Welcome from the Director

Hello! It is an honor to welcome you to the Music Therapy program at Temple University. Within the program, we have the undergraduate degree where the primary focus is the clinical application of music therapy; the master’s degree, where therapists begin to look at more in-depth clinical practice and various research tools that support the efficacy of music therapy; and the first true doctoral degree in Music Therapy in the United States, where the focus is on education, research and theory development related to music therapy. Having this variation in educational opportunities makes the Temple experience a truly rich one for our students. 

Boyer’s Music Therapy faculty are nationally and internationally known for their expertise in such areas as: Pediatric and Neonatal work including NICU, Neurological Rehabilitation (including NMT), Assessment, Psychiatry, Trauma, Developmental disorders, Guided Imagery and Music, Pediatric work, Mindfulness and other alternative medicine practices.

Music Therapy students are provided opportunities to develop their music skills on their respective instruments while also gaining new skills on piano, guitar and voice, which are used most often in clinical environments. Students learn how to use music in various clinical settings with many different populations. At the same time our students explore music therapy in depth, as a discipline and as a therapy designed to effect change in persons with special needs, both in lecture and experiential formats. 

To maintain a connection with music therapy at Temple and in the region, our students have an active Music Therapy Club, which provides opportunities for them to collaborate on  community projects and to be active in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), presenting at conferences, working with students from other universities in the region and providing group projects to community sites.  Temple students often serve as elected officers for the region’s student organization.

Along with academic coursework, students in music therapy take fieldwork classes. The fieldwork courses provide opportunities to work directly with clients, while under the supervision of both the site music therapist and the Temple academic supervisor. Great care is taken to help the student apply what is learned in the classroom to clinical situations. Following academic and fieldwork courses, students move into Clinical Training. During this 6-month (1,000 hour) phase, students learn to assume the complete range of professional responsibilities of a music therapist. Students receive close and continuous supervision from qualified music therapists on-site and attend weekly academic supervision.  Upon completion of academic coursework, fieldwork and clinical training, students are eligible to sit for the national examination offered by the Certification Board for Music Therapists (CBMT), and become Music Therapist-Board Certified (MT-BC).

I encourage you to examine all three of our programs and learn more about music therapy at Temple.

Warmest Regards,
Darlene Brooks