Journal Prompt #1 (The sounds of silence)

Inspired by the very pleasant time I had with the "Joys of Journaling" workshop participants last night (thanks, guys!), I thought it might be cool to dedicate a weekly (or so) (we can always hope) blog post to sharing ideas with you of things you might like to explore and process in some form of journal.


You could do your journaling in the "old fashioned way, with pen and paper and keep it private (which would be glorious). Or you could do it in an alternative (and more public) form (such as in a blog post, a vlog, as a song, a musical improvisation, a piece of artwork, poetry, or in whatever fascinating form you come up with that I haven't even thought of yet).


The way I see it, you'd be welcome (heck, you'd be encouraged!) to share your thoughts through the Comments you leave (just share a link to the web-place you'd like us to visit to check out your thoughts, ideas, insights and artwork). 


So, in honor of this being the very first journal prompt (hence the title: Journal Prompt #1- not a particularly inspired title, I know, but this is about you and your journaling journey and not so much about me and my weird blog post titles), I'll invite you to think about what we worked on last night:


Think about the experience of silence in your sessions:

Have you had a session in which there was silence for a period of time? Either your silence, your client's silence, or a silent group?

Explore what this silence felt like?

If you could have given it a sound, what sort(s) of sound would best express this silence?

How do you usually respond to silence (outside of your work)? Why?

What was it about this silence that evoked the particular response/reaction you experienced?

Ask yourself: if I were to visually describe this silence (or perhaps create a piece of art or movement), perhaps to kinesthetically express this silence, what would it look, sound, and/or feel like?

What are the qualities you'd find yourself exaggerating? And what are the qualities you might have ignored?

If there aren't any silences in your sessions at all, what's that like? And why?

Go for it, my friends! 

"Expectant waiting"

Image by thumeco via Flickr

I was reading an article this morning in an old issue of Unity Magazine (September/October 2005) describing  a Quaker meeting attended by the author, Mason Hayek.


Here's what he shared of his experience:

The Friends who have gathered have brought in their feelings from life as it is for each of them today...Each person has brought a bundle of feelings and sits clutching it. (p. 44)

Image via WikipediaAs time passes, the silence deepens, so that any sound  will seem like a rock breaking the window of one's mind. And yet, part of what we come for is the ministry, the message that we or others may speak. The ministry of presence is helpful and the strength that comes from meditation, contemplation, creative thought, or worship will reward our coming. But the words that arise from the honest and open searching for truth by others can open new paths for us. The words can catalyze our searching. (pp. 44-45)

From one's own worship and meditation, perhaps aided by the ministry of others, may come thoughts that are too strong to restrain. When the words beat against our brains irresistibly, we must speak.  (p. 45)

A Friends Meeting for Worship is a gathering in quiet, waiting and listening for the "still small voice within." (p. 45)

The essential elements of worship can all be practiced and experienced when one is alone, but Meeting for Worship has special qualities. It is a shared experience in searching for the truth, a religious experience enhanced by interaction with other persons. That interaction allows us to test reality. We can see our lives, wishes, and fears in better perspective when we interact with others under conditions where we respect our neighbors as well as ourselves. We feel joined to one another. (p. 45) 

In her online article, Silent Worship and Quaker Values, Marsha Holliday notes:

...Friends in the unprogrammed Quaker tradition base our worship entirely on expectant waiting. 

"Expectant waiting." I think that's such a lovely way to put it!


Two summers ago I attended a class at Pendle Hill, which is a Quaker retreat Center, where we were invited to participate in a Meeting each morning. 


I went once or twice, and I reflected then, as I did again this morning, on how similar it felt (to me) to the process of music therapy, especially when working with people who don't use speech to communicate. (I've written quite a few blogs- here and here, for example- about silence as an important aspect of music therapy.) 


In particular I was struck by the idea of presence within the silence and being present to the experience of silence.  


Unexpectedly (or maybe not), as I was thinking about this, I happened to read a blog, also this morning, about the experience of silence from the perspective of a person on the autism spectrum. 


Mike, the author of the blog Journal of an Autist reminds us:

Even silence speaks...Start by listening through all your senses, and you will hear us speak, even in our silence.

I'm not sure whether it's a taboo or not to talk about therapy and spirituality (I certainly don't see music therapy, or any kind of therapy, as a space to conduct one's religious agenda), but it's hard to not see the parallels. We create a sacred space within which the therapist, the client, and the music come together for the purpose of growth. There is complexity within these relationships and an effort to make sense of the complexity.  There is a joining together for a common purpose...all of these seem like deeply spiritual experiences to me.


