March is Music Therapy Awareness Month and Victoria Hospice is celebrating the healing power of music with the long-awaited return of music therapy on the Inpatient Unit.
Certified Music Therapist Maryann Burrows, MTA, BMT, FAMI joined our interdisciplinary team in December 2022 and her work has already made a big impact, not just with patients but their families, staff, and volunteers.
“In a short time, Maryann has demonstrated how her expertise can bring new opportunities for connection and care to our patients,” says Shelley Tysick, Director of Inpatient Unit and Palliative Response Team. “She offers a chance for patients to bring meaning to their experiences in creative and very profound ways.”
Music therapy is not about sitting at the bedside strumming a guitar, says Maryann. “Our thorough training involves psychology, neuroscience, and counselling. Perhaps a better title is music-centred therapist.”
Music therapists use a variety of strategies and interventions to address goals like reducing fear, anxiety, isolation, or increasing connection to self-identity, relaxation, and comfort. Interventions can include singing, music-assisted relaxation, instrument playing, personalized recordings, and much more.
“I use music as treatment in the same way a nurse would use medications or other techniques specific to their profession,” says Maryann.
Maryann is certified through the Canadian Association of Music Therapists, earned a Fellowship with the Association for Music & Imagery, certifying her as a Bonny Method Guided Imagery & Music Practitioner (a specialized method of Music Psychotherapy), and serves as Vancouver Island’s Regional Representative for the Music Therapy Association of BC.
She has seventeen years of training and experience and her private practice, Embe Music Therapy, has created and implemented music therapy programming for many Island Health affiliate hospitals and long term care facilities.
Music therapy at Victoria Hospice is made possible thanks to support from the CRD Arts Commission, the Music Heals Charitable Foundation, the Hamber Foundation, and our generous donors.