Using Songwriting to Assist the Healing Process of Victims of Domestic Violence

Utah State University’s Music Therapy Program has a close association with the Community Abuse Prevention Services Agency (CAPSA) located in Logan, UT. CAPSA provides a variety of services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault including a fourteen-week women’s support group designed to help victims work through the therapeutic process of naming, accepting, and moving forward from the abuse. Fourteen modules have currently been written and compiled into a manual for these sessions. Once finished, the manual will be published and distributed to other abuse prevention agencies throughout the nation for use in leading women support groups similar to the present program. Songs have been composed that are musically and lyrically appropriate for this target population and specifically relate to the four large themes in this fourteen-module manual. The research results include literature on how music has been used in treating victims of domestic violence and the process of how five original songs scores and lyrics were created to specifically address the module issues and themes. The songs contain messages, structures, and feelings taken from first hand observations of women who were victims of domestic violence. The original songs have been professionally recorded, transcribed, and will be sent with the published group sessions manual across the nation to other abuse shelters like CAPSA