We provide veterans with free access to a variety of sound and frequency based music therapy to inspire, nurture and accelerate the return to wellness for veterans with post-traumatic stress and stress related illness. Wounded, Ill and Injured Music Therapy for Veterans (MTFV) is a non-profit organization that was created for charitable and educational purposes in November 2013. MTFV is a comprehe
nsive organization that combines the humanitarian goal of repairing lives to enable veterans to overcome barriers to self-reliance and enhancing their abilities to become economically and socially self-sufficient. MTFV’s mission was established to offer the opportunity for physical, mental and emotional disabilities and who suffer from PTSD, to discover a source of healing, recovery, creativity, and acceptance through the reflective music process. The specific purpose of MTFV is to provide quality music therapy services to veterans with physical, mental and emotional disabilities in acquiring the necessary skills to live purposeful lives as active members of their community. Neurologic Music Therapy uses science-based music techniques to improve cognitive, sensory, and motor function in patients with neurologic diseases such as TBI, stroke, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s. Irrefutable documented evidence confirms if we can create a cohesive personal narrative of our lives and if we can link up our emotions with specific events, then we have the power to take control of how those emotions and events affect our lives through music therapy. From the social and cultural perspective music permeates our society and culture making it familiar and easily accessible for our clients. Thus, our professional music therapist can select and apply appropriate music for effective treatment of our clients that reflects their culture and personal identity. This makes treatment a more personal and individualized experience. This approach reflects a person's preferences which is more normalizing and effective than a traditionally more sterile or generic procedure. This also contributes to making music therapy based treatment often faster and more effective than treatment without music. Additionally, our clients report the treatment is simply more enjoyable. Healing the spirit as well as the body during treatment is old wisdom, "Where the spirit leads the body tends to follow." A full spectrum model of music therapy is offered at Wounded, Ill and Injured Music Therapy for Veterans. We incorporate the wide breadth of music-based interventions, techniques, research, and philosophies to meet the individual needs of our diverse client population. Music therapy is used as a tool to assist in making non-musical gains in order to apply the focus of the patient's music therapy treatment directly to the patient's desired needs, outcomes, and appropriate diagnosis and treatment setting. To achieve this we work with an interdisciplinary model which incorporates medical, psycho-dynamic, person centered, neurological, and biochemical research and philosophies. A core strategy we use is a cognitive/behavioral approach in all our sessions. You may hear the therapist catching the patient being good by using music and verbal praise as reinforcement at a 4 to 1 ratio to help sculpt and shape behavior. You may also hear them discuss psychodynamic principles, such as transference/counter transference or aspects of the iso-principle. Although medicine, hard science, education, neurology and psychology are usually considered separate fields of exploration and treatment, we find that information from each field can often be applied for the benefit of another. Thus, we integrate these fields in our practice to yield new and enhanced benefits for our clients. With all the specialized training and expertise of our staff and advanced research our field has to offer, it would be easy to fall into an expert role. Yet with all the knowledge and training gained from years of clinical practice comes an increased awareness of what we still do not know and a humbleness and gratitude to be able to help and explore further with our clients the potential music and music therapy can help them achieve in their lives. We have an appreciation for the unmeasureable universal power of the human spirit and music therapy's capacity to touch, harness and connect with it. Wii supports in every therapeutic interaction that music is a defining feature of our humanity and gives voice to our deepest and most intimate experiences. Therefore with this respect and understanding we deeply value the power of each therapeutic moment and the persons within it with great awe and care. Wounded, Ill and Injured Music Therapy for Veterans guided music therapy workshops will focus on providing the tools and skills necessary to empower disabled veterans to come to a greater understanding of their individual story. Pennebaker, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, have linked expressing emotions through music with stronger immune systems and higher scores in psychological well-being. In one such study, Dr. Pennebaker concluded that when people write about emotionally difficult events or feelings for just 20 minutes at a time over three or four days, their immune system functioning increases. Dr. Pennebaker’s studies indicate that the release offered by writing has a direct impact on the body’s capacity to withstand stress and fight off infection and disease. With the help of guided music therapists, participants can gently, but powerfully, explore the various aspects of themselves, their lives and their relationships with others. By participating in Wii disabled veterans and caregivers can:
➢ Release tension, frustration, anger and other strong emotions associated with a brain injury or caregiving;
➢ Write through grief, loss, fear and change;
➢ Find support for music from peers;
➢ Clarify goals and celebrate accomplishments involved in the recovery process;
➢ Find positive, healthy ways of coping
Future goals include working with shelters and established transitional homes, as well as partnering with local high schools and recovery facilities and supporting children and youth of returning disable veterans.