I wonder what your thoughts are about this.

Taboo Topics in Music Therapy- Part One

Image by Mr.Thomas via Flickr

It was time. I hadn't been to or presented at a conference since March of 2008 in Cherry Hill (that would be in New Jersey) (at the Mid-Atlantic Regional conference of the American Music Therapy Association) (or MAR-AMTA for short) (MAR for even shorter) (I mean, geez!).

So I started to think to myself, "what can I talk about that hasn't been talked about before? Or that I haven't talked about before? How can I make this useful for people?" 


I've done presentations about working with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism, countertransference, looking at power and control, using music therapy to support people with disabilities who have been abused (which is an awful lot of people), survival skills for new music therapists, the myth of the perfect music therapist, paying attention, feeling powerless as a therapist...


What could possibly be left?


Oh, yeah. The stuff nobody talks about in the music therapy field (or so it seems). Things like, "what do I do when my client starts to masturbate in the middle of the session?" or "my client seems to hate me!" Or "oh, my God, I think I have a crush on my client!" 


Those are actually only the very shiny surface of the whole collection of stuff we don't talk about as music therapists. The list, as I discovered when I did this presentation a couple of weeks ago, is endless! 


No. Seriously. 


I had a room full of music therapy professionals and students (thanks for the presentation love, guys!) coming up with item after situation after topic for me to add to the big list we were generating on the giant flip chart!


There are so many things that simply aren't addressed in school, in the literature, at conferences! 


And here's a taboo topic for you:  we music therapists can often make it seem as if our work is all sorts of "sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows!"


Well, okay. That can be true. Sometimes it does look all happy and easy, and sometimes it is fun, but music therapy is hard work! 


It's therapy! 


Being a music therapist can be hard work too. It's our job to say out loud to our clients the stuff  that isn't being said. 


And what I wanted to do with this presentation (and I think we accomplished that) was to say out loud the taboo topics in our field. The stuff nobody talks about or writes about, but that we have to deal with every day in our sessions.


My official "mantra" for the month:

It's the stuff we don't look at and we don't talk about that gets us into trouble.

Likely this is the same stuff people don't like to talk about in general, but, as music therapists, it seems (to me anyway) as if it would be a good idea if we're willing to look at the stuff that makes us uncomfortable. 


After all, we're asking our clients to look at the things that make them uncomfortable. Aren't we?


[Coming up next time: The handout from the conference]

Who knows?

Image by kool_skatkat via Flickr

One of the things people always ask me when they learn that I work with people who don't use speech to communicate is this: "Yes, but, how much do they really understand?"


And I always respond in the same way: "Just because someone can tell me verbally that they understand what I'm saying doesn't mean that they do."


My policy (if in fact one can call it a "policy") has always been to treat people as if they're understanding me. I figure it's the most respectful approach. And I'd way rather err on the side of presuming competence than insult someone by assuming incompetence. 


Usually, for me anyway, the more salient issue is whether or not I understand what the people I call "my clients" are trying to say to me.


Last week, for instance, I could clearly see that B was trying to communicate something to me. He wasn't doing it in a particularly effective way, but he was clearly trying very hard and being quite patient. He'd stand up, repeating his action in almost exactly the same way each time, and then he'd pause, waiting for me to miraculously get it.  


I didn't. 


Well, really, I couldn't. He wasn't giving me enough information. 


It was obvious that B perceived my attempts to hear him, because when I said to him, "I'm not understanding you" he'd sigh, and he'd try again. 


I encouraged him: "Use the music to tell me." 


And he picked up and tossed the instruments on to the floor, retrieving them and throwing them again. Over and over.


After, I swear, ten or twelve times of making this effort with no hope of my figuring out what he was trying to say, we just sat there together. 


Frustrated.


Neither one of us could fix this. 


So we sat. In silence. And we felt fully how frustrating it is to not understand. To not be understood. To not know. And to not be known. 


I wondered, as I sat with him, if what he really needed me to understand is that this is his experience of silence. 

12/16/09 Quote- effortlessness, waiting, self-awareness

Image by jhave2 via Flickr

From an article by Wayne Muller, "Effortlessness", in Unity Magazine, May/June 2003, pp. 4-6:

Deep within all things there is a natural rhythm, a music of opening and closing, expansion and contraction. Our heart, our lungs, the seasons, the oceans- all life expands and contracts, opens and closes, softens and hardens and then goes soft again. This potent opening and closing cannot be forced to happen, nor can it be stopped. It is simply the way of all things.

