As I read Marcia Cirigliano's article titled "Contributions to Music Therapy: The Song as an Anchor" (2003), I began to think of my own work and how the journey to knowing my "music self" is like the song that anchors the music therapist and the emphasis on self knowledge as being paramount to providing effective music therapy. The term, "music self" is taken from the Nordoff-Robbin's term "music child." When I first read about it I immediately identified with it and began to think about my music self and how the more comfortable I became with my music self was related to providing a musical space, a term I learned from Carolyn Kenny's writings, for my clients to develop their music selves. I began to believe that one of the places to nourish and develop the music self was in a peer improvisation group. I first heard of this concept at a presentation given by Robin Rio, MA, MT-BC, where she was discussing her experiences in a peer improvisation group and how it positively effected her personal and professional development. Prior to that I had been using improvisation for a quite a while in my practice but realized that most of what I had learned what come through trial and error and that most of my opportunities to improvise were at "jam sessions" at music therapy conferences—which is where I first met Robin, at a Western Regional conference jam session in 1999.
I believe it was also at the same conference where I heard Robin present, that I went to yet another 5 hour CMTE about improvisation. The presentation was very good and exactly what I was looking for but I could see that the presenters wanted to discuss advanced approaches, which was in the title of the presentation, but they were slowed down by questions for music therapists who obviously had little experience. This is when I began to think that there need to be levels of training in learning improvisation, just as there are levels of training for Guided Imagery and Music. To me, improvisation and GIM are very similar as they are both methods of traveling into the unknown and a prerequisite to practicing GIM was using GIM to travel into the therapist's unknown self. I thought that improvisation needs to be taught in the same way. The therapist must use improvisation in their own therapeutic process as part of their training. This is something I had not really heard at previous improvisation workshops, maybe it was assumed that this is something that should be done but I know that it was not necessarily emphasized in my training, although the importance of personal counseling was stressed. Also, at this same conference, I spoke to Barbara Wheeler, PhD, MT-BC, and talked about the improvisation workshop I had attended, it some how came up that these presenters should develop a training program and if they did I would be their first student. Barbara's reply was, "Why don't you develop it?"
I returned home, contacted Robin Rio and the term "Strength-Based Improvisation" was born. The premise was that improvisation could be used by competent music therapists if given the opportunity to develop their music self, in other words, knowing their music and personal strengths as well as those of their clients. Another premise was that any primary instrument could be used by the therapist, whatever the therapist's musical strength was should be the cornerstone of their improvisational approach with clients. Providing therapists the opportunity to strengthen that relationship with their instrument (music self) would allow them to better provide the musical space for their clients to improvise.
The next step for me was to organize a peer improvisation group and I also wanted to return to my interest in GIM. I had completed levels I and II a few years back but was drawn to finish now as I could see the parallels between improvisation and GIM but was not really clear on what that looked like just yet, I just knew something was there. I began to study with Fran Goldberg and Lisa Summer and, of course, underwent personal GIM sessions which I feel enhance my ability to be an improvisational therapist. In fact, as Robin and I are now beginning to think about levels of training for Strength-Based improvisation, we have considered that perhaps some form of GIM training and personal sessions be a requirement.
Members of the initial group were my co-workers at the acute adult psychiatric unit. They included myself, another music therapist, two music therapy interns, a recreation therapist, a nurse and a hospital volunteer who worked on our unit. Our first sessions were referred to as "jam sessions". No verbal processing took place before or afterwards but gradually that did take place. Eventually the sessions began to become more organized in terms of what took place in the pre and post session. The pre-session consisted of a "check-in" where members state their intention for the music, in other words, what do they want to achieve or focus on during the improvisation. The post-session included general verbal processing, peer feedback, and a revisit to the initial intention. As the group evolved we sometimes had 1-2 dance therapists join us. This was very liberating for us as prior to that we had never incorporated any kind of movement at all. When they came it was like we were given permission to move and it was very freeing. At one of the early sessions after they arrived I remember just simply standing up and playing as opposed to sitting. This brought something different to what I was playing. We began to move with scarves, with our instruments, or just with our own bodies. We sometimes incorporated art; mandalas were provided, sometimes created during the improvisation and sometimes after. I had originally envisioned that they would be only uses afterwards as a way of processing the music, like a GIM session, but people were drawn to them sometimes during the music and I did not want to redirect. I had to constantly work on not directing this group. Even though the group was my idea I did not want to become the leader. I wanted to be there for myself, to play what I wanted to play, to not feel obligated to provide a pulse when the improvising became chaotic, which I sometimes feel obligated to provide and still continue to feel that responsibility, at times, but I am working on it.
