Music Therapy and Chronic Pain

This Special Interest Group (SIG) on the use of music and music therapy for chronic pain was established through International Association of Music Medicine in 2021. It was set up following discussions between Dr Hilary Moss and PhD researcher Katie Fitzpatrick at the University of Limerick, in consultation with advocacy organisation Chronic Pain Ireland, and international researchers working in the area. 

The focus of this group is to explore and communicate current research on how music and music therapy can assist people living with chronic pain to improve health and well-being. This SIG brings together researchers, clinicians, and people living with chronic pain from the USA, Canada, Ireland, France, and Scotland. The group meets to share current research and issues in the field, to discuss theoretical and methodological issues to be addressed in future studies, and to summarize our collective thoughts in relation to the priority questions for future chronic pain and music therapy research. 

Key values of the group are: 

• Involving service users and other clinicians in every aspect of the SIG 
• An openness to quantitative and qualitative research methods, especially exploring how creativity and arts based research methods can illuminate the experience of chronic pain alongside more traditional mixed method research in this area and 
• Producing practical, helpful recommendations for practice, for both music therapists working in this field and for people living with chronic pain.