Within These Walls:
Influence of the "Built-Environment" on Therapeutic Music Interventions
October 24, 2009 - Saturday
University of Southern Maine Glickman Library, Portland
(Directions here)
Instructor: Susan B. Wesley, Ph.D., MT-BC
Type of Course: Lecture / Seminar
Course Level: Fundamentals
Length of Course: 1PM - 4PM
This course open to all. Registration required. Seating may be limited so register early. Click HERE for our online registration form.
Abstract:
This presentation will provide an overview of Music Therapy as a helping profession including definitions, settings and populations. Beyond this basic overview, will be a description of seven years of research at a psychiatric acute care hospital in Maine. Music Therapy interventions were selected for individual and group applications for the inpatient children’s unit. Beginning in the fall of 1998, and through the summer of 2005, a series of investigations provided useful insights related to the influence of the unit’s acoustics, patient behavior and specific music interventions used to lower aggressive behavior particularly at the bed-time hour and over night.
Course Instructor:
Susan B. Wesley, Ph.D., is a Board Certified Music Therapist (MT-BC) and maintains a small practice in Psychotherapy, Neurologic Music Therapy and the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music. She is the primary investigator for studies of applications of Music for treatment efficacy at The Acadia Hospital in Bangor, Maine.
Insights to Research:
Dr. Wesley's research is focused on the impact of sound in general and low frequency sound in particular on the full spectrum of human development. The bulk of her studies have been with inpatient children at a psychiatric hospital. During her tenure as a Music Therapist, she has conducted seven projects intent on collecting patient behavioral responses to sound..
Incorporating the Polyvagal Theory originated by Stephen W. Porges; the Theory of Allostasis and Allostaic Regulation of Bruce McEwen; and her own expertise as a trained musician and therapist; she has developed the following formula:
previous trauma + particular elements in the auditory field + vagal system response = Neurologic Noise
From this platform, Dr. Wesley has gone further proposing that attention should be paid to the acoustical environment. This attention is essential for developing successful interventions to reduce stressful responses in the home, workplace, and healthcare settings. She explains that the entire body is "the ear", given the extensive nature of the vagal system. Eighty percent of this cranial nerve's assignment is to be an afferent contributor to the physical body's state. The other twenty percent of the vagal system's job is what the text books describe as the "swallow reflex"; that is it efferent behavior. Such information, coupled with the amount of surface vibration and low-frequency sound that is in the everyday environment (indoors and out), helps clarify a bit more how stressed the body can be positively and negatively in particular settings.
Dr. Wesley suggests that there is urgency for more closely examining:
- home and workplace environments particularly for expectant women;
- home, child care and healthcare settings for infants; and
- home, school and healthcare setting for children.
MMC Course: GF409
Important Note
The Maine Masonic College complies with the Americans With Disabilities Act. If any conference participant is in need of reasonable accommodation, please forward a written request to the College Secretary for consideration at least one month prior to the activity.
The opinions expressed by Instructors and Regents of the Maine Masonic College do not represent an 'official' position of Freemasonry or of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Maine. No one person speaks for Freemasonry. Only the Grand Master can speak for Freemasonry within his own jurisdiction and then only during his term of office.
This page last updated on September 27, 2009
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