goguen (33:03):
Yeah, I can see how that would be more accessible and comfortable. And music is such an important piece of everyone’s lives. Maybe not everyone, but many people listen to music to relax or to unwind or to concentrate. It has so many applications, so it makes sense that it could be applied as a therapeutic tool. So how has the practice really evolved in the last few decades, would you say?

Dr. Jess Rushing (33:28):
Well, since the first formal degree program, we now have up through a doctorate in music therapy, which you can get at CSU, and some other things that have changed are the amount of research available to support what we do with evidence-based practice being one of the tenets, one of the definitions of music therapy. So we do go to the literature to know what is the most effective way to approach people and spend our time together.

Beren Goguen (33:56):
Yeah, I imagine the neuroscience aspect is relatively new as well?

Dr. Jess Rushing (34:00):
Right. So also the evolution of technology and things like neuroimaging and can we get at some of the whys, we have all these amazing stories, how does it work? What does happening in the brain? And there’s definitely more science available to literally show anatomical changes in communication centers following extended music therapy intervention or increased dopamine release in areas of the brain related to mood. And…

Beren Goguen (34:29):
So when people are having trouble with mental health or with the chemicals in their brain and things like that, this can help?

Dr. Jess Rushing (34:36):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we’re all looking for some dopamine, right? Familiar music. Music you like is pleasing, it’s motivating. Making music with other people is a unique experience that you can’t find in another capacity. So some of our job as music therapists is to create these experience that people can be really successful in and then help them transfer whatever they might be gaining in them outside of music therapy. Like in the drumming group, what are you accessing now that you want to take with you? Or how are you seeing relational dynamics change or how are you connecting with people differently? Getting back to your first question, why music? Music is processed all over the brain, which also makes it really hard to study.

(35:22):
If you think about, there’s so many different elements and pieces of music that go into making the experience that happens. There’s the lyrics, there’s the melody, there’s the rhythm, there’s the structure of the tune or the piece of music, there’s how it returns. There’s a consonance and dissonance. And so your brain is taking all this information in and it’s bouncing around all different areas. And some of them are also areas that you use for moving and speaking and having emotions and making memories. So music accesses all these areas, sometimes simultaneously. So there’s a lot happening when you’re interacting with music. And then playing music is a whole nother element. And then playing it with people where you’re also interacting.

Beren Goguen (36:07):
So the social aspect?

Dr. Jess Rushing (36:09):
Mhmm. So it also makes it really hard for us to research because as soon as you remove a piece of what makes the music, the music that you’re doing, you’ve removed a piece of it. So that also is helpful in ways, for example, some of the highest level of evidence is related to gait training, interventions in music therapy.

Beren Goguen (36:28):
What’s that?

Dr. Jess Rushing (36:29):
So gait being your walk pattern, which is really a very rhythmic movement that we do as humans. You take a step, you take another step, we can use rhythm to entrain your gait pattern. So entrainment is two, moving bodies synchronizing. So why do you know how to dance at a club? Even if you don’t think you’re a good dancer, your body can move to the beat of the music. You can utilize that by helping shape your gait pattern because it’s very rhythmic and because we can measure your stride length and how fast you’re walking and what it takes from right heel to right heel, and we can apply rhythm to it, we can isolate that element of music rhythm and demonstrate its impact. Although there’s research now showing that, yeah, that works even if you’re just using a metronome, but it works a little better if we add your music that you like.

Beren Goguen (37:22):
So on the gait therapy, would that be used for rehabilitation of someone who has had an injury of some kind or maybe a stroke or something like that?

Dr. Jess Rushing (37:31):
Stroke, Parkinson’s are some of the populations it’s been researched with.

Beren Goguen (37:35):
Actually I watched a film years ago with Robert De Niro, you’ve probably heard of it. I want to say he was the one that had a stroke and was essentially receiving music therapy.

Dr. Jess Rushing (37:47):
I don’t know if I’ve seen this, but I feel like I should definitely go do that.

Beren Goguen (37:50):
It’s a really interesting movie. It came out a while ago. The movie is about music therapy for someone who’s had a stroke, but also so many other things. There was the whole dynamic of an older man who has certain thoughts and views receiving therapy for this very debilitating issue from someone who he probably would not associate with normally, but ends up being helped by it and sort of changed his views. Flawless 1999, Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Dr. Jess Rushing (38:23):
Okay,

Beren Goguen (38:24):
Definitely check it out. Let me know what you think. But I know you work with people who have suffered strokes specifically or have done research on that as someone who’s had a family member who has had a stroke and seen how difficult that can be firsthand and the therapy can be really challenging. Can you tell us a little bit about how music helps with that?

Dr. Jess Rushing (38:44):
Yeah, there are of course a lot of functional applications. For example, movement in upper extremities when that’s a stroke has resulted in weakness. Same thing with walking. There’s also some research around communication, specifically when someone presents with aphasia and they know what they want to say, but they can’t say it. And it’s, it’s not so much a motor problem as a cognitive thing that’s happening in this particular setting you can often sing when you can’t speak.

Beren Goguen (39:19):
Really?