The regular members of the group, primarily the other music therapist and the recreation therapist have told me that this has positively effected their personal and professional growth. They both have said that they feel more comfortable providing the therapeutic spaces in their clinical work. The recreation therapist, although she happens to be very musical, has capitalized on her strength of humor and has a beautiful way of using in therapeutically with the patients and she has also recently composed a song that is perfect for music therapy sessions. The music therapist has also strengthened her relationship with her music self and is now applying to graduate school in the Expressive Arts. As for me, I believe it has inspired my song-writing and my desire to go forward with developing the Strength-Based Improvisation approach and philosophy as well as enhanced my GIM studies.
As with every group our improvisation group struggles with resistance. For approximately one year we met regularly once a month but our second year has been filled with long gaps. We usually blame it on our busy schedules but is it really our resistance? When we do finally meet after a 2-3 month absence we feel so much better. To me, it's like exercise, I resist it and then when I finally do it I feel so much better after it's over and I ask myself why have I let this go? Why can't I remember how good this feels? I feel the same way after an improvisation session. Like exercise, it must be a commitment, a priority that is valued and has as much importance as our jobs. With it our jobs are easier, we know this to be true because we have experienced it over and over again.
I believe the next step for the development of Strength-Based Improvisation is to survey music therapist beliefs towards improvisation. Robin and I have discussed that perhaps there is a correlation between the therapist's experience with personal therapy and their use of improvisation. We would also like to examine the fears that music therapist have regarding improvisation. This seems to come up at every workshop Robin and I have given and greatly needs to be studied and addressed. Overall I feel incredibly grateful that I have begun this professional and personal journey and feel even more grateful that Robin has agreed to go on it with me.
Bonny, H. (2002). Music Consciousness: The Evelution of Guided Imagery and Music. Gilsum NH: Barcelona Publishers.
Cirigliano, Marcia (2003). Contributions to Music Therapy: The Song as an Anchor (online). Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.Retrieved from http://www.voices.no/mainissues/mi40003000112.html
Kenny, C. (1989). The Field of Play. Atascadero, Ca: Ridgeview Publishing.
Nordoff, P. & Robbins, C. (1977). Creative Music Therapy. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
It's strange to think that the personal issues harbored by a therapist could actually benefit a client, but it makes sense. Transference and countertransference are very real issues that therapists face, but most reading and discussion tends to come as a warning. I had never really connected these concepts with my own ideas about what makes a good therapist. Of course, as Marcia Cirigliano points out, we are all human beings. It's seems such an obvious and simple thing to say, but to truly believe and accept such a statement as a therapist is to accept one's own vulnerabilities and potential for making mistakes. It also means recognizing that the individual "human" qualities within all of us are not only the qualities that allow us to make mistakes but also those that allow us to make real connections with other people, the kind of connections that allow us to change one another.
When I think back on my own experiences working with adolescents, in both clinical and non-clinical settings, I can recall mistakes I've made that probably stemmed from my own personal issues. There were times as a residential counselor when my lack of experience, naiveté, or even carelessness created tricky and sometimes stressful situations. (I once popped two of the four tires on the program's van by driving into a curb while residents were riding with me, but that's another story!) I remember times as a public school teacher when I may have lost patience with a student because I was overtired or stressed out for one reason or another. While we as counselors, teachers, therapists, and other members of the helping professions are by and large hard-working, well-intentioned individuals, we are still people. As we go through each day directing our energies towards the greater good, life is still happening to us, and it doesn't always make things easy. But it does make us real.
So, as I look back on my few but meaningful and enriching years as a counselor and educator, I am also able to remember the instances in which something positive and truthful and genuine transferred from me to a client or student. I believe that what brought me the greatest success in connecting with and helping those kids was allowing them to see me as a human being. In this essay, Cirigliano's shares a personal anecdote of her work with an autistic child. In many of her sessions with this young boy she felt unsure of how to help him and connect with him, and she would begin to sing songs from her childhood (which she acknowledged as her own "anchor") as songs that provided comfort and healing throughout her life. As she recalls, these moments often captured this client's awareness and the session could continue based on these connections. It seems to me that something meaningful and unspoken transferred from the therapist to the client, some inner human quality that made him feel as though he could go on, and in turn, the therapist perceived this and also found a way to move forward. This story struck me in a very personal way. It sheds a different kind of light on the possibilities that exist within the grasp of transference and countertransference and the healing potential they contain.
It's important to remember as a therapist that a relationship with a client has to ultimately exist to teach and heal that client. It seems equally important to remember that the qualities that lie within us as people are just as integral to the healing process as our skills as therapists.