Preparing Clients for Music During Medicine Sessions

Music selected for a Medicine Session should be culturally appropriate with attention to cross-generational awareness.

For these reasons during the preparatory period, health professionals are encouraged to ask clients about their musical preferences and any strong associations that they have to particular forms of music.

In general, health professionals are recommended to avoid:

  • Music that the client may be familiar with as to avoid unknown, unwanted, or undesirable associations

  • Participants self-selecting music because it may result in any of the concerns with the associations mentioned above and/or be used as a potential mechanism of defense or distraction

  • Songs that contain lyrics in a familiar language to the client

Where possible, health professionals should make every effort to accommodate a client’s musical preferences.

Curating Content

There are different options for curating your musical content during Medicine Sessions. At Numinus, health professionals use a platform called Wavepaths to curate the music for clients. The Imperial College of London and John Hopkins have also created playlists on Spotify for psychedelic Medicine Sessions.

To learn more about WavePaths and the psychedelic playlists on Spotify, please ensure that you read through all tabs before proceeding.

Video: WavePaths–Experience as Medicine

4:41

Watch this brief video to learn about how WavePaths came to be and some of the interesting features and research which has been published as a result.

Wavepaths has worked with user experience designers, musicians, and experts in the field of psychotherapy and neuroscience to create therapeutic music experiences for users with or without medicines such as Ketamine, MDMA, or Psilocybin.

Wavepaths allows health professionals to customize the music for their sessions using a variety of therapeutic templates, musical preferences, as well as musical atmospheres targeting different emotionality. Examples of available musical atmospheres include:

  • Dissonant and tense

  • Bright and uplifting

  • Still and peaceful

  • Deep and dreamy

  • Moving and bittersweet

Wavepaths sessions can be planned in advance, but also allow health professionals to manually shift musical atmospheres in real time in the session if the music ends up being poorly matched with the client’s internal experience and therapeutic needs.

John Hopkins

John Hopkins created a playlist for psilocybin-assisted therapy. Take a look below.

Imperial College of London

The Imperial College of London also created a playlist for psilocybin-assisted therapy. Have a listen and see how it compares to the John Hopkins playlist.

Activity

Please find a comfortable space either lying on your bed, couch, or on the floor floor with a blanket and eye shades. Using headphones if possible, mindfully listen to at least 15-minutes of one of the psychedelic playlists mentioned above. Reflect on the impact that the music has on you as well as any resistance or dissonance that you feel.

Consider sharing your reflection on Flip with your fellow learners.

What Clients Can Expect

Below are some aspects of incorporating music into the Medicine Session that you can share with clients.

Please ensure that you read through all items before proceeding by selecting each title.

A client should be provided with the option to use eye shades, headphones, and a pre-selected program of music using one of the platforms described already.

Music should also simultaneously be played ambiently in the psychedelic treatment room. This serves two primary functions:

Function 1

To help the health professional(s) remain attuned and engaged with the client’s process.

Function 2

To allow for a seamless transition between wearing and removing headphones (if used).

The main function of the music is to provide a source of non-verbal direction that will allow the clients to become immersed. An immersion that ideally will allow all psychedelic-assisted therapy clients to have their experience unfold as a “journey” that is rich with therapeutically meaningful thoughts, emotionality, and imagery therefore becoming a source of implicit learning experiences for the client (Grob & Grigsby, 2021).

Health professionals are encouraged to discuss the music that will be offered in the Medicine Sessions during the Preparation Sessions in order to optimize the client’s attitude of openness to the music played which ultimately correlates with positive therapy outcomes (Kaelen et al., 2018).

Health Professional Tip

If time permits during Preparation Sessions, health professionals may engage in music listening exercises, such as inviting the client to deeply focus on listening to a piece of music with eye shades while encouraging full immersion into the music (fully experiencing all sensations it evokes). During these exercises, clients should be curious and proactively engaged with the internal experience beyond liking or disliking of the music.

Reflection

Think about what types of music evoke emotion for you.

In general, clients should be told that they are welcome to ask for periods of silence or for a change in music if a piece is distracting or doesn’t fit well with their process. However, they should be discouraged from devoting ongoing attention to managing the music.

References

Grob, C. S., & Grigsby, J. (2021). Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens. Guilford Publications.

Kaelen, M., Giribaldi, B., Raine, J., Evans, L., Timmerman, C., Rodriguez, N., Roseman, L., Feilding, A., Nutt, D., and Carhart-Harris, R. (2018). The hidden therapist: evidence for a central role of music in psychedelic therapy. Psychopharmacology, 235(2), 505-519. doi: 10.1007/s00213-017-4820-5.