Dr. Jess Rushing (39:20):
Pretty amazing, and you can train functional phrases. It takes a lot, lots and lots of repetition and ongoing things to get it to other levels, but it certainly can stimulate and spark. And that’s one of the ways that music functions in the brain is you can prime and stimulate speech and movement because of how our brain is wired between auditory and motor pathways and auditory and language pathways. And then you can build on the language capacity. So those are some of the functional ways that music, like if movement patterns, if you are trying to move in a certain way that became more challenging or is weak or you’re working on strengthening endurance because of repercussions of the stroke, I can design music in real time while you’re doing it to help with motivation, to help with endurance, to help with range of motion. So getting a little bit further, doing it five times instead of one or doing it 20 times instead of five, and you forget that you’re doing it because we’re playing your favorite jam. And I’ve set up instruments as book markers to the ends of the movement that you’re supposed to be doing. And suddenly you’re saying things like, she knew all the songs I liked, but then she made me use my weak arm. It was good.

Beren Goguen (40:33):
That’s really interesting. So the music in a way is helping not overfocus on the problem or helping you get your mind around some of the roadblocks in a way?

Dr. Jess Rushing (40:42):
Sure, yeah. And I think one of the biggest elements is that we focus on you as a person and what do you value? And making, so one of the principles of neuroplasticity and rehabilitation is it has to be salient for you to care, it has to be meaningful for you. And that’s one of the ways music can just step right in. If I can do something that’s meaningful to you, you’re going to be more engaged in your rehab process. And I’m going to talk to the other therapist and be like, okay, what’s possible here? What can we work towards from a functional capacity? But my research was more on the mood side of things. So I wanted to know if given music therapy while you’re in the hospital following your stroke, could it improve your mood with the ultimate goal of trying to look at post-stroke depression because a third of folks who’ve had a stroke develop depression, understandably.

(41:28):
So if we could intervene early on in the process, could it help mitigate it down the road or could it help you engage more? It did significantly improve people’s mood while in the hospital. And then so the bigger question is how do you do that? Because mood is so individualized. It’s not like gait where I say walk this many times, walk this far. So part of my research that I hope to get out is the clinical decision making process as a music therapist, how do you know what to do? Can you match your options of music experiences and therapeutic strategies to how engaged someone is, how aroused they are, how salient what you’re doing is to them?

Beren Goguen (42:06):
Right, it makes so much sense. Having been in a hospital, in a hospital environment, it’s a clinical and sterile and they have the instruments to heal, but the environment is so lacking and is depressing. So things like music and making it more human and comforting, I imagine can have a huge impact on people, especially someone struggling with a severe problem like a stroke or an injury. And the human component of having a person interacting with you and having more of a live music as opposed to just bringing in a bluetooth speaker. It’s better than nothing, but having that interaction and being engaged and involved in the process of the music, I imagine has much greater impact?

Dr. Jess Rushing (42:47):
And there’s a bit of research talking about that, the impact of music therapy being greater than music medicine, which would be other, like you said, not to discredit other ways to access music, which I think is really important to think about how music can be a health resource in a really broad sense.

Beren Goguen (43:02):
Some music is better than none, but if you can get that next level, it can have more of an effect maybe?

Dr. Jess Rushing (43:08):
One of the fellows in my dissertation work who had had a stroke and I went and visited with the goal of my intervention was active music therapy. So the point being that in some capacity you engaged either with the music or in moving to the music or in some other engaged way as opposed to passively receiving it, which has its place as well. But given that everyone was going towards rehab, and we know that engaging in rehab is really important. So this fellow, he was really into old country music and I knew a bunch of that because we were in Kentucky, so we just sang songs and I sang songs and we talked about stuff that he was into, or he seemed pretty okay with what was happening for him and he had a support system and knew what he had to do in rehab. But when I got the research comments back about where we asked him to comment on his experience, he said that it made him feel important, and I wouldn’t have captured that on a scale.

Beren Goguen (44:04):
Are there any community resources that you want to mention or that people could look to, particularly people living in Colorado who might want to start something like the drum group that you mentioned or live in an area that doesn’t have a lot of resources in terms of this type of therapy?

Dr. Jess Rushing (44:22):
That’s a good question. I can tell you about the resources here at CSU and then if someone outside in an area where maybe there’s not a music therapist wants to talk, we’d be more than happy to find out one, is there a music therapist in their area or two, what is available to them? And three, what are they interested in? And is there an avenue for that?

Beren Goguen (44:43):
Where should people reach out?

Dr. Jess Rushing (44:45):
musictherapy@coloradostate.edu, CSU Music Therapy is the email

Beren Goguen (44:51):
csumusictherapy

Dr. Jess Rushing (44:51):
@colostate.edu.

Beren Goguen (44:55):
colo state. Okay, cool.

Dr. Jess Rushing (44:56):
Yeah, and we do have several programs running out of our area that people are able to be a part of if they’d like to. For example, my women’s mental health drumming group is open to all ages and we start a new registration every semester if anyone is interested in doing it, or seeing what it’s all about. And then there are some movement groups and some singing groups, a community choir run by one of the other local music therapists. I think there’s more information on almost all of these on our CSU clinic page.

Beren Goguen (45:25):
Thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Jess Rushing (45:27):
You’re welcome. It was great to talk with you.

Beren Goguen (45:30):
Yeah, same.