How can music support reflexive practice for therapists and clinicians?

If you're a therapist, clinician or service provider who is new to the idea that music can support your clinical practice, you may be wondering how on earth it works?

Perhaps it makes sense to you - you know that music can make you feel good, that it supports you, or gives you energy in various ways at different times - but you're unsure of how to put this in a frame that might be intentionally helpful.

In many ways music is one of our first languages.

Human beings have been coming together through music to communicate, share, celebrate, mourn, connect, heal, rest, express, unite and worship since our hearts have been beating.

As discussed here, science shows us that music impacts our physiology, psychology, social connections and spirit in many ways.

Music helps us to go underneath thinking, to step outside of rational thought and words to connect with what lays beneath in the world of feelings, intuition, felt sense and other ways of knowing and being.

What is reflexive practice?

If reflective practice invites us to reflect upon past experiences to gain insight, reflexive practice invites us to deepen into this process.

As South African music therapist, Andeline dos Santos states:

'Reflexivity calls us to be in contact with the whole of who we are as we look inward, outward, and as others look at us. We work on any particular study as part of our broader life story as researchers, music therapists, and human beings'.

How can music be a reflexive practice support for clinicians and therapists?

Music is a wonderful container: it is time-based, with a beginning, a middle and an end, and as such, offers a naturally defined holding space.

As we know, most therapists and clinicians struggle to prioritise their own needs, due, in part, to lack of time, difficulties in reaching out for help, lack of systemic support and general exhaustion and overwhelm.

Music however offers a controlled, time-specific pocket of support: you can choose to listen to music for 1 minute or 1 hour.

Once we have our moment of time locked in, from here we can select our focus or need.

One way of conceptualising music as a resource for clinician wellbeing and reflexive practice, is through Cathy Malchiodi's 'Four Functions of Expressive Arts Therapy', articulated below:

1. Self‑Regulation

Expressive arts therapy engages the body directly through rhythm, movement, sound, and imagery, to calm the nervous system, soothe emotions, and bring physiological stability.

2. Co‑Regulation

Through interactions and/or group engagement (for example mirroring, synchrony, shared rhythm), expressive arts therapy fosters a sense of connection, attunement and relational support.

3. Exploration

Once regulation and connection are established, expressive arts methods (such as improvisation, role-play, imagery, story-making) invite creative exploration, helping uncover new insights, meaning, and emotional expression beyond what words alone can reach.

4. Restoration

The final aim is to support healing, integration, and renewal of the self. Through creativity, we can regain emotional balance and rebuild a cohesive sense of identity and well-being.

Music offers a container and holding space for each of these steps or functions.

From our musical holding space we can connect, explore, restore and find clarity.

This is a practice that we can undertake by in our own reflexive practice or in clinical supervision.

If you would like to explore this approach further, you might like to join one of our Creative Embodied Supervision Groups, either online or face to face in the new Hobart Group Supervision Collective.

Feel free to reach out if you'd like to know more, or see the links below.