Foundations of
Therapeutic Music
Develop a more perceptive, relational, and attuned way of working with music.
Live cohort
9 months
Also available
On-demand & self-paced
Next cohort starts
2 September 2026
Early bird until 31 May
€1,000 €2,000
CHOOSE YOUR FORMAT
Two ways to learn
Learn as part of a structured, live 9-month cohort, or at your own pace.
Most popular
Live cohort
On demand
9-month immersive with Mendel Kaelen
Self-paced. Start anytime.
Live workshops, a curated peer cohort, and the full curriculum taught and guided by Mendel across nine months.
The complete lecture and practice curriculum. Work through it in your own time, at your own pace, with lifetime access.
Early bird until 31 May
€1,000€2,000
Payment plans available at checkout
€350
Lifetime access. Payment plans available.
18
live workshops
9
modules
30+
hrs content
9
modules
20+
hrs lectures
10+
hrs practice
Live cohort only
Not included
18 live interactive workshops with Mendel
Live workshops with Mendel
Playlist design workshop - 4 weeks of applied practice
Playlist design workshop
Curated working groups - capped at 20 participants
Peer cohort & working groups
Session recordings to revisit any time
Session recordings
Also included
Included
20+ hrs on-demand theory lectures
20+ hrs on-demand theory lectures
10+ hrs guided listening & practice
10+ hrs guided listening & practice
Music recommendations & downloadable resources
Music recommendations & downloadable resources
Completion certificate
Completion certificate
Join the next cohort
Limited places per cohort
WHO IS THIS FOR?
Anyone who works with music therapeutically
No formal music training required. This course is for practitioners, facilitators and creatives who want to use music with more confidence, intention and impact.
Therapists and guides
Working in clinical, therapeutic or psychedelic-assisted contexts where music plays an active role in the session.
Psychotherapists
Psychiatrists
PAT / KAP practitioners
Counsellors
Facilitators
Coaches
Body and mind practitioners
Using music to hold space, regulate nervous systems or deepen experiential practice.
Breathwork facilitators
Somatic practitioners
Yoga teachers
Bodyworkers
Movement guides
Musicians and producers
Deepening your relationship with music and how it moves people, whether you perform, produce or curate.
Composers
Producers
Instrumentalists
DJs
Playlist curators
Curious listeners
Students and researchers
Exploring the intersection of music, neuroscience, culture and human experience through academic or personal inquiry.
Music students
Medical students
Psychology students
Anthropologists
Cultural researchers
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
What our students say
Feedback from practitioners, facilitators and musicians currently taking the course.
"
This course has profoundly influenced my relationship with music. I have gained greater awareness and openness to what is happening to me and to what music offers beyond the structures we know for understanding it. I feel much more confident integrating musical resources into my practice.
A
Amelia
Psychiatrist and Trauma Therapist
London, UK
"
I struggled with questions around music personalisation for a while, both in my group sessions and with individuals. This course has given me new approaches, and a very new way of thinking about music. Now I am witnessing the musicality inside both myself and my clients better, and am responding more strategically and creatively.
H
Hannah
Group Facilitator, Breathwork Practitioner and DJ
Amsterdam, Netherlands
"
This material has informed my work as a psychotherapist and artist, particularly in how I use sound, silence, and musicality as regulating and meaning-making processes. It has meaningfully enriched how I think about listening, presence, and the role of music in both clinical and creative contexts.
E
Elodie
Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor and Sound Artist
Paris, France
WHAT YOU'LL DEVELOP
Three core competencies
Beyond knowledge and technique, this course builds three interconnected capacities that will help you to respond to music with confidence and clarity.
01
Therapeutic Musicality
New ways of perceiving and relating to the many dimensions of music, deepening your capacity to listen, respond, and create meaningful musical experiences.
02
Situational Flexibility
Responding fluidly to the unique dynamics of each moment, learning to make confident musical choices in context, whether working with others or exploring on your own.
03
Integrative Understanding
Holding diverse perspectives of music simultaneously and inclusively, seeing music as a meeting point of emotion, neuroscience, culture, spirituality, and human development.
MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR
Dr Mendel Kaelen, PHD.
Neuroscientist, musician and course creator.
Dr Mendel Kaelen is internationally recognised for pioneering research on the therapeutic power of music. In this course, he shares the essence of more than 15 years of research and practice.
He completed his PhD in neuroscience at Imperial College London in 2017, specialising in the role of music in psychedelic therapy and has co-authored more than 50 academic papers. His work integrates studies begun in 2007 with mentors across psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, phenomenology, and neuroscience.
