St Louise De Marillac and Depression & Music

St Louise of Marillac,
Feast day March 15th
Born:1591 (Proabably)
Died:1660

Saint Louise of Marillac, (Around August 12, 1591 - March 15, 1660) was the co-founder, with St. Vincent de Paul, of the Daughters of Charity. She is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.
Louise de Marillac was born probably at Ferrieres-en-Brie near Meux, France, on August 12, 1591. She was educated by the Dominican nuns at Poissy. She desired to become a nun but on the advice of her confessor, she married Antony LeGras, an official in the Queen's service, in 1613. After Antony's death in 1625, she met St Vincent de Paul, who became her spiritual adviser. She devoted the rest of her life to working with him. She helped direct his Ladies of Charity in their work of caring for the sick, the poor, and the neglected. In 1633 she set up a training center, of which she was Director in her own home, for candidates seeking to help in her work. This was the beginning of the Sisters (or Daughters, as Vincent preferred) of Charity of St Vincent De Paul (though it was not formally approved until 1655). She took her vows in 1634 and attracted great numbers of candidates. She wrote a rule for the community, and in 1642, Vincent allowed four of the members to take vows. Formal approval placed the community under Vincent and his Congregation of the Missions, with Louise as Superior. She traveled all over france establishing her Sisters in hospitals, orphanages, and other institutions. By the time of her death in Paris on March 15, the Congregation had more than forty houses in France. Since then they have spread all over the world. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1934, and was declared Patroness of Social Workers by Pope John XXIII in 1960.

Depression and Music

By helping people express their emotions, music therapy, when combined with standard care, appears to be an effective treatment for depression, at least in the short term, say researchers from the University of Jyväskylä in Finland who write about their findings in the August issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry.
Study leaders Professor Jaakko Erkkilä and Professor Christian Gold, and colleagues, recruited 79 people of working age (18 to 50 years old) living in Finland, who had been diagnosed with depression using the ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders.
The participants were randomly assigned to receive twenty, 60-minute sessions of individual music therapy plus standard care (33 people), or standard care only (46 people). In Finland, standard care for depression comprises antidepressant medication, 5 to 6 sessions of individual psychotherapy, and psychiatric counselling.
Twice a week, with the help of trained music therapists, in one-to-one sessions, the participants in the intervention group learned how to improvise music using a mallet instrument, a percussion instrument or an acoustic, West African djembe drum.
On average, each participant in this group attended 18 sessions with 88% (29 individuals) attending at least 15 sessions.and the conclusion was that individual music therapy combined with standard care is effective for depression among working-age people with depression. The results of this study along with the previous research indicate that music therapy with its specific qualities is a valuable enhancement to established treatment practices.This, I am in no way saying should replace medication but rather a therapy combined with medication.