Abstract
Military families in the United States face many challenges, including deployments, relocations, and frequent separations from extended family. This thesis explores the impact these challenges have on resilience and the family bond. A history of music therapy and military populations is introduced, as well as resources currently available to military families. Music therapy is presented as an intervention that can positively impact building resiliency and strengthening the family bond for military families, as evidenced by its success with other populations. CREATEing Resilience is a program guide created for music therapists interested in providing family-centered, community-based music therapy services to military families. This guide presents themed sessions dedicated to the challenges military families face and utilizes established music therapy techniques such as improvisation, song-writing, and lyric analysis. Goals addressed include communication skills, emotional expression, increasing self-awareness, stress reduction, building community, and increasing and integrating coping skills. Each session outlines music therapy interventions used, materials needed, sample session schedules, and related psychoeducational material. Possible challenges in implementation and advocacy are also explored.
