Miss Mei Lyn Woon1
1Registered Music Therapist, Perth, Australia
Biography:
Mei Lyn Woon is a Registered Music Therapist based in Perth, WA who works across the lifespan in the community. Mei Lyn specialises in working with adults and older adults, with a focus on using music-centered approaches to support the individuals she works with. Mei Lyn set up Kalgoorlie's first music therapy program supporting early childhood and adolescents, and is committed to transforming the healthcare space with her versatile musical background and expertise in multidisciplinary collaboration with allied health clinicians.
Abstract:
Within music therapy, music is understood as the primary therapeutic means through which music therapists support individuals to address their health and wellbeing. This may be an obvious case when considering other allied health disciplines – physiotherapy supports and restores physical function and speech therapy addresses communication and language. Yet, what does music therapy belong to?
Music-Centred Music Therapy (MCMT) recognises music as its own domain of health, championing approaches that are inherently collaborative, relational and strengths-based. With the evolution of innovative approaches and considerations in healthcare, research on MCMT poses notions of music as an important part of our health, whereby the musical experience equates to the clinical experience, and the expression of music resembles the expression of health (Carpente & Aigen, 2019). This presentation details the components of MCMT, and cases from individual music therapy sessions drawing from MCMT principles.
This presentation aims to explore how MCMT has been integral to addressing participant goals across three case studies in early childhood, adulthood and aged care. This presentation will also address how MCMT can play a pivotal role in empowering individuals to transform their health and wellbeing journey through a music-centered framework.
Through the facilitation of individualised MCMT programs, the presenter has learned that MCMT can play a key role in supporting participant-centred goals, facilitating valuable therapeutic rapport and supporting individuals to unlock their musical superpowers.