NEW YORK — Music therapy can help people cope with ailments as wide-ranging as stress, chronic pain, limited mobility and hypertension.

Here’s a look at how the practice is used as a psychotherapy tool.

HOW CAN MUSIC THERAPY IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTH? Research has shown that adding music therapy to a patient’s regular treatment, like medication and psychotherapy, can improve depressive symptoms when compared with standard treatment alone.

Studies also indicate that music therapy can decrease anxiety levels and improve day-to-day functioning in people with depression.

Music engages multiple regions of the brain, like the limbic system, which helps process emotions and recollections.

This may be partly why music is known to bring back memories. In addition, both listening to music and singing can reduce levels of cortisol, a hormone that the body releases when it is under stress.

And the pleasure we feel when listening to music can produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter that influences the reward centers in the brain.

For Ms Kerry Devlin, a senior music therapist who works with critically ill patients at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, music is a therapeutic tool to share space with people during some of their worst moments.

A session can give patients a sense of autonomy and help them become “reconnected with their own humanity in what often feels like a really sterile and scary environment,” Ms Devlin said.

WHAT ARE THE MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT MUSIC THERAPY? When Ms Devlin arrives for her sessions — wheeling a cart full of instruments — some people assume that they need to be musically gifted or proficient at playing an instrument in order to participate. But that’s not the case.

“We might wail on a drum together or we might give them something that really vibrates and provides a grounding sensation to help them connect with their body and their breath,” she said.

“There isn’t such a thing as a wrong note.”

Another myth about music therapy is that the providers function as entertainers.

While music can be fun, a music therapist is not performing but rather using therapeutic techniques to help their clients meet goals, express their emotions and share their creativity.

WHERE DO YOU FIND A MUSIC THERAPIST? Email or call the American Music Therapy Association or search its online directory for music therapists in your area.

Ms Devlin also suggested searching online for other resources in your area. The music therapy offered by Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, for example, is free.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.