Introducing Project MAAT

Project MAAT (Music & Art After Trauma) is an hour-long online program hosted by Margaret Mauger and Vida Woodworth from the After Trauma Empowerment Network that features educational discussions about trauma and other related topics, with a music and art component.

MAAT was created to be an outlet, resource and support to individuals who have experienced trauma and for those who support them. We aim to offer a safe space for people to learn about sensitive and sometimes difficult topics while gaining the therapeutic benefits of music and art.

Beginning in April 2021 (date to be announced) each weekly episode will feature a topic of discussion with a guest musical performance and art display/discussion.
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Topics of discussion will range and vary, and will include such areas as trauma, types of trauma, symptoms of trauma, violence, human trafficking, exploitation, triggers and flashbacks, coping strategies, gender and sexuality, mindfulness, boundaries, self-care, healthy/unhealthy relationships, mental health, etc....

We invite and welcome people to email questions, comments and/or topics they would like us to highlight and explore to [email protected].

Research has repeatedly indicated the many amazing benefits of music (the universal language) and art on body, mind, and overall well-being.

• Reduces stress
• Outlet for emotions
• Increase body’s production of antibody immunoglobulin
• Soothes and comforts
• Reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol
• Good for your heart (blood flows more easily)
• Elevates mood (increases production of dopamine)
• Relieves symptoms of depression
• Eases and manages pain
• Helps to regulate emotions
• Improves memory
• Helps with expressing feelings like fear, loneliness and anger
• Improves cognition
• Helps children with autism (social response, communication skills and attention skills)
• Connects us (social connectedness)
• Can lead to better learning
• Literally changes the physical brain – triggers the release of several neurochemicals important for mental health (dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, cortisol
• Entertaining
• Sources of pleasure/contentment
• Relaxes the mind
• Improves motivation and endurance
• Improves sleep
• Decreases fatigue
• Emotional and physiological regulation
• Emotional intelligence
• Stabilizing and grounding
  
• Reduces negative PTSD symptoms

"Simply put, music can heal people." 
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

"(Music therapy) can make the difference between withdrawal and awareness, between isolation and interaction, between chronic pain and comfort -- between demoralization and dignity."
Barbara Crowe (past president of the National Association for Music Therapy)
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“Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears – it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear. But for many of my neurological patients, music is even more – it can provide access, even when no medication can, to movement, to speech, to life. For them, music is not a luxury, but a necessity.”
Oliver Sacks, best-selling author and professor of neurology at NYU School Of Medicine

"Art is not always about pretty things. It's about who we are, what happened to us,
​and how are lives are affected." 
Elizabeth Broun, Artwell Art Therapy

More details to come soon ...

Thanks & Gratitude