Music and art are increasingly being used as tools for therapy for high school students who have faced trauma — from sexual abuse to homelessness — and have been proven to help students cope, both physically and psychologically.

Studies have shown that participating in music and art can alleviate pain, help people manage stress, promote wellness, enhance memory, improve communications, aide physical rehabilitation, and give people a way to express their feelings.

“We have a lot of kids who come from really traumatic backgrounds… and some days it’s just trying to keep them from fighting one another,” said Katie Meyers, a clinician at Levine School of Music and an associate professor at Howard University in Washington. “The really cool thing about music therapy, for me, is that students relate to music and enjoy music. I’ve seen that keep really dangerous things from happening or escalating.” 

Larry Owens became addicted to drugs during his troubled teens in Baltimore and was sentenced to prison for murder. He started drawing to get over Motown star Tammi Terrell's death in 1970 and hasn't stopped since.
Music therapy seems to work very well with those suffering from mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety. It’s often used in therapy with patients on the autism spectrum, and in physical rehabilitation for people who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson or Alzheimer’s.

Music has the same effect on the brain as the smell of lavender and chamomile, which produce “feel-good” chemicals like dopamine. A 2011 study conducted by researchers from McGill University in Montreal found that music plays a significant role in causing a good mood. It showed that dopamine levels were 9% higher in participants who had listened to music they enjoyed. 


“There’s a lot of research that shows the relationship between music and its ability to alter moods,” said Meyers. 

But spending in public schools on arts and music education has been flat for a decade, particularly in low-income schools. In fact, 40% of secondary public schools didn’t require the study of arts or music for graduation in the 2009-10 school year, according to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the Department of Education. 


What makes things worse is the “equity gap." Within the school system there are “high-poverty” and “low-poverty” schools, the study found. Higher poverty schools have even less funding than the low poverty — or wealthier — schools. 

“I definitely think there’s a stigma against therapy," Baltimore high school art teacher Kristen Yoder says of the African American community her students come from.  "Trauma becomes normalized, especially these tremendous traumas and there's not always a recognition of a need to process it."

Portrait of former Renaissance Academy student Jenelda Artis by an art therapist for the school's "Breaking Frames" art show.
Students will say, "'I’m not crazy and I don’t need therapy,'" she says.

Art is "a special way for the kids to get some of the release," says Yoder who teaches at Renaissance Academy. "The more tools you give kids to express themselves, the more equipped they'll be to handle stuff their way."

How Music, Art Helps
Larry Owens of Baltimore was recently released from prison after 40 years for murder. But while in prison, he learned the importance of the arts for helping cope with trauma. Shy and reserved, he discovered a talent he never knew he had: drawing and painting.

One of the paintings Larry Owens was selling at a Baltimore flea market stall. He starting to paint and draw to deal with what was once a life sentence in prison.
Art “kept me away from people I didn't like," he said. "My mouth can say things real nasty 
when I get tired of someone, but when I'm drawing, threaten me all you want." 

“That's all I did all day long. Out in the yard. In the art room. Or drawing in my cell.”

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Owens didn't even know he could draw until the sudden death of Motown singer Tammi Terrell in 1970. Distraught, he began to draw the beautiful young singer and has been drawing ever since. 


Owens' childhood friend, Donald Shakir, was convicted of murder at the same time as Owens and found his peace in prison through Motown too. But he used a singing voice so beautiful it's hard to imagine cellmates were ever bothered by it. But there were plenty who demanded he stop. 

The songs that soothed him brought back too many painful memories for others who would demand he stop singing. 

Donald Shakir used to sing to cope with being in prison, but even his near-perfect Motown covers were too painful for some other inmates to hear.
Shakir believes everyone who came out of prison needs therapy, including him. He'll sing as he walks all over Baltimore and while he walks around the Patapsco flea market where Owens sells his artwork on the weekends.  

“We brought too much excess baggage out of prison to say we don't need it," says Shakir.  

Owens, on the hand, prefers simply art to therapy. 

A therapist, he says, “can not tell me what I'm thinking and feeling inside."

The Levine school has five people who are certified in music therapy, and the focus is on using music to help traumatized students. A certified music therapist is like an occupational or physical therapist: They are trained to use music to help people get better, says Rhonda Buckley, the school's head of campuses and strategic development. Students play instruments, write songs, play instruments together or just listen to and discuss music in more formal music therapy sessions.

Buckley, a saxophonist who founded a Washington arts center for disadvantaged children in 2000, sees music as a good way for people of all ages to cope with trauma and stress. Creative outlets are about “focus” and concentrating on arts shifts a person’s thinking away from the trauma they experienced.

“Music can address the issues we face with homelessness, abuses,” she said.

But just listening to music or playing it helps, she said. You don’t need a certified therapist.

Reginal Payne and Marquart Doty are fellows in the Urban Health Media Project, which O'Donnell co-founded.