There was a sense of anticipation, joy and excitement at the recently concluded music festival, ‘Sambhrama-2007.’
Organised by the BTM Cultural Academy and ‘Avishkar’ – a wing of Diwakar’s Service Trust, the festival drew a huge response from music lovers across the City. The music therapy workshop by Prof Joseph J Moreno, at the festival, was popular with the people.
Says Prof Joseph J Moreno, Director Moreno Institute for the Creative Arts Therapies and Professor Emeritus, Mary Ville University – St. Louis “Group therapy through music and psychodrama have got different goals for different diseases and disorders.
“Even the blind who are depressed due to their disability have responded favourably to rhythms of percussion notes,” reasons Dr Moreno who has travelled across fifty countries and has been teaching music as a form of healing for more than three decades.
He says in the West, couples with relationship problems, students with depressive disorders and suicidal tendencies have opened up and revealed their dilemmas once they started participating in music therapy sessions.
According to Dr Moreno, music therapy has helped physically challenged children develop social skills and the therapy acts as a stress buster too.
“Even those who cannot understand music, is capable of feeling the benefits of the therapy, since expressive words through songs have the potential to change the perception of a person from melancholy to a happy state of mind!” Similarly music therapy helps those suffering from different types of pain-syndromes get over their negative symptoms. Says Dr. Hema Diwakar of ‘Avishkar’, “India has a rich heritage of music. We need to ‘scientifically validate’ the therapeutic effects of music, by co-ordinating music therapy with various forms of medical treatment. ‘Audio analgesia’ is one such established response from patients. Whenever a patient, either in the operation theatre or in the post operative wards is advised to listen to low-tone music, pain management has always been successful!” Hence the music-mantra is “forget your malady through melody!”
For details contact, 314-361-5515 - fax (St Louis, USA); joem@maryville.edu. For information: www.morenoinnermusic.com
