Dr. Juju [a.k.a. Dr. Julian Owens, PhD, MPH]

Dr. Juju [Dr. Julian Owens, PhD, MPH] is a Behavioral Health Mediatrician who specializes in Adolescent Mental Health. His practice is grounded in judicious uses of music and media to facilitate dialogue, discovery, discernment, and improved decision-making. Dr. Juju is the author of MusicsEnergy: An Essential Guide to Engaging Youth in the iGeneration where Dr. Owens introduces Music and Media Therapy™ [MMT™]- a peer-reviewed, evidence-based approach to engaging young people in building five key competencies, and seven key skills.

MMT™ training is offered to:

  • healthcare providers,

  • health educators,

  • counselors,

  • school and community-based behavioral/mental health personnel,

  • therapists,

  • social workers, and

  • research partners.

MMT™ also includes community training opportunities to improve access to services targeting children, youth, and families. MusicsEnergy™ [ME: LLC] is an evidence-based approach to engaging young people and building competencies, ages 14 -26, in the uptake of knowledge, skills, and abilities linked to mental health and life literacy goals. ME: LLC consists of 1): Songwriting with Young People™; 2) Messages in Music™; and 3) ME: Reducing Dis-ease in. America™.

Please click: askdrjuju.info/musicsenergy to learn more about MusicsEnergy. You may also visit: the MusicsEnergy YouTube Channel to check out original music co-produced with young people over the past two decades.

askdrjuju.info/musicsenergy....askdrjuju.info/musicsenergy....

askdrjuju.info/musicsenergy....askdrjuju.info/musicsenergy....

Dr. Juju [a.k.a. Dr. Julian D. Owens, PhD, MPH]

  • Author

  • Behavioral Health Interventionist

  • Mediatrician

  • Music & Media Therapist/Supervisor

  • Lecturer/Researcher/Scientist

  • Social Entrepreneur

ABOUT 

My name is Dr. Julian Owens. My students, parents, colleagues, and friends call me Dr. Juju. I am blessed to wear many hats, including being a musician who sings, writes, and records original music. I am here to make the case that judicious uses of Popular Youth Music and Media [PYMM] will enable young people to deconstruct messages in music, paying close attention to messages that align with health, hope, and healing in contrast to those messages that contribute to dis-ease. The energy music emits [MusicsEnergy™] works synergistically with our mind, body, and spirit [MusicSenergy™]. Music, when used judiciously, purposefully, and with training, can promote health, hope, healing, and wellbeing at the individual, group, and societal levels. Hope and optimism are synonymous and both are essential to reducing dis-ease in America, as well as healing this nation, and truly living up to the American creed.

As a Behavioral Health Mediatrician, I offer training and certification in MusicsEnergy which focuses on gaining a historically-based, contextually correct understanding of ten prevailing themes in PYMM, and facilitates the update of seven positive attributes for living well. I work with clinicians and practitioners on how to use music and media for education, enrichment, and therapeutic purposes. I also coach, co-teach, and co-facilitate sessions with children, youth, and families in school and community settings, I advise, consult, and supervise behavioral interventionists who wish to implement MusicsEnergy™ and MMT [Music and Media Therapy™] with fidelity. I advise graduate students, and provide technical assistance to agencies, institutions of higher education, organizations, schools, and school districts in research design, implementation, programmatic, and clinical evaluation.

The energy music emits [MusicsEnergy™] works synergistically with our mind, body, and spirit [MusicSenergy™]. With training, music can be used to promote hope, healing, emotional health, and wellbeing. Hope is essential to reducing dis-ease in America.   

Below are seven statements that serve as a primer for Music & Media Therapy™ [MMT™] and my book entitled:

MusicsEnergy™:  The Essential Guide to Promoting Health in the iGeneration   

The iGeneration is the first generation that has grown up with unfettered access to handheld technology for worldwide news, information, and entertainment. There is great potential for music to be used positively in the world today.

  1. Music is a universal language that provides opportunities for soul-to-soul connections between people of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspective. We use music and media to purposefully deconstruct the themes and messages therein highlighting those themes and messages  that align with health, hope, and healing, and addressing themes and messages that do not.

  2. Most of the themes and messages in music reflect social constructions of personhood.Many of our perspectives about these social constructions are deeply rooted in disparaging myths, misconceptions, and stereotypes about race, class, gender, and orientation.

  3. These social constructions are stitched in our collective consciousness, and nearly every facet of modern American life, including business, industry, religion, the academy of higher education, K12, law, politics, art, literature, and even science. The Information and News Industry, and Media Entertainment™ [INIME™] is a tool that is purposefully used to present perspectives of those who create and control dissemination of content to the masses.

  4. The enemy of freedom stands in opposition to life, liberty, self-determination, and justice for all. The enemy's agenda is to withhold freedom and decide who is deserving of it. The enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy our mental, physical, and spiritual health, and any shred of hope to reduce dis-ease. The INIME™ is a tool used by the enemy to mostly preserve, and sometimes challenge the status quo. 

  5. The enemy and the INIME™ work synergistically to create “white noise” for the “black holes” that have caused dissonance in our collective, cosmic consciousness about early American History. Increasingly, this dissonance is expressed behaviorally as flagrant incivility and disrespect presented on large and small screens in programmed and social media.

  6. Education toward social justice gives all of us an opportunity to practice Socratic thinking and Socratic questioning. Popular Youth Music and Media (PYMM) has great potential to potential to promote hope, which is essential to mental health, healing, and reducing dis-ease.

  7. A Historically Based Contextually Correct Understanding™ (HBCU™) is essential to engaging all children and youth in the iGeneration, especially those disengaged by compulsory education that does not provide the culturally-relevant schooling required to survive and thrive in times like these.

Training is required to implement MusicsEnergy™, Music & Media Therapy™ and the Life Literacy Curriculum™. This requires engaging and a deeper dive into the true purposes of education and the true value of being schooled in America History.

www.musicsenergy.org