When Tom Sweitzer tested positive for COVID-19 over the summer, he ended up in the hospital for a week with a case of pneumonia. After two or three days, he did what he would tell any of his clients to do: He put on a song, listened, and breathed along to the music.
Sweitzer is the co-founder and creative director of A Place to Be, a non-profit organization in Middleburg, Virginia that supports people struggling from a wide variety of emotional, physical, behavioral or mental problems through music therapy. The employees of the organization are all certified therapists carrying many of the same responsibilities as they would in traditional therapy, holding private counseling sessions or group programs. But they also use music as a method to help their clients improve their well-being. This mode of therapy seems especially relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I always say that music keeps you company. We are all in a place right now where isolation and loneliness is pretty much a way of life for many people,” Sweitzer says. “Music can fill in those gaps.”
