Biography

• BA, music therapy, Loyola University, New Orleans, LA
• MA, independent study counseling, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA

Margaret (Peggy) Tileston is a board-certified music therapist (MT-BC) with additional teaching certificates in Focused Awareness Meditation (CMSll-BC), Yoga, and Laughter Yoga (CLYT). She entered university believing she would study classical guitar with a minor in voice, but after taking a Psychodrama course in her junior year she changed her trajectory to Music Therapy. While finishing her bachelor’s degree, she simultaneously received training and certification in Psychodrama, Sociometry and Group Psychotherapy and Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). She continues to be fascinated by transformative experiences that involve creative modalities and the creative process.

Since 1980, Tileston has served as a clinician with a wide variety of populations, and specializes in music therapy and integrative wellness in the area of mental health and addiction treatment for adolescents and adults. She has worked in schools, hospitals, community clinics, residential treatment centers, and in private practice; while also offering workshops for the general public and training opportunities for healthcare professionals.

Tileston began teaching part time in Temple’s Music Therapy Department in 2013, and quickly developed a passion for teaching. That same year she authored a chapter on Eating Disorders. (2013) Adults and Adolescents with Eating Disorders. In Eyre, L. (Ed.) Guidelines for music therapy practice (pp. 402-448) Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.

Her current interests include: Trauma-informed music therapy, the integration of music therapy with other modalities of treatment: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Psychodrama, Yoga, Laughter Yoga, and the other expressive arts therapies, compassion fatigue and self-care for music therapists and transformational processes in human consciousness and behavior.

Media

Weinstein, E. (2016). Coloring With Your Creative Juices. psychcentral.com

Elements Behavioral Health, (2014, Sept. 13). Creative Arts As a Treatment for Addiction. drugaddictiontreatment.com

Weinstein, E. (2014, Sept. 4). Laughter Yoga: A Sobering Experience. addiction.com

Booth, S. (2013, November). How To Savor A Moment: Twelve experts in attentive living share their secrets, Real Simple Magazine

Interview for Wilson, D. (2013, Oct. 28).  How zealous psychiatrists are diagnosing quirks as mental illnesses. South China Post