Annie Heiderscheit, PhD, MT-BC, LMFT
Music Therapy Professor
"During a HealthRHYTHMS session serving people facing the challenges of eating disorders, a participant said “While we were playing together and creating music, my eating disorder was not present. How great it feels to have time away from it”."
Annie Heiderscheit, Ph.D., MT-BC, LMFT is a board certified music therapist and a licensed marriage and family therapist. She is a past president of the World Federation for Music Therapy. She serves on the executive committee of the International Association for Music and Medicine. She is the Director of the Music Therapy program at Augsburg College in Minnesota. An expert on Music Therapy within the context of Eating Disorders she recently released a book on Creative Arts Therapies and Clients with Eating Disorders. One of the strategies she utilizes in this important work is the HealthRHYTHMS Protocol.
Annie has more than 20 years of clinical experience as a board certified music therapist providing services to a variety of clinical settings. She has conducted research utilizing guided imagery and music with adults in chemical dependency treatment. She is currently conducting research utilizing music to reduce stress and anxiety during mealtimes with patients in eating disorder treatment. Dr. Heiderscheit also collaborated with Dr. Linda Chlan on a $1.2 million research grant through the National Institutes of Health to study the use of a music intervention to reduce sedation in mechanically ventilated patients.
She completed graduate coursework in music psychotherapy at Temple University and earned a master's degree in counseling from Iowa State University. She completed her doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Heiderscheit has completed advanced training in the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music and is a fellow through the Association for Music and Imagery (FAMI). She is also trained in Neurological Music Therapy (NMT) and is an endorsed facilitator in HealthRhythms Group Empowerment Drumming.
Prior to accepting the position at Augsburg College, Dr. Heiderscheit taught at the University of Minnesota in the Center for Spirituality and Healing. She maintains a private practice in music therapy, specializing in the use of music therapy in medicine and healing practices and in music psychotherapy. She maintains clinical practice at The Emily Program (outpatient eating disorder treatment program) and at University of Minnesota Children's Hospital on the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Unit and Pediatric Intensive Care Units.
Awards & Recognition:
2010 -2012
A. Marilyn Sime Research Fellowship. Recipient of the Sime Research Fellowship, award through the Academic Health Center, Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota.
2006
Circle of Life award, received as a member of the Transitions and Life Choices (TLC) care team. This national award is given to recognize and honor programs that improve care of patients near the end of life or with life-threatening conditions. The award is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, sponsored by the American Hospital Association, the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, the American Medical Association and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
Articles by Annie
Drumming and Ways of Knowing
Empowered without ED: Drumming in Eating Disorder Treatment
Published works by Dr. Heiderscheit:
Heiderscheit, A. & Jackson, N. (2011). Discovering Together: Music Therapy Collaboration. Music Therapy Today, 9(1), 88-89.
Chlan, L., Patterson, B., & Heiderscheit, A. (2011). Data acquisition for a patient-directed protocol in the dynamic intensive care unit setting. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 32, 544-546.
Heiderscheit, A., Chlan, L. & Donely, K. (2011). Instituting a music listening intervention for critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilation: Exemplars from two patient cases. Music and Medicine, 3(4), 239-245.
Heiderscheit, A. & Nielsen, C. (2010). Making Music: A Medicinal Dose. Caring, (August), 14-17.
Chlan, L. & Heiderscheit, A. (2009). A tool for music preference assessment in critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilatory support: An interdisciplinary approach. Music Therapy Perspectives, 27(1), 42-47.
Heiderscheit, A. & Albrecht, J. (Fall 2009) Songs for our Child: Lullaby DVD for Critically Ill Infants and Toddlers. Imagine: Early Childhood Newsletter for the American Music Therapy Association, 15, 9-10.
Book chapters
Heiderscheit, A. (2009). Music, Songs and Sobriety: An Overview of Music Therapy in Substance Abuse Treatment. In Brooke, S. (Ed.). The Use of Creative Arts Therapies with Chemical Dependency Issues, (136-161). Springfield, IL. Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
Heiderscheit, A. (2009). The Key that Unlocks: Music Therapy and Autism. In Brooke, S. (Ed.). The Creative Arts Therapies and Autism, Springfield, IL., Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
Heiderscheit, A. (2008). Discovery and Recovery through Music: An Overview of Music Therapy in Eating Disorder Treatment. In Brooke, S. (Ed.). The Creative Arts Therapies and Eating Disorders, (122-141). Springfield, IL., Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
