Withdrawn Youngsters and Lyrics

By Takeshi Watanabe

(The present paper is a reconfiguration of the following work: The Journal of the Japanese Music Therapy Association, 2:143-149, 2001)

Introduction

The expression "withdrawal into one's shell" comprises the expression "stay hold up in the house," which belongs to the physical ambit, and the expression "feel ashamed," which belongs to the psychological ambit. This author has been a "Visiting Counselor" during the last ten years using, instead of forced oral expression, music therapy to treat these withdrawn youngsters. Although these youngsters who are locked-in in their "place" are in denial of their withdrawal, this phenomenon has become a current major clinical problem. When one of these youngsters decides to isolate himself, the family members usually through at them expressions such as "get out!, open the door! or speak!." As a consequence, being silent becomes an uncomfortable situation and the youngster tries to go out for a walk or makes a struggling effort to start talking. However, it is necessary to realize that there are many clients that belong to the category of withdrawn youngster while superficially seem to be cheerful and troubleless. Many withdrawn youngsters say in retrospective, that they have purposely given up talking because talking was painful in the past and they have been hurt.

In this paper, the author reports on how he acted as a therapist for a youngster who, despite conserving some ability for interpersonal interaction, preferred to spend time alone observing through his window the flow of the passing people and to isolate himself in his room peeping at an album of pictures while seeking for healing in music. The author wants to report on how withdrawn youngsters that found lyrics that embrace them, these lyrics can serve as a means to "let their voices out first" and "speak" later on.

Case Report

Y, 25-year-old man

After graduating high school, Y had held some part-time jobs, usually at convenience stores, but had been unable to obtain a full-time regular job. As time passed by, it became hard for him to hang out with his former high school peers and he started to spend more time alone at home. He hardly watched TV and instead he would frequently go out to buy picture albums. He progressively withdrew from verbal communication with his family and progressively became closer to his younger sister. The dedicated long periods to reading, including a wide variety of topics such as philosophy, religion, arts and culture. He was especially interested in albums of pictures albums, some of whose pictures some times served Y as a trigger for going out. Y could be seen walking his dog everyday; taking pictures of the sunset afterglow became a routine and Y eventually accumulated hundreds of pictures. The father liked cooking and would leave breakfast prepared for Y before going to work. There were no relevant problems in the relation of Y with the other members of the family and Y helped with the house tasks in a regular way. However, Y's mother and younger sister came for counseling expressing concerns about Y's current situation. This author decided to hold an interview with the family prior to conducting a home counseling visit to Y.

During the interview with the mother, it was concluded that forcing Y to face directly his current withdrawal situation would only bring about additional anxiety on him and would be eventually detrimental to the therapy goals. It was also decided that during the first home visit, the author would not push Y too hard concerning the purposes of the therapy and treatment. This author believed that Y probably felt isolated from his generational peers and therefore decided to use musical therapy, with songs that belong to the culture of his generation, to try to reconnect Y to his generational peers.

The house was located at a 15-minute walk distance from the nearby trainstation, in one corner of a school district. In the first meeting, the author saw that Y was sitting at the end of one room in the house; the author greeted Y but Y did not respond. The author addressed Y once more, obtaining no response, and then decided to sit at the table by Y's side. While sited, Y remained bent forward, as if reflecting on his difficultly to talk and his painful stiffness. Y had a variety of picture albums spread over the room's sofa. When the author peered at the albums, Y looked into the author's eyes. The author realized Y's difficulty to engage in oral communication and therefore, declined talking directly to him and instead muttered short sentences such as: ".hum, good, very vivid and nice colors, this painter is frequently featured on TV." " .oh!, so this is a collage, quite interesting." For a while, periods of silence and whispering were observed.

In his second visit, the author's intention was, even if conversation was not yet possible, to at least create a sense of co-ownership of space with Y being together in the same room. After staying with Y for over one hour without exchanging one single word, which was tense and uncomfortable at times, the author ended his visit.

On the day of the third visit, it was raining and the author's shoes were wet when he arrived at the house. The author took off his socks at the entrance of the house and suddenly Y pushed forward a heater towards the author from behind with his left arm. The author said "thank you" and then Y lit on the heater. This was precisely the instant when Y's stiffness began to relax a little bit. The author put on the table a tape including the 7th Symphony of Beethoven. Y took the tape and inserted it in the cassette player immediately. When a melancholic melody of the music piece played, Y's attitude drastically changed as he directed his sight (line of vision) towards the direction from which the music was coming. When the author muttered: "a painful piece of music is good for painful moments, right," Y look directed his sight towards the author. When the piece of music ended, Y went to the kitchen, took the plate of noodles that his father had left for him, heated them in the microwave oven and offered the plate to the author by leaving it close to one border of the table.

When arriving for the fourth visit, the housedog was barking and Y came to the entrance to meet the author. However, Y did not great and instead returned to the room and started to peer up a book with red covers. The author understood that the atmosphere was not yet ready to elicit talking and decided again to have a look at the picture albums placed on the sofa. Once the fourth visit ended, the author reported Y's mother on the progression of therapy.

Since the author was later informed that Y had been recently listening to music at his room in the second floor, the author decided to bring a digital drum with him to the fifth home visit and, in pace with the rhythm of the music, murmured in front of Y short sentences such as: ".this is samba, this is Euro-hit, this is rap, I think that rap is interesting. is it talking?, is it signing?, it is like putting in a lot of energy in order to let the voice out more easily. At that moment, Y replied for the first time and with a small voice said: "what?"

