Music for Living: Working with HIV/AIDS

"Outside of music I am a man with AIDS…inside of music, I am just a man."

- Chris S., Participant of Music for Living

Music for Living (MFL) is a specially designed music therapy program for person's living with HIV/AIDS. Music therapists specializing in MFL come from diverse backgrounds of music therapy education and training, focusing on people living with HIV/AIDS. MFL is aimed at helping participants achieve the highest quality of life possible. Participants create social networking system through interactive, live music making, finding both social and spiritual support by meeting together for a creative purpose. Participants in our MFL program meet individually or within a group dynamic, using improvised or popular music to express pain, joy, frustration, anger, etc. The therapist uses the music as a unique medium for non-threatening expression, and involves all members of the group in supporting one another musically as well as emotionally.

Our program focuses on five major areas, including:

1. Physical - to promote muscle relaxation, alter the perception of pain, and help break the cycle of chronic pain by relieving anxiety and depression.
2. Psychological - to reinforce identity and self-concept, ease anxiety and lessen depression, reinforce reality, and provide a non-verbal means of expressing a broad range of recognized and unconscious feelings.
3. Social - to enable the client to find socially acceptable means of self-expression, develop a sense of community with members and others, establish links to his/her life before the illness, and have an opportunity for group participation.
4. Spiritual - to provide a means of expressing spiritual feelings, provide comfort and reassurance and provide an avenue for expressing doubts, anger, fear, and for questioning the ultimate meaning of life and death.
5. Creative relationship - to provide a continuing sense of mutuality and togetherness throughout the co-creative experience