Similarities and differences between music therapy and psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy aims to treat emotional and behavioral disorders, which is characterized by a positive doctor-patient relationship between the therapist and the patient. To eliminate, alleviate or control the symptoms of patients, correct their disordered behavior patterns, and promote their positive personality growth and development. Music therapy and general psychotherapy have the same characteristics. Music therapists establish positive doctor-patient relationship with patients, so that patients' emotional and behavioral disorders can be treated. It should be noted that the patients or patients mentioned here actually include ordinary people or normal people with only slight emotional or behavioral disorders, who are also the objects of music therapy.

Of course, music therapy also has its own characteristics. It is different from general psychotherapy, which is obviously reflected in the different treatment methods, but also reflected in the different effects on brain activity. The general means of psychotherapy is language, mainly through conversation, while the means of music therapy is music, mainly through music activities (listening and performance, etc.). According to neurophysiological research, language and music are the functions of different parts of the brain. Therefore, the effect of music on brain is different from that of language, and the effect on brain activity may not be the same.

The physiological basis of human psychological activity is the function of brain. The brain is the advanced center of nerve activity. It consists of two hemispheres, left and right. There is a corpus callosum between the two hemispheres. The cerebral cortex is composed of 14 billion nerve cells, which is an important place for nerve activities. The left and right hemispheres of the brain and different parts of the cerebral cortex have their own functions.

In general, the center of dominant language is in the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere also has the functions of logical thinking, mathematical calculation, analysis and judgment. The dominant musical activity is mainly the function of the right hemisphere, but the left hemisphere also participates in certain activities. Image perception, spatial perception and intuitive thinking are also functions of the right hemisphere. In addition, many emotions and behaviors are controlled by the right hemisphere. A large number of experimental results have proved that language and music melody are the functions of left and right hemispheres respectively. For example, when the sedative is injected into the left carotid artery, the right cerebral hemisphere will lose function for a short time, and the singing tone function will appear obvious obstacle, but the language function will remain; when the sedative is injected into the left common carotid artery, the left cerebral hemisphere will lose function for a short time, and the speech will appear obvious obstacle, but the singing tone function will remain. 。 Generally speaking, music and language are not closely related to brain function. Music activity is the function of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The right hemisphere has some advantages, but the right hemisphere is not as significant as the language function in the left hemisphere. It can be seen that the difference between music therapy and general psychotherapy actually reflects the difference in the effect on the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

The asymmetry of the left and right hemispheres of the brain is an important basis for exploring the principles of psychotherapy and music therapy. General scholars think that consciousness is the function of two hemispheres, but some neurophysiologists think that self-consciousness is the function of the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere is the unconscious hemisphere, and its nerve impulse can only produce conscious activity through the corpus callosum to the left hemisphere. Sperry, a famous American neurophysiologist, thinks that there is another "spirit" in the right hemisphere, but it is difficult to understand because of the lack of expression language. According to the fact that consciousness is divided, it seems that all normal people are a mixture of two people. For example, if a person is unconsciously afraid of others and cannot explain the reason for fear, it is called "unconsciousness". In fact, this is an intuitive thinking activity in the right hemisphere, but it is difficult to describe it in language in the left hemisphere. Music has a direct and obvious influence on the right hemisphere. Compared with the language, the value of music in psychotherapy is more prominent.

Although there are differences between music and language, music and language have the same function. Both of them have the function of communication and can communicate people's inner world. Through this function, patients' emotional and behavioral disorders can be treated. Therefore, although music therapy and general psychotherapy are not the same in terms of means, their goals are the same. It can be considered that music therapy is a special psychotherapy method. Through the connection with the existing psychotherapy theory, the theory of music therapy can be explored.

After understanding the nature of mental health and knowing the way to obtain mental health, music therapists can select appropriate theories according to the patients' situation to judge the significance of the patients' complaints, determine the treatment objectives, combine their own abilities, select the technology to achieve the treatment objectives, and carry out music therapy activities. In the process of treatment, the therapist can also use music therapy theory to find or predict the problems in the treatment, and then find solutions to solve or avoid these problems, so as to correctly evaluate or improve the effect of treatment.