First time visiting BookBrowse? Get a free copy of our members' ezine today.

Summary and Reviews of The Schubert Treatment by Claire Oppert

The Schubert Treatment by Claire Oppert

The Schubert Treatment

A Story of Music and Healing

by Claire Oppert
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • First Published:
  • Oct 8, 2024, 216 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Book Summary

A celebrated art therapist plays the cello for her patients—and offers a moving reflection on the extraordinary power of music to enrich our lives, all the way to the very end.

When Claire Oppert plays the cello, miracles happen. Children with profound autism, patients in extreme pain and distress, even people on the threshold of death smile, cry, laugh, sing and dance. "When you play, I'm not sick anymore," one man tells her. "I feel happy, I feel alive."

In The Schubert Treatment, Oppert recounts her remarkable story of healing suffering through music, alongside portraits of the many people she has helped. Born into a family of doctors and artists, Oppert trained as a classical cellist and began playing at a center for autistic youth, where she witnessed how music could connect with even the most difficult-to-reach patients. Later, she began working as an art therapist with people with neurodegenerative diseases and palliative care patients, eventually conducting clinical trials that proved the effect of her "Schubert treatment": using music as a counter-stimulation to reduce pain and anxiety during stressful procedures.

Oppert's crystalline, lyrical vignettes of the patients whose lives she has touched are punctuated with anecdotes from her own life as a musician, as well as reflections on the meaning of art and the human need for connection and creativity. Compassionate, uplifting, and deeply humane, The Schubert Treatment is a testament to the incredible power of music to heal our bodies, minds, and souls.

Prologue

Schubert, Piano Trio no. 2 in E-flat Major, op. 100
Andante con moto
Exposition

april 2012. paris, korian jardins d'alésia.

The leaves of the tall oak quiver in spring's new light in front of the windows of the EHPAD, the établissement d'hébergement pour personnes âgées indépendantes, an assisted-living retirement facility.

On the floor for the residents with dementia, the door to the common room we call l'Espace is wide open.

Espace—space—is a funny word. The dictionary defines it as the span of the physical universe, the vacuum between the planets, the stars, and the galaxies.

I walk into the common room and turn off the television, just as I do every Monday, a ritual.

The television stays on all day long even though no one is watching. When I click it off, the set makes a peculiar noise, like a machine being swallowed, and leaves a flicker of grey in the silence.

The floor for the twenty-one patients with dementia is a closed, protected ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

The interspersed backstory provides depth and captures Oppert's motivation, and as she begins to work in a more clinical setting, these sections explain the development and testing of the Schubert Treatment—the calming effect of music that reduced pain and anxiety, named after the famous Austrian composer, Franz Schubert. Oppert's writing is emotional and detailed, bringing individuals to life in only a few pages, and the inclusion of specific pieces of music at the beginning of each vignette provides a soundtrack to further connect with her work. This memoir is a heartwarming show of the unique power of music to connect and heal people at all levels of health...continued

Full Review Members Only (556 words)

(Reviewed by Jordan Lynch).

Media Reviews

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Compassionate, intriguing, often uplifting vignettes delivered in crystalline prose.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Oppert, a classical cellist and art therapist, debuts with a luminous ode to the 'mysterious ways music... moves' patients with such conditions as dementia and autism… Assured and lyrical, this impresses.

Author Blurb Adriana Barton, author of Wired for Music
In astonishing encounters with Oppert's cello, music becomes a lifeline for those who lack memory, language, hope, or trust. Raw and lyrical, The Schubert Treatment sparkles with insight and faith in the human spirit.

Author Blurb Andrew Schulman, author of Waking the Spirit: A Musician's Journey Healing Body, Mind, and Soul
A cello is a musical instrument, but in the right hands it can also be an invaluable medical instrument. Claire Oppert shows on every page of The Schubert Treatment just how indispensable the music she makes is for her patients. Her passion for music and healing shines through, bringing the reader into each room and bedside. This is an important book, helping to bring music back to its ancient role as an integral part of medicine.

Author Blurb Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes
These healing musical encounters at the frontiers of 'unimaginable lands'—the lands of profound dementia and non-speaking autism— resonate in the heart like chords on Claire Oppert's cello.

Reader Reviews

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Music Therapy and Autism Spectrum Disorder

In The Schubert Treatment, musician Claire Oppert shares her experiences with the healing power of music. A classically trained cellist, Oppert was inspired by the work of her physician family members to begin playing music in nursing homes and medical facilities. One of these facilities was the Adam Shelton Center in Saint-Denis, France, which is a medical and educational institute for young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Oppert's experiences there show the significant impact of music therapy for individuals with ASD, and this is supported by scientific research.

Music therapy is the use of music as an intervention to help accomplish specific, individualized goals. This form of therapy is clinical and evidence-based and is ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Schubert Treatment, try these:

  • The Country of the Blind jacket

    The Country of the Blind

    by Andrew Leland

    Published 2024

    About this book

    A witty, winning, and revelatory personal narrative of the author's transition from sightedness to blindness and his quest to learn about blindness as a rich culture all its own

  • Dear Life jacket

    Dear Life

    by Rachel Clarke

    Published 2020

    About this book

    More by this author

    In Dear Life, palliative care specialist Dr. Rachel Clarke recounts her professional and personal journey to understand not the end of life, but life at its end.

We have 5 read-alikes for The Schubert Treatment, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..