On Wednesday, 12th November 2025, just before European Music Therapy Day, a conference on Music Therapy in Hospitals took place at Hôpital Foch near Paris. The conference was organised by the Île-de-France group of the French Federation of Music Therapists, in collaboration with Hôpital Foch, with the connection facilitated by a music therapist working at the hospital.
The conference was held in French, in a hybrid format, welcoming both an in-person audience from the Paris region and online participants from across France. The audience included healthcare professionals, music therapy students, and members of the public.
Speakers included Delphine Girard, Salomé Chion, Anne-Sophie Fontaine, Alain Ducq, Jeanne Lecuyer, and Christophe Musset, all of whom are active in hospital or institutional settings.
The programme combined presentations, clinical case studies, and a contribution from a medical intern preparing a thesis on music therapy, followed by a question-and-answer session.
A wide range of hospital contexts
One of the strengths of the evening was the way it illustrated the breadth of music therapy practice in hospitals. The presentations covered work in neonatology, psychiatry, neurological rehabilitation (including NMT), cardiology, hospital-at-home supportive care, palliative care and oncology.
This diversity made clear both the adaptability of music therapy and the very different clinical objectives involved. Approaches in palliative care, for example, differ greatly from those in highly protocolised neurological rehabilitation. What remains constant across contexts, however, is the importance of relationship, listening, and the ability to adapt practice to the clinical setting.
In neonatology, this adaptability becomes particularly visible. Music therapy can play a significant complementary role, for example by working in tandem with nurses during painful procedures, or alongside psychologists and psychomotor therapists to support parent–infant bonding. In palliative care, it is a well-recognised and meaningful practice, and it also complements care effectively in neurology and psychiatry.
Integration, collaboration, and ongoing challenges
Discussions during the conference highlighted that the degree of integration of music therapists within hospital teams varies greatly. In some contexts, music therapists are fully embedded within multidisciplinary teams, working closely with nurses, rehabilitation staff, psychologists, and physicians. In other cases, music therapists work as external providers, often on more precarious contracts.
Several speakers addressed common misunderstandings encountered in hospital settings, particularly around the professional training of music therapists and the distinction between therapeutic work and more general musical or recreational interventions. The conference reinforced how collaboration and recognition develop over time, through practice, communication, and shared clinical experience.
Feedback and future directions
Audience engagement was strong, with questions focusing particularly on interprofessional collaboration, for example, with rehabilitation professionals. Feedback from both patients and healthcare colleagues was described as consistently positive, one of the most persuasive indicators of the value of music therapy in hospital care, alongside clinical outcomes.
The conference also led to follow-up initiatives, including the initiation of a research project on the role of art therapy in hospital-at-home supportive care. More broadly, it reflected a growing interest in research-informed practice and closer links between music therapy and medical contexts.
Looking ahead, the areas most likely to shape the future development of hospital music therapy in France were identified as neonatology, psychiatry, neurology, and palliative care/oncology.
Conferences such as this offer more than information alone. They provide moments of connection and mutual understanding that encourage collaboration, support professional growth, and strengthen the field, in ways that closely align with the work of the EMTC, particularly in countries where music therapy is still working towards formal recognition.
Thank you to Delphine Girard for sharing the story of this conference with us. Delphine is a clinical music therapist, trained at the University of Montpellier. She is a certified Neurologic Music Therapist with specialised training in neonatology and neurological rehabilitation. She currently works at Nord Essonne Hospital in neonatology, and previously worked for several years in an Institut Médico-Éducatif (a specialised education and care centre for children and adolescents with developmental disabilities) and at the Bullion paediatric rehabilitation hospital. Delphine also serves on the board of the French Federation of Music Therapists.
