When Does Sound Healing Become Sound Therapy?

Over the last year, alongside running my sound healing work, I’ve also been deepening my learning through a Master’s in Music Therapy. This has mostly involved reading a lot, questioning everything, and realising that nothing is ever as neat and tidy as you hope it will be. Along the way, I’ve been exploring how music therapy models intersect with sound-based practice and where things blur in interesting (and occasionally uncomfortable) ways. What’s surprised me most isn’t how different the two worlds are, but how much they overlap, inform and sometimes quietly blur into one another.

Discovering the landscape of music therapy

Through my studies, I’ve become much more aware of just how broad music therapy really is. Broad to the point where you briefly wonder if you’ll ever fully understand it all (spoiler: probably not). I knew there were different approaches, but I hadn’t realised how many models, philosophies and clinical traditions sit under the umbrella of “music therapy”.

What’s helped most is understanding that these models are not rigid boxes. Many therapists integrate multiple approaches, drawing on different frameworks depending on the client, the context and the therapeutic relationship. I’ve come to think of this as a kind of patchwork quilt of practice as described by my tutor Dr Beth Pickard – layered, responsive and relational.

This way of working feels deeply aligned with sound healing, which has never been particularly good at fitting neatly into boxes, frameworks or flow charts. (If it did, I’d probably be suspicious.) In sound-based work, responsiveness, listening and attunement often matter more than technique alone. Seeing this mirrored in music therapy models helped me trust that integration isn’t a weakness – it’s a strength.

My roots: sound, subtlety and the non-verbal

I was originally drawn to music therapy through developmental and psychodynamic perspectives, particularly the way psychodynamic work engages with the subconscious. That felt immediately connected to my background in sound healing, where experiences are often non-verbal, subtle and felt rather than explained.

So much meaning lives beneath words: in resonance, in rhythm, in the way sound meets the body. Long before I had academic language for it, I was already working with attunement, pacing, listening and holding space.

I’ve also felt a strong pull towards anthroposophical (Steiner-informed) approaches, partly because I work within a Steiner setting, and partly because my nervous system seems to like anything that takes human development, rhythm and subtlety seriously. I work within a Steiner setting, so the wider developmental and educational philosophy already feels familiar and embodied. I’m curious about how this worldview translates into therapeutic work, and how sound, music and human development are understood within that tradition.

Feeling overwhelmed – and then relieved

I’ll be honest: learning about so many models can feel overwhelming. There are moments where it feels like everyone else knows exactly what they’re doing, and I’m quietly Googling terms I’ve already read three times. There are moments where it feels like I should know where I belong already.

But returning again and again to the idea of responsiveness, of meeting the person where they are, has softened that pressure. I’m beginning to trust that I don’t need to have one fixed “home”. This stage feels like a process of listening, observing and letting practice shape understanding.

When sound healing meets music therapy

Learning more about music therapy models, methods and techniques has been a turning point for me. At first, the distinctions between models, methods, processes and techniques felt abstract and confusing. Over time, they’ve begun to feel more interconnected, especially once the client is placed at the centre of the work.

Rather than rigid structures, models now feel like containers that hold intention and ethics. Methods describe how we musick together, and techniques become flexible tools that shift meaning depending on the relationship and the moment.

I’m particularly drawn to receptive ways of working (which felt reassuring, given this is already where most of my sound healing instincts live), which closely overlap with sound healing practices. Receptive work requires deep listening, careful pacing, sensitivity to nervous system regulation and an ability to hold silence as well as sound. These are qualities already central to my sound healing work, and studying music therapy has helped me understand how they can be held within a therapeutic framework without losing their subtlety.

Seeing music therapy described as musicking has also been important. Whether listening, improvising, creating or sounding together, music is not something applied to a person, but something that emerges between people. This mirrors how I understand sound healing, as a relational process shaped by resonance, presence and mutual responsiveness, rather than a one-way intervention.

Vibration, resonance and the body

One of the most affirming aspects of this exploration has been seeing real attention given to the vibrational and acoustic dimensions of sound. Sound isn’t just something we hear – it’s something we feel.

Vibration moves through the body. Resonance affects regulation. Timbre, frequency and acoustic space shape our sense of safety and presence.

These ideas sit at the heart of my sound healing work, and seeing them articulated within therapeutic frameworks feels deeply validating. It reminds me that intuitive, embodied knowledge has a place alongside theory, especially when held with intention, ethics and care.

So… when does sound healing become sound therapy?

I don’t think there’s one clean answer. Which is both annoying and, somehow, a relief.

For me, the shift happens not just in what is offered, but in how it’s held:

• the intention behind the work

• the quality of the relationship

• the responsiveness to the individual

• and the ethical container that holds it all

  
  

Sound healing and sound-based therapy exist on a spectrum. Where they meet is in listening – deeply, relationally and with respect for the person in front of us. This ongoing exploration is shaping how I work, how I listen and how I hold space. Rather than needing fixed definitions, I’m learning to trust the meeting point between sound, relationship and care and to let the work unfold from there.