This work presents the study of the musical element “rhythm” in music therapy as a force in the musical experience. The general objective was to investigate the applicability of rhythm in music therapy practice. The methodology is quantitative-qualitative bibliographical re-search, with a corpus of research in the Portuguese language in the date cut from 2015 to 2017. The literature review included studies on rhythm and music therapy available in virtual data-bases. The data collection selected vignettes of clinical works from music therapists where rhythm was the primary element. The applicability and function of the rhythm in music ex-periences were highlighted with the following population: institutionalized elders, adults with mental disabilities, kids with language alteration, aphasia, and hospitalized people. The result considered the rhythm in two categories: regulatory and propelling strength in music therapy work.