Music Therapy as an Integrative and Complimentary Treatment for Sub- stance Abuse Withdrawal Symptoms

Substance abuse withdrawal symptoms are often precipitants of relapse. Music therapy is a complementary and integrative psychosocial treatment modality that is often used in substance abuse rehabilitation settings. The purpose of this chapter is to orient readers to music therapy as a complimentary and integrative treatment and briefly summarize music therapy studies targeting substance abuse withdrawal. To date, three randomized controlled studies measuring the impact of music therapy on craving and withdrawal exist. Although results of all three studies did not reach statistical significance, there tended to be between-group mean differences supporting lyric analysis interventions within the temporal limitations of singlesession music therapy that is common on detoxification units. As existing published literature indicates that music therapy may function as a non-pharmacological treatment intervention to target traditional addiction-related dependent measures including motivation, emotional expression, and change, music therapy may also function concurrently as a psychosocial treatment to impact substance abuse withdrawal symptoms in adult detoxification settings.