Reconceptualizing Music Therapy in Acute Mental Health Settings Part II: Clinical Applications of Single-Session Therapy

Abstract By championing the strengths, resources, and resilience of service users and increasing treatment access while limiting costs, single-session therapy (SST) represents a collaborative, direct, and transparent approach to providing treatment. In SST, service users have active and empowered roles in determining the focus, solutions, and extent of the therapy. SST practitioners note that all circumstances, settings, and contexts are unique and thus provide service users with autonomy to help them address the concerns that brought them to seek treatment. In Part II, I describe various ways to implement SST for music therapy clinicians in acute mental health settings. As Carr et al. (2013) noted a need for a music therapy model in acute mental health settings, I highlight Soo-Hoo’s (2018) Strength-Based Multicultural Integrative Therapy model as a potential therapeutic framework. To help music therapists apply aspects of SST to their clinical practice, I also provide questions for therapists to use in SST, describe how to conclude SST, provide suggestions for single-session group music therapy and other applications of single-session therapy in music therapy, and conclude with a critical reflection of SST.