His platform, Wavepaths, has supported over 50,000 clinical sessions. He has guided hundreds of group and individual sessions, and curated therapeutic playlists that have reached more than 100,000 listeners worldwide.
PhD
Neuroscience, Imperial College London, 2017
15+
Years of research & practice
50+
Academic papers co-authored
100k+
Therapeutic playlist listeners worldwide
Mendel teaches with humility, curiosity, and remarkable depth. Rather than offering rigid methods, he creates a space where participants rediscover music through direct experience. That approach allows each person to reconnect with their own musical intuition and trust the unfolding of the moment.
TK — Practitioner of Music-ing & Relational Sound, Co-Founder KTTK Love
STEP INSIDE THE COURSE
A unified understanding of therapeutic music
Theory lectures introduce existing and novel concepts gradually, from a foundational understanding of how music actually works, all the way to its therapeutic functions and how to apply them in practice
NINE MONTHS
What we'll cover month by month
Each month builds on the last, moving from theory, all the way through to the practice of creating.
01 Origins of Music Month 1 +
An exploration of where music comes from and why music exists. We start our journey with a remembrance of the ancient and universal roots of music, and of what makes music so significant to us.
Key questions
- We'll explore music as a foundational aspect of human consciousness and as a transformative technology, a non-verbal language, and a core mediator of intersubjective experience.
- Have we lost our musical nature, and what would it mean to remember it?
- Why does music exist at all?
- What is music, beyond entertainment?
You'll come away with
- A new frame for music as human inheritance and social technology
- A clearer sense of how your relationship with music has evolved over time
Includes
Guided listening, reflective exercises, and practices exploring tension, peace, and the musicality of being human.
02 The Musical Self Month 2 +
Here we begin our inquiry into the relationship between music, selfhood, attachment, memory, and emotional life. This month explores how listening is shaped by who we are, how we developed, and what we bring into the musical field.
Key questions
- What is the musical self?
- How does it develop across a lifetime?
- What has shaped my musical preferences and patterns?
You'll come away with
- A clearer picture of your own musical personality and an understanding of how to recognise this in others
- A richer vocabulary for describing your relationship to music
Includes
Guided listening, personal inquiry, and reflective exercises exploring family, love, motivation, and the mapping of the musical self.
03 How Does Music Work? Month 3 +
Music and brains are both characterised by oscillations, by frequencies. In this module we trace the pathways of how sound becomes music, how music becomes meaningful, and how musical structure, perception, and context shape our experience and transform the self.
Key questions
- How does sound become music?
- How does music become experience?
- What makes an experience supportive, healing, or disruptive?
- What shapes our likes, dislikes, and responses to music?
You'll come away with
- A practical model of how musical meaning is constructed
- A deeper sensitivity to the mechanics of musical impact
Includes
Guided listening, musical analysis, and practices exploring silence, motion, meaning, confrontation, and the relationship between sound and experience.
04 Ways of Listening Month 4 +
There are many ways of relating to music. Here we define and experiment with different modes of listening, each highlighting a distinct dimension of music's value to the flourishing of the individual, to the human community and to therapeutic processes.
Key questions
- In what ways can we listen?
- How do listening styles shape perception, emotion, and meaning?
- What changes when we listen for nuance and detail?
You'll come away with
- More range and choice in how you listen
- A clearer sense of what listening mode supports which intention
Includes
Listening practices, self-observation, shared reflection, and exercises that deepen awareness of thresholds, space, field, and different listening orientations.
05 Dimensions of Music Month 5 +
This month we investigate what variables of music give it its unique psychological and experiential character. We recognise how combinations of various musical ingredients give rise to the unique, emergent experiences that make music so special. You'll significantly deepen your musical perception and interpretive sensitivity.
Key questions
- What gives a piece of music its character, beyond genre and personal preference?
- How do progression types shape what unfolds over time?
- How does music evoke worlds, meanings, and trajectories?
- How do style, form, character, and layers shape experience?
You'll come away with
- A clear way to hear and describe key musical dimensions
- A stronger feel for how anchoring, complexity, and progression shape safety, depth, and intensity
- Greater discernment when intentionally choosing music for particular contexts
Includes
Layered listening, body-based listening, examples of musical style and form, and practices exploring character, identity, musical meaning, and emotional worlds.
06 Therapeutic Music Month 6 +
Explore music as an active therapeutic agent within therapeutic processes. By expanding your own musical perceptions, we map out different functions music can serve and learn how they can support the balancing, restoring and growing of the self in unique ways.
Key questions
- What are music's therapeutic functions?
