Music Therapy Helps Adolescents in Grieving the Loss of a Loved One

The death of a loved one can be a profound experience. Adults, adolescents and children all mourn and grieve in different ways. For adolescents, the challenges can be quite significant as the death of a loved one often results in feeling as if they have lost control over their environment; a task they seek to achieve daily.

For a teenager who is mourning the loss of a loved one, it is important to seek out the appropriate support from other family members, friends, support groups and even service through psychotherapy. In terms of mental health services, there are a variety of options available to teenagers with music therapy providing a great avenue in which teens can express and embrace their grief.

A specific type of music therapy is making great strides in assisting teenagers with the grief process. Using the five stages of grief, teens are provided the support and guidance to move through these stages using a therapy that is based upon their own song-writing experience. The five stages of the grieving process involving a level of understanding, feeling the loss, remembering the loved one, integrating the loss into their lives and then growing from the experience.

As the music therapy progresses, each teenager is encouraged to create lyrics that engage these emotions into a five piece song. In some cases, lyrics are not put to music while, in other cases, music is all the teenager may want to use in expressing grief. Incorporating a support group of other teenagers who are also moving through the music therapy grief process allows the teenager to connect socially with those in their same age group who may be feeling the same emotions. Working as a group, teens often incorporate music and lyrics together, creating unique songs dedicated to one lost individual, or a song that incorporates thoughts for everyone's loved one.