Can neuroscience combined with music heal depression?
BENGALURU : Arya G, a 16-year-old was enrolled in an IB school and began feeling extreme stress and pressure. “From a very young age, I was never confident with my body or myself. As I reached my teenage years, I got into self-harming and binge-eating as a way of coping with the disappointment I felt about my body image,” she says. To add to this, her brother, who she was very close to, moved to the USA for college which triggered a severe sense of loneliness. “I knew I needed help after months of trying to deal with my severe emotions.”
After a few sessions of Cognitive Behavioral therapy (CBT), she was also introduced to music as part of a self-guided neuroscience-based therapeutic technique called CAPE (Creative Arts for Processing Emotions). Developed by a psychiatrist-cum-musician from the city, Dr Ramya Mohan, in collaboration with the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Centre, UK and musicians from India and UK, CAPE has been administered to 50 patients like Arya in Bengaluru and others in places such as London (where she is partly-based) and Australia.
Dr Ramya says, while this has formally not been made available in India yet, a full-fledged launch is being planned within a year in the city. “CAPE uses a blend of eastern and western music for emotional processing, equilibrium and supports recovery from illness and restores emotional and physical well-being,” she adds. She has also conducted sessions in various schools and colleges in the state such as RV College of Engineering, Mangalore University and St Joseph’s Educational Institutions.