- When does music help, and when does it get in the way?
- How do we choose music based on purpose, not preference alone?
You'll come away with
- A functional map of what music can do in different contexts
- A clearer understanding of subjective response
- More discernment around matching music to intention
- Stronger timing and sensitivity when selecting and shaping music
Includes
Frameworks for therapeutic functions, receptive listening practices, case-oriented inquiry, and exploration of healing, familiarity, novelty, and therapeutic fit.
07 Creating Climates Month 7 +
We explore how musical experiences can be shaped significantly by everything other than the music itself. We examine the wider container, and learn how context, language, room and social variables all interact to impact the subjective atmosphere, and the depth listeners can reach within the music, and within themselves.
Key questions
- How do we create therapeutic climates?
- What is musical language, and how does it shape experience?
- How do setting, context, and relational tone change how music lands?
You'll come away with
- A more complete sense of music as environment, not just content
- Tools for shaping atmosphere with intention and care
Includes
Listening practices exploring music as environment, reflective exercises on context and relational tone, and shared inquiry into what shapes the conditions for deep listening.
08 Creating Playlists Month 8 +
Here you bring the previous months' learnings together and apply them in practice through weekly playlist design workshops. You'll learn new hands-on approaches to the design of musical experiences, ranging from curating, organisation, arcs, pacing, sequencing, themes, attunement, personalisation, and more.
Key questions
- What does personalisation mean in practice?
- Why does one piece land as soothing for one person and unsettling for another?
- How do we sense what is needed and adapt accordingly?
- How do we create therapeutic playlists?
- How do we build musical arcs over time?
You'll come away with
- A clearer understanding of subjective response
- A repeatable process for building playlists with integrity
- Stronger confidence in pacing, flow, and sequencing
- Stronger timing and sensitivity when selecting and shaping music
Includes
Playlist design workshop, music library curation tools, attunement practices, musical inquiry, and applied exercises around philosophy, metaphor, musical language, resonance, flow, and therapeutic context.
09 Course Synthesis Month 9 +
This final month focuses on consolidation, integration, and next steps. You'll gather together all the threads of the course, reflect on what has changed, and how you can continue to apply learnings to your own practice and ongoing development.
Includes
Teaching summaries, integrative listening, reflective practices, tools and resources, course synthesis, and closure.
LIVE COHORT SEPTEMBER 2026
Select your session time
Sessions run every fortnight for 8 months. Both groups cover the same content so simply choose whichever time works best for you.
Wednesday sessions
Every fortnight
Time
4:00 pm UK
11:00 am EST · 8:00 am PST
Starting
2 July 2026
Duration
Up to 2.5 hours
Capped at 25 participants
Enrol in Wednesday cohort →
Thursday sessionsEvery fortnight
Time
8:00 pm UK
3:00 pm EST · 7:00 am AEDT (+1)
Starting
3 July 2026
Duration
Up to 2.5 hours
Capped at 25 participants
Enrol in Thursday cohort →
Times shown in UK time. Your local start time may shift by ±1 hour when clocks change.
€2,000
€1,000
Early bird until 31 May. Payment plans available.
18
Live workshops with Mendel
30+
Hours of recorded lectures & practicals
9
Unique learning modules
LIVE COURSE FORMAT
Multimodal and experiential learning
A structured container designed to support learning from theoretical understanding, all the way practical application.
A steady rhythm of live teaching, guided listening, shared inquiry, and practical exploration. These sessions are where the course becomes dialogical, experiential, and applied. Concepts are brought to life through direct engagement, discussion, and musical practice.
Working groups are intentionally kept small and carefully curated to create a rich mix of professional backgrounds and lived experience. This allows you to deepen your learning not only through the course material, but through the perspectives, musical worlds, and insights of others. At times, you'll also work in triads to create and reflect on musical experiences together.
Engaging pre-recorded lectures of 10–20 minutes that bring complex ideas into a clear and compelling form. Across neuroscience, psychology, culture, therapy, and lived experience, Mendel guides participants through the conceptual foundations of the course in a way that is both rigorous and manageable alongside busy schedules.
Each module includes guided listening practices, reflective prompts, and applied exercises that help the material move from understanding into experience. These are designed to train perception, sharpen discernment, and support the gradual embodiment of what you are learning over time.
In Month 7, the live session cadence increases for a dedicated playlist design workshop, where participants bring the course more explicitly into practice. This is where the learning becomes especially tangible, as you begin shaping musical journeys with greater intention, attunement, and responsiveness.
