The D.O.S.E. Effect of Music: An Experiential Lunch & Learn Briefing for Behavioral Health Care Leaders
The D.O.S.E. Effect of Music: An Experiential Lunch & Learn Briefing for Behavioral Health Care Leaders
Information
Date & Time
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Description
This Lunch & Learn explores the neuroscience of music-making and its impact on treatment outcomes. Led by BandJam and Rock to Recovery, this interactive session demonstrates how songwriting, rhythm, and group performance activate emotional regulation, deepen engagement, and foster authentic connection. Discover how active music-making moves individuals from passive participation to meaningful creation—supporting retention, reducing resistance, and strengthening community. Designed for clinical and organizational leaders, this experience offers a powerful, evidence-informed approach to enhancing care, culture, and connection across behavioral health and wellness settings.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to:
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Describe how experiential, creative interventions impact client engagement and retention, as measured by increased session participation rates, improved completion/retention metrics, and reductions in early discharge or AMA events.
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Explain the role of co-regulation and rhythmic interventions in reducing resistance and anxiety, as evidenced by decreased observable resistance behaviors, improved anxiety ratings (e.g., pre/post self-report scales), and reduced AMA risk.
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Analyze how shared creative experiences strengthen connection, trust, and group cohesion, using indicators such as increased peer interaction, improved group cohesion or alliance scores, and higher self-reported levels of trust, belonging, and psychological safety.
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Evaluate how real-time session data (e.g., participation, synchrony, emotional tone, and interaction patterns) can be used to quantify engagement, connection, and therapeutic impact.
Educational Goal
Target Audience
- Addiction Professional
- Counselor
- Marriage & Family Therapist
- Social Worker
Presenters
After losing a decades-long mentor and close friend to COVID-19, David experienced firsthand the critical need for accessible, effective mental wellness support—particularly within corporate environments, where meaningful solutions remain scarce. Motivated to help expand Rock to Recovery's impact, he connected with Wes to explore new ways to bring collaborative, music-driven healing experiences to a wider audience.
William B. Hurwitz, M.A., MHSAC, is a Grammy and Latin Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist, event producer, music-based wellness facilitator, and former oncology research project manager based in Miami, Florida. With more than 15 years of experience across music, behavioral health, live events, education, and healthcare operations, William brings a unique blend of performance, psychology, research, and entrepreneurship to his work.
He currently serves as Director of South Florida Programs & JamMaster for BandJam / Rock to Recovery, where he helps expand music-based experiential programming for behavioral health, treatment, recovery, senior care, adolescent, veterans, and corporate wellness populations. He is also the founder of WBH Productions LLC, producing and performing for high-level private, corporate, hospitality, nonprofit, and cultural events throughout South Florida and beyond.
Wes Geer understands what clients in treatment are walking through—because he walked it himself.
Wes grew up surrounded by both music and medicine: his grandfather a renowned church music director, his father a physician, his mother a nurse practitioner. Music captured him early. Self-taught on guitar, he founded the rock band HED PE, which sold more than a million records worldwide, then toured as guitarist for KORN, performing for audiences of 80,000-plus across 42 countries.
Behind the success, Wes struggled for years with addiction and his mental health. Treatment saved his life—and in rehab he discovered that writing and playing music with others did something talk alone could not: it gave him a way to feel, connect, and hope again. He has called music his “most intimate friend” through his darkest days.
That insight became a method. Teaching music to struggling students at Fusion Academy, an alternative school, Wes saw the same shift—engagement, self-esteem, and buy-in—when young people wrote songs together rather than simply took lessons. In 2012 he founded Rock to Recovery®, placing sober professional musicians inside treatment programs to guide clients through the cathartic, healing experience of creating music as a group.
Today that clinically grounded methodology—refined over more than a decade and more than 42,000 original songs—supports over 150 treatment centers nationwide, alongside a longstanding U.S. Department of Defense partnership serving Air Force Wounded Warriors. Wes co-authored Rock to Recovery: Music as a Catalyst for Human Transformation with Constance Scharff, Ph.D., an award-winning account of the work and the science behind it.
In 2025, Wes co-founded BandJAM with technology entrepreneur David Carter to bring this proven framework to more people and settings, with clinical impact reporting rolling out in 2026. For treatment professionals, his message is simple and earned through experience: you don’t need to be a musician to be transformed by making music together.
Financially Sponsored By
- Caron Treatment Centers