What is Analytical Music Therapy?
Analytical Music Therapy (AMT) is a psychodynamic approach to music therapy that integrates clinical improvisation with psychoanalytic theory to explore and interpret unconscious psychological processes. The method draws on the psychoanalytic theories of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Melanie Klein to interpret unconscious processes through musical improvisation. In AMT sessions, therapist and client create music together—through instruments, voice, or movement—followed by verbal reflection that connects the improvised music to the client’s inner emotional landscape.
Unlike purely receptive approaches where clients listen to pre-composed music, AMT centers on active music-making as a form of symbolic communication. The instruments and the music itself can be understood as transitional objects, holding projections of the client’s inner state. The spontaneous nature of improvisation bypasses verbal defenses, allowing material from the unconscious to emerge in musical form. It uses free improvisation and verbal processing to analyze, interpret and attain a therapeutic change, by helping a client to understand his inner self, relieve defenses, unconscious conflicts and reach his/her full potential.
Mary Priestley established the viability of music therapy as a primary psychotherapeutic treatment form, not merely as an adjunct to verbal psychotherapy. The approach acknowledges transference and countertransference phenomena, viewing the musical relationship between therapist and client as therapeutically significant in itself.
Origins & Lineage
Analytical Music Therapy was developed by Mary Priestley, a British music therapist, and was one of five models recognized by the World Congress of Music Therapy in 1999. In the early 1970s, Priestley met weekly with colleagues Marjorie Wardle and Peter Wright to experiment with therapeutic techniques using improvised music. They practiced the experimental techniques on one another, basing the work on their own emotional issues and on the issues of institutionalized adult psychiatric patients they were working with at St Bernard’s Hospital, Hanwell.
In 1975 she published Music Therapy in Action, subsequently lecturing and educating others in her method. Her seminal work Essays on Analytical Music Therapy (1994) collected thirty-one essays including the influential “Herdecke Lectures” and further articulated her theoretical framework.
Priestley herself experienced lifelong psychiatric hospitalization due to bipolar disorder, and her personal encounters with mental illness informed her therapeutic philosophy. She was the daughter of British playwright J.B. Priestley and trained in piano, violin, and composition before entering the music therapy field.
Trainees who trained directly with Priestley took aspects of the model into academic music therapy training programs in Europe. One person who trained directly with Priestley was Benedikte B. Scheiby, a Danish music therapist who – together with her colleague, Inge Nygaard-Pedersen – incorporated central aspects of AMT into the master’s music therapy program at Aalborg University in the early 1980s. Scheiby moved to the USA in 1990 and soon established a formal AMT training program, working with professional music therapists until her passing in 2018.
How It’s Practiced
AMT sessions typically occur in individual or small group settings and follow a structured format. The therapy room contains a variety of instruments—pitched and unpitched percussion, piano, guitar, and other accessible sound sources. Sessions generally include an opening ritual, a period of musical improvisation guided by specific therapeutic techniques, and verbal processing afterward to reflect on the musical experience and its psychological meaning.
The approach includes techniques for exploring conscious material, accessing unconscious material, and strengthening the ego. Analytical Music Therapy employs techniques like ‘holding’, ‘splitting’, and ‘programmed regression’ to explore clients’ emotions and histories. For example, ‘holding’ creates a supportive musical environment that encourages self-expression and emotional release.
In practice, the therapist may take on specific musical roles: acting as a “nodal point” (providing a steady musical foundation), functioning as a “sympathetic string” (mirroring and resonating with the client’s music), or offering counterpoint that introduces tension or new material. The improvisation itself becomes the focus of analysis, with both therapist and client examining what musical choices were made, what emotions arose, and what unconscious dynamics the music might be expressing.
Mary Priestley’s recorded examples of individual AMT sessions with adult clients were made between the years 1975-1991, and these archival materials at Temple University provide documentation of her clinical implementation of the method.
Analytical Music Therapy Today
AMT remains an advanced training model rather than a widespread community practice. Analytical Music Therapy training is a music therapy advanced training program which provides students and professionals the opportunity to achieve certification in this approach. Benedikte Scheiby was instrumental in developing a postgraduate training program in New York from 1997 to 2018. She was an integral part of the new AMT training initiative at Molloy College, the first university-based AMT training program.
Today, seekers encounter AMT primarily through specialized graduate-level training programs, notably at Molloy University in New York. AMT training entails the study of music psychotherapy, techniques and strategies, individual and group supervision, as well as personal AMT therapy, by exploring music therapists’ inner life. Trainees must already be credentialed music therapists (MT-BC) seeking advanced clinical skills in psychodynamic work.
Temple University (Philadelphia) has created an archive of Priestley’s published writings, along with those of others on the topic of Analytical Music Therapy. Also included are her personal/clinical diaries and audiotapes of clinical work with approximately 75 clients, spanning the period of 1971 to 1990. These archives serve as teaching resources for contemporary AMT practitioners.
AMT is practiced in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient mental health clinics, and private practice settings with adults and adolescents facing depression, anxiety, trauma, eating disorders, and personality disorders. It is less commonly used with children or in medical rehabilitation contexts, where other music therapy models often predominate.
Common Misconceptions
Analytical Music Therapy is not synonymous with all psychodynamic music therapy or any music therapy that involves improvisation. The term analytical music therapy refers to a specific model of practice and not just to any application of music therapy incorporating psychoanalytic practices or theories. Many music therapists use improvisation or work from psychodynamic perspectives without practicing AMT as Priestley defined it.
AMT is not “listening to classical music for relaxation” or passive music reception. It requires active musical engagement, sophisticated musicianship from the therapist, and comfort with psychoanalytic concepts. It is not a quick intervention—AMT is a depth-oriented approach that unfolds over weeks or months, making it unsuitable for brief treatment models.
AMT is also not accessible to all populations. It requires sufficient verbal capacity for post-improvisation reflection and psychological mindedness to engage with unconscious material. Clients with severe cognitive impairments, active psychosis, or those seeking purely behavioral or symptom-focused interventions may be better served by other music therapy models.
Finally, AMT training is not the same as general music therapy education. It is an advanced specialization requiring post-graduate study, personal therapy within the AMT framework, and extensive supervision.
How to Begin
For those seeking to learn about AMT academically, begin with Mary Priestley’s Music Therapy in Action (1975/1985) and Essays on Analytical Music Therapy (1994), both available through Barcelona Publishers. These texts provide case examples, theoretical foundations, and Priestley’s own reflections on her development of the method.
For practicing music therapists interested in AMT training, the primary pathway is through the Analytical Music Therapy Certification Program at Molloy University in New York, which offers blended online and in-person intensive sessions. Training includes didactic coursework in psychodynamic theory, supervised clinical practice using AMT techniques, personal AMT therapy (self-experience), and group supervision. Completion results in AMT certification and continuing education credits for MT-BC and LCAT credentials.
Individuals seeking AMT as clients should look for credentialed music therapists (MT-BC) who have completed advanced AMT training and list Analytical Music Therapy among their clinical specializations. The Analytical Music Therapy organization website (analyticalmusictherapy.org) maintains information about trained practitioners.
Scholarship on AMT appears regularly in journals such as Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy Perspectives, and Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, where contemporary practitioners publish case studies and theoretical developments.