Music therapy resources for the regulation of anxiety derived from thanatophobia.

Abstract

Death is undoubtedly an inevitable and frightening truth for all living beings and can awaken hard mo- ments of intense pain in people. Losing a loved one or having been in a near death experience can generate fear, rejection, and even phobia, which can cause serious havoc if not treated in time. On the other hand, music therapy has been shown to have several benefits on the physical, emotional, and mental health of patients. Thus, the following work proposes the application of music therapy as a method to appease, improve, and regulate the anxiety produced by the fear of death, better known as thanatophobia. To this end, we have worked with two cases of people who suffer from stress caused by the fear of death, to whom music therapy sessions have been applied in order to regulate their anxiety, obtaining a positive result, although demonstrating better results when used as a complement to psychological therapy. Studies by authors such as Borda, Pérez and Avargues (2011); Andrades-Tobar, García, Concha-Ponce, Valiente & Lucero (2021); Bruscia (2016), among others, have guided the study of this work.