Having spent over two decades as an Instructor in Carnatic Music, my own association with Music Therapy started during a visit to Sydney, Australia in 2003, where I met delegates, including doctors from India, attending a conference of the International Anthroposophical Medical Society.  Informal interaction with them was followed by an invitation to make a presentation on the potential of Indian Classical Music in Music Therapy - a two hours a day, five consecutive day presentation at Hyderabad to an audience of eminent medical specialists, psychologists, and other inter-disciplinary therapists from Switzerland, Germany, Australia, UK, USA and [including Hyderabad] India with many of whom I continue to  interact.

Consequent on these interaction here are a few observations I wish to share:

• They acknowledge that the potential of Indian Classical Music, especially Carnatic Music to deliver a calibrated therapeutic intervention with greater success was by any measure more than that   possessed by the Western Classical Music system, yet there seems little effort seen to formalize it here.
• In the West, it has evolved, is continuously evolving, is formalized and accredited and many resources quoted and employed are Asian and Indian in particular
• Universities across the world offer Music Therapy Programs and Certification Boards provide the necessary regulatory environment. To quote just one example, the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) has specific curriculum requirements including courses in research, analysis, physiology, acoustics, psychology,  music and therapy. Currently there are 68 undergraduate and 25 graduate programs approved by the Association and a programme Certification Board across Universities in the USA.