The sixth to eight visits were spent quietly. During the ninth visit, the author borrowed one of the books that were placed on the sofa. In the tenth visit, the author returned the book he had borrowed and started talking to himself: "it may be inappropriate to talk about sentiments but, to me, as it is written in this book, I am negative about the ascetic method of withdrawing oneself to a special place. I do not want to borrow philosophies or methods from other persons, on the contrary, here and now, and wherever and whenever, I want to have in my heart my own philosophy and my own rules". Y exclaimed in a load voice and with an emphatic expression: "eh?, no!, why?".

In the eleventh visit, the author mentioned: "I would like to try to discuss with other persons about the feelings lodged in my heart." Shortly after, Y attended a counseling session accompanied by his mother.

After coming to a counseling session, Y joined a group of withdrawn youngsters; he felt puzzled at the big number of juvenile topics discussed. However, when our staff of his same generation started speaking about popular movies, fashion and music, Y replied with a small voice: "I know that, I know that." Next, the staff requested Y to help them with typing work on a personal computer of some announcements for juvenile activities; this activity enabled the involvement of Y in further group conversation. The participants in the group, decided to share their respective background in a miscellany written common document, which led to Y's development of written expression. The author frequently visited the "music therapy group" for withdrawn youngsters that Y was also attending and where Y timidly started to talk about the songs. Y also made his first appearance at "karaoke show " and when he came across a song he liked, "Innocent world" of the group "Mr. Children," he started to mutter the lyrics of the song with his lips. The key to this success was that in spite of feeling uncomfortable, Y made a great effort and was able to force his voice out. Later, the author also used other songs like the Beatles' "Across the Universe" as a means of establishing rapport with Y. In the end, with a great involvement of Y, the music therapy group composed two songs about their prior withdrawal experience.

Discussion

The characteristics found in withdrawn youngsters are listed in Chart 1. Withdrawn youngsters embrace strong feelings of being hopeless, spiritless and inadequate. In many occasions, the therapists, trying to change their clients' misconceptions of helplessness, bring about a big deal of shock to these young clients. Instead, in dealing with Y, this author sat in front of Y and tested the effect of muttering and susurrating a flow of words to him. The appearance in scene of the digital drum, a shared game, brought about relaxation to the, until then, Y's stiffness and the tense relationship between the author and Y. Y had been left behind form his generation and therefore the chances he had to use daily oral expression without feeling anxious had become extremely rare. Y had lost the feelings common to most other youngsters, such as adscription to a location, solidarity, affiliation and affinity. Y discovered gentle and friendly lyrics (representations of the inner self, relations with others, and wishful dreams) that become the means to obtaining a good rapport and a stable and friendly relation with the author. In conclusion, music therapy provided Y, who had withdrawn and was unable to clarify his feelings and has refused communication, a chance for evolution and an exit to rediscovering the world of oral expression.

Conclusion

Before the current so called "era of withdrawal," youngsters were able to openly voice their concerns about and opposition to society without having to keep those feelings to themselves. However, the current quarrel for performance in society and its casualties render people left behind without a place in society and without means to effectively express their frustration and irritation. During the past periods of students' protests, "folk songs" (daily life songs) served the purpose of connecting youngsters to society. However, with the passing of generations, music has evolved from a "singing together setting" to a "self-soothing setting."

This author has been using lyrics as a means to reach to the inner feelings of withdrawn youngsters. In Japan, from immemorial times, lyrics have served to describe the joy and sorrows of daily life as pillow words (lullabies) and as such they are deeply rooted in society.

When the author peeks at the current boom among youngsters of "haiku" poems or "street poems" in Harajuku district of Tokyo, he understands that the goal of his clinical practice is to resurrect and rediscover those lullabies that can help withdrawn youngsters, who have lost their adscription language and who struggle trying to get back their oral expression, to talk, to speak and to walk again.

Lyrics can help withdrawn youngsters in their "trip to regain oral expression" and bring leeway to the bundled-up anxiety elicited by dealing with oral expression. The author the lyrics that best engages and embrace withdrawn youngsters would serve as the trigger to make them able to speak again in a relaxed way.

Acknowledgements

The author wants to thank Douglas Berger, MD, PhD, for his help in the preparation of the English manuscript.

Chart 1

Visitor counselor	Characteristics of the communication process	Oral expressions of withdrawn youngsters
1. oral expression	internalize	hint
2. self-talking
3.	murmur	practice, drill
4.
4.	susurrate	run up
5. written expression	write
6. emulation	emulate	identification
7. popular expression		adscription
8. lyrics	sing	enjoy
9.	communicate	confess
10. conversation	converse	involvement
11. living expression		self-identity

Scheme

Withdrawn youngsters' lyrics and oral expression

Oral expression
		↗			↘
Face up to-look back on-fixing				Settle-clear away-take responsibility
↑				↓
Approaching				Draw apart
↑				↓
Calm down				Withdrawal
↑				↓
Understand				Internalize
↑				↓
Imaging				Murmur
↖				↙
Lyrics

Songs

Words Cannot Catch Up With the Heart

You are silent, so I am silent too
You continue to be silent, you speak without words
The silence is moving
That's why we are cuddling
And while we cuddle, we gaze
Words cannot catch up with the heart
Words cannot catch up with the heart

A Tree Without Name

The man in the road
Get off to sleep
A tree without name

The sea glitters
Breathe of wind
Clouds of water
A tree without name

A shaking adult
A child who plays
A branch broke off
A tree without name

The rain falls
And flows
Now to where?
A tree without name

Sometime, someone,
But here
Wiping the sprout of life
A tree without name