The Confluence Between Arts and Medical Science — Music and Movement Therapy for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

The arts, specifically music and movement, are normally identified as serving an aesthetic function, principally that of entertainment. Their function as a therapeutic tool, however, is often neglected or, at the very best, misunderstood.  The arts have been used by traditional societies in healing ceremonies to address psychosomatic maladies. These societies believed that all ailments were attributable to spiritual misalignment; therefore, there was a perceived need to placate the spirits through the use of music and movement in order to redress physiological and psychosomatic conditions. Such therapeutic healing was common in early societies and is still common even in advanced societies, such as Malaysia; it is still being practised in Kelantan and Terengganu, in the form of “Main Puteri” and “Main Bageh”.