All course materials live inside a private learning portal designed for flexible, spacious engagement. You'll find videos, readings, exercises, prompts, and resources organised in a clear modular structure, with the option to revisit earlier lessons, track your progress, and engage on the go through the mobile app.
Eight sequenced modules explore key dimensions of music and listening, forming a coherent framework for how music shapes perception, experience, and relationship. Each module integrates theory, guided listening, reflection, and practical application, supporting a gradual deepening of musical discernment over time.
Alongside the formal teaching, participants can share reflections, respond to practices, and learn from one another inside the course platform. Each working group also has its own dedicated private space, creating continuity between live sessions and supporting a more relational, ongoing learning experience.
Each module includes carefully chosen references and concise definitions of key terms, offering extra depth without overwhelming the learning process. These materials are there to support integration, clarify language, and give participants a richer framework for continued exploration.
Practical templates, worksheets, checklists, and support materials designed to help you bring the course into real-world practice. These resources are intended to make musical selection, storage, sequencing, reflection, and application more grounded, usable, and repeatable over time.
Throughout the course, Mendel shares from his own extensive music library, offering carefully chosen recommendations that bring the teaching to life and expand your musical references. This shared library continues to grow through contributions from fellow students, creating a rich and evolving pool of music, perspectives, and listening pathways that everyone can work with and learn from.
YOUR PRIVATE LEARNING PORTAL
Everything you need in one place
Access lectures, guided listening practices and your community hub from any device, at any time.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Everything you need to know
All recorded lectures, written materials, practice guidance, and community spaces are hosted via a private online learning portal.
We recommend dedicating a minimum of 1–1.5 hours per week, and an ideal of 2–4 hours per week, combining theoretical exploration, experiential listening, and reflective practice. The pace is designed to integrate well alongside professional and personal commitments.
You need a device to access the content and a pair of high fidelity headphones or speakers. We also recommend an eye mask to support fully immersive listening. Any additional tools and recommendations will be introduced during the course, with guidance on how to use them most effectively.
You will retain access to all recorded content and resources for at least 12 months online, allowing you to revisit and deepen your learning over time.
All sessions and materials are in English.
You will receive a Certificate of Completion. CE accreditation is currently in progress, and participants will be notified as soon as it becomes available.
The course is suitable for anyone in a profession that offers care or a therapeutic service, and is interested in introducing or deepening the use of music in their practice. Psychotherapists, psychedelic therapists, hospice care workers, body-mind practitioners such as breathworkers, teachers, coaches and guides are all welcome to join and form a collaborative, diverse learning collective.
No. This course is open to curious listeners with no formal background in music or therapeutic training. You do not need to read music, play an instrument, or work clinically to benefit.
Absolutely. This course encourages you to bring your own musical landscape into the learning process. You'll be guided to explore, expand and work with music that resonates with your own musical personality.
Yes. This course is highly relevant for those engaging with plant medicines, whether in a professional, facilitative, or personal context. Music often plays a powerful role in non-ordinary states of consciousness, shaping emotional tone, attention, memory, and meaning-making. This course offers a grounded framework for understanding how and why music has these effects, and how to work with it more intentionally and responsibly.
Rather than offering protocols or playlists for specific medicines, the course focuses on developing listening sensitivity, musical discernment, and situational awareness. It does not require prior experience with plant medicines, nor does it promote their use. It provides tools and perspectives that many participants find valuable for preparation, integration, and broader understanding of music's role in altered and expanded states.
Yes, plenty. You'll experience a wide variety of musical examples across genres, styles and cultures, while simultaneously acquiring new modes of listening.
Very much so. Ethical integrity, safety, and cultural sensitivity are woven throughout the course. You'll learn how to work with music responsibly, especially within the context of vulnerable or expanded states of consciousness.
This training uniquely bridges scientific research, psychotherapy theory, and experiential music practices. It integrates a number of disciplines into a coherent framework for the therapeutic application of music. The majority of these innovative approaches are introduced for the first time publicly within this course.
Absolutely. Many enter this course with a pre-established musicality, a set of intuitive skills, or credentials in music therapy. What they will gain are new ways of understanding, enriching and using these in practice.
This course offers a starting point and catalyst for a renewed relationship with music and listening. Whether in therapy, creative work, or everyday life, you are likely to become more attuned, more intentional, and more aware of how sound and music shape experience, meaning, and connection.
This course is well suited to those who sense that music plays an important role in their work or life, but want clearer understanding and guidance. It supports a shift from uncertainty to confidence, helping you relate to music with greater intention, sensitivity, and care — at a time when music is increasingly used across therapeutic, educational, and wellbeing contexts.