The Schubert Treatment - A Story of Music and Healing

For readers of Oliver Sacks and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande comes a "shimmery account of performing ... for a series of patients with varied afflictions, including the inevitable final one."-New York Times

A celebrated art therapist plays the cello for her patients-and offers a moving reflection on the extraordinary power of music to enrich our lives, all the way to the very end.

When Claire Oppert plays the cello, miracles happen. Children with profound autism, patients in extreme pain and distress, even people on the threshold of death smile, cry, laugh, sing and dance. "When you play, I'm not sick anymore," one man tells her. "I feel happy, I feel alive."

In The Schubert Treatment, Oppert recounts her remarkable story of healing suffering through music, alongside portraits of the many people she has helped. Born into a family of doctors and artists, Oppert trained as a classical cellist and began playing at a center for autistic youth, where she witnes sed how music could connect with even the most difficult-to-reach patients. Later, she began working as an art therapist with people with neurodegenerative diseases and palliative care patients, eventually conducting clinical trials that proved the effect of her "Schubert treatment": using music as a counter-stimulation to reduce pain and anxiety during stressful procedures.

Oppert's crystalline, lyrical vignettes of the patients whose lives she has touched are punctuated with anecdotes from her own life as a musician, as well as reflections on the meaning of art and the human need for connection and creativity. Compassionate, uplifting, and deeply humane, The Schubert Treatment is a testament to the incredible power of music to heal our bodies, minds, and souls.

Inhaltsverzeichnis:

Prologue
A Good Story

Paul
Through the Wall

Paul, the Explosion
Howard

Amélia
My Father

Dîlan
The Cello

David
Encounter

Holding Space
Russia

Poets in Space
The Moscow Conservatory

A Musical Ballet
The Turn

A Day Like Any Other
She and Him
Faculty of Medicine

The Poet on the Second Floor

The Book: A Life
Writing

The Legion of Honor Exhibition
Musical Transfer

Painting the Seasons
In the Metro

Leading Lady
A New Place

Monsieur Roy's Blood Test
Clinical Trials

Madame Moretti's Bath
Research

Bitter Medicine and the Breath of Music
Results

Monsieur Koumba
Music Is a Force

Madame Müller
Music Is a Friend

Monsieur Rivière
Music Is Life

Monsieur Lebrun
Music Is Vibration

Monsieur Martin
Music Is Living Memory

Madame Azaro
Music Is Flight

Monsieur Fr idman
Music Is Silence

Madame Bellec
Music Is a Child's Song

Monsieur Loiseau
Music Is Resonance

Madame Rameau
Music Is Light

Madame Adélaïde
Music Is Voice

Madame Cazeneuve
Music Is Provocation

Madame Bloch
Music Is Danger

Madame Beauchamp
Music Is Deliverance

Monsieur Khalil
Music Is Rhythm

Madame Ricci
Music Is a Dream

Madame Fontaine
Music Is Joy

Madame Eleonora
Music Is Movement

Monsieur N'Daye
Music Is a Meeting
My Mother

Epilogue
Undercurrent

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography