Music, cats and talking therapies
Posted: Wednesday 28 July 2010
Observant readers of the Mind blog will know that I have a bit of a thing for cats. I also work in the policy and campaigns team at Mind that fights for mental health services users to have better access to effective therapies on the NHS.
You can imagine my glee when 
these two important areas of my life came together in this article. It turns out that meditation music helps cats relax. Apparently, just 40 minutes of this music will have a dramatic effect on a cat’s ‘stress score’.
Brushing aside my initial shock in response to the fact that cats actually have a ‘stress score’, I can’t help but wish that I knew this information a couple of years ago. My cat at the time, Sherbert (may she rest in peace), was diagnosed with anxiety. Yes, you read that correctly. She had bitten off half her coat after weeks of harassment from the neighbour’s overly-aggressive cat. The vet prescribed a course of antidepressants that did nothing but raise my anxiety levels whenever I had to force feed them to her each morning. If only she’d been offered music therapy our lives would have been much simpler!
Unfortunately, the situation for us humans isn’t always that much better. Many people still need to wait far too long to access alternatives to antidepressants, the range of therapies available is often extremely limited and, in some cases, medication is the only treatment option. That is why Mind is leading the We Need to Talk campaign that is calling for the NHS to offer a wide range of evidence-based psychological therapies to all that need them within 28 days of requesting referral. Sadly for my cats, this campaign is strictly humans-only.
To find out more about the We Need to Talk campaign, click here.
Mariam Kemple is a Policy and Campaigns Officer for Mind
4 Comments
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Vickipper replied on 29 Jul 2010 at 10:11
Sweet sweet meowsic eh?!
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Laura May replied on 29 Jul 2010 at 10:11
Hi,
I read this blog entry with interest - my cat, Button, also suffers from stress whenever we move house etc, and it is quite upsetting. I would like to say my pets are a great comfort to me though - is there such a thing as animal therapy? I'm sure this would work wonders - it has really helped me with my Bipolar Disorder knowing I have to get up and feed my 'babies', lol.
Great blog! Laura -
Grace replied on 29 Jul 2010 at 10:52
Meditation music makes me feel a bit queasy, but one of my cats has a particular liking for early 60s Joan Baez. She goes into a blissful trance-like state and actually forgets about begging for food and bullying next door's cat.
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belle replied on 5 Aug 2010 at 10:10
I read this with interest as my mental health problems are increasingly being dealt with by medication and more medication, to the point that i had forgot that talking therapies exist - the NHS keeps those very quiet because as one psychiatrist put it 'there arent any'. Perhaps I should become a cat and visit my vet for help, my cat got help for his 'anxiety' - with a feliway plug in diffuser!
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