Dr. Sonja Aalbers is a music therapist, supervisor, trainer, researcher, and developer of Emotion-regulating improvised music therapy (EIMT). In 2021, she received her PhD from the Open University for her research on music therapy and depression, and in 2025 she published the book "Music Therapy, EIMT, and Emotion Regulation in Depressive Symptoms" (Acco Publishers).

​

Aalbers is a visiting researcher at the University Center for Psychiatry (UMCG) in Groningen and chair of the Dutch Association for Music Therapy (NVvMT). She is a co-founder of the international network Music Therapy for Depression Research and organizes symposia on music therapy and depression. She also regularly speaks at national and international conferences.

​

Previously, she worked for many years as a lecturer-researcher and guest lecturer at various universities of applied sciences, including NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, HAN University of Applied Sciences, Codarts University of Applied Sciences, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, and ArtEZ University of the Arts. From 2022 to 2024, she was a postdoctoral researcher at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. She currently supervises students in practice-oriented research on EIMT and remains active as a guest lecturer in several programs.

​

With over 25 years of experience in mental healthcare, she further develops EIMT for clinical practice, always based on solid scientific evidence. The connection between treatment, education, and research is at the heart of her work.