Sounds of Service Military Music Therapy

"I struggle to do what makes me happy but playing with that song makes me feel pure joy and makes me want to live." – Sounds of Service participant

San Diego is home to the largest concentration of military personnel in the United States. Up to 25% of returning troops have depression, and the suicide rate is 1.5 times greater for veterans than for adults who never served in the military, even after adjusting for age and gender (Durkin, 2018). The Department of Defense and the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center estimate that 22% of all combat casualties from recent conflicts are brain injuries, and 60% to 80% of soldiers who have other blast injuries may also have Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (Summerall, 2018).

Resounding Joy offers music therapy at DoD facilities, VA centers, and at the Music Wellness Center for service members, veterans, and their families. Rhythm and music affect multiple areas of the human brain simultaneously, can help build new connections in the brain to improve function, and can effectively treat TBI symptoms. Music therapy participants with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experienced greater reductions in symptoms with music therapy than with cognitive behavioral therapy (Carr et al., 2012). 

Music therapy can also assist in reducing pain perception and increasing coping mechanisms (Colwell, 1997, Mitchell & MacDonald, 2012, Selm, 1991). It can enhance treatment outcomes in functional domains of motor, speech, cognition, social integration, and quality of life for military populations, enhance patient motivation and participation in interdisciplinary care, assist treatment processes from clinic to community, and provide a platform to prevent social isolation by promoting community integration through music performance (Vaudreuil, R. et al. 2018).

Resounding Joy’s evaluations demonstrate mild to significant improvements in a broad number of relevant domains for military clients, and some clients credit the program with dramatically improving (or even saving) their lives. The music therapist measures pre- and post-session pain, anxiety/stress, and mood. So far this year, clients report a 58% decrease in pain, 51% decrease in anxiety/stress, and 27% improvement in mood.