Music Therapy for Bereaved Children & Adolescents

From the archives: March 2025

There are several factors that affect how intensely a person feels grief, including their relationship to the deceased, whether the death was sudden or expected, and the age of the grieving individual. A child or an adolescent’s understanding of death can affect the intensity of their grief, and being younger can affect how they process what they are feeling. Music therapy can be a beneficial medium for an individual to process their emotions during such a difficult time. More specifically, songwriting as a music therapy intervention can provide insight into how a child or an adolescent is coping, how they process death, and can shed light onto their level of understanding death. 

A study conducted out of Western Michigan University examined the lyrical content of songs written during music therapy by bereaved children and adolescents, from age 6 to 16. The participants were split into 3 groups: children, tween, and teenagers. Each group participated in a 45 minute music therapy session with the focus of songwriting. The researching music therapists structured the song writing intervention to facilitate writing new, additional lyrics to a popular song or singing new lyrics to the tune of a popular song. Each group was asked to share statements about their loved ones in either a written or spoken format.

This study showed that the lyrical content did in fact vary between the groups. The children group focused primarily on memories of their loved ones, although there were a few statements of having an emotional connection with the deceased. The tweens discussed memories as well, and went into more in depth discussions about their emotional connections with their loved ones. This group showed “growth in their understanding of death,” with statements about adapting to the loss and questions about death. The teenage group shared statements of memories, emotional connections, and how they are adapting to loss. The teens showed further growth and discussed the value of their relationships with the deceased. Music therapy interventions like songwriting can be a beneficial outlet for children and adolescents to express their grief and to process and understand what they are feeling.

For more information on music therapy, visit our website at www.centralohiomusictherapy.com or the American Music Therapy Association’s website at www.musictherapy.org.

Josie Waugh McCutcheon, LPMT, MT-BC

Central Ohio Music Therapy, LLC

Fiore, J. (2016). Analysis of lyrics from group songwriting with bereaved children and adolescents. Journal of Music Therapy, 53(3), 207–231. doi:10.1093/jmt/thw005