We need only remain clear and awake to listen for how things really are, to feel how the smallest changes of energy and attention move in us, in our relationships, in our work. We can learn to follow the spaces between things. Not to fight and push and cajole, but rather simply to wait until the true way reveals itself easily and clearly in this moment. 

My thoughts as I read this:
This seems to me a wonderful (and poetic) reminder of why it's so necessary for us, as music therapists (as any kind of therapists), to examine and to be aware of our own issues and motivations in our work. If we're not aware then we run the risk of "pushing, struggling and cajoling" our clients into getting better (behaving better, functioning better) instead of simply being with them and trusting that they will move forward at their pace. 


When I notice myself reacting in a session with a sense of urgency and "I must do something right now"  this passage reminds me: sometimes I just have to wait and be with my client(s) until s/he/the group is ready to move forward.


When I'm not willing to do that I know my focus has shifted to myself and to my own fear that I'm somehow not fulfilling this idealized (and delusional) notion that I have to be "the perfect therapist who can fix it all for her clients."

"I need to be still"

Today, at a little after 5 PM, Mn died. 

I met Mn back in 1988 when I started working at the developmental center. She was a teeny little woman who didn't use speech. When she was feeling better (she died of cancer), she used to come and sit on my music book while I was playing music in her group. It always made me chuckle.

Mn was surrounded by Mg, Ib, Dn, the nurse who turned off her vent, and me. 

The nurse and chaplain at the hospital told us to let them know when we were ready, and they would ask us to step outside while they removed the machines which were keeping her alive, and then we would be allowed to come back in and be with her as she died.

Before we called the nurse to disconnect her ventilator and prepare her, Mg, Ib, and Dn gathered around her, each holding her hand, rubbing her leg, and touching her long hair, crying. I sang:

I need to be stiIl and let God love me
I need to be still and let God love me
When this old world starts to push and shove me
I need to be still and let God love me

I need to relax and let God take over
I need to relax and let God take over
He'll take this load off my shoulders
I need to relax and let God take over

(Written by: Archie P. Jordan and Naomi Martin)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were all set to go back in the room when the nurse told us it was okay (we'd gotten rid of our dirty gowns and put on new ones in anticipation).  There was a lot of crying. Even the nurse was sniffing as she watched. 

I mostly stood at the foot of the bed, and I alternated between watching Mn take her last breaths and watching the machine register "0".  

It wasn't that I didn't want to touch Mn. It just seemed important that the people who had taken care of her should have the physical space they needed to say "goodbye". I knew I'd have room when it was time.

When everyone was finished and had begun to wash their hands, I moved closer to her. I took her left hand in mine, and I put my right hand gently on her forehead for a moment, and I wished her well on her journey.

We filed out, thanked the nurses, and left the Intensive Care Unit. 

I was struck by how little I cried, how honored I was to be present for her death, how humbling and quiet it all felt. 

As I drove home, I found myself feeling teary, but it was a gentle tearfulness. To Mn I offer James Dillet Freeman's beautiful "Prayer for Protection":

The light of God surrounds you

The love of God enfolds you

The power of God protects you

The presence of God watches over you

Wherever you are God is.

More thoughts on silence

“Maybe the problem is that I’ve been speaking the wrong language.”  That was what started to dawn on me yesterday as I sat with B, feeling as if I just hadn’t been getting it right these last couple of months.  “Maybe I’m expecting you [he doesn’t use speech to communicate] to use my language- words and music- and not realizing we need to start with yours- which is largely silence.”

It’s not exactly as if I completely missed this crucial element.  I’ve been listening to B for years, to be sure, but I’ve largely chosen to attend to his sounds (few and far between) and movements (lots).  I’ve noticed his silences- even tried to include his silence in the sound scape (so to speak) by attempting to play the musical qualities I thought he could be expressing through his quiet.  Perhaps, though, I have not been giving it the level of importance or emphasis it may need to be given.  I realized, not for the first time, that I have to listen to the silence differently. 

It’s kind of cool that my work with B has gently reminded me to look at this again.  Again, it’s not news.  I’m certainly aware of it- just can’t seem to keep it consistently in my mind (no wonder my students feel overwhelmed).  

In order to think about and experience silence in a different way (and out of curiosity) I decided to try being silent for a long time in a musical improvisation with my peer supervision group.  I even chose a drum with a rather limited range of sound.  In one sense, I liked just listening.  I also felt the frustrating limitations of the drum I’d chosen.  On the other hand, I also felt a pressure to “do something”- to play.   

I’ve always marveled (in conversations with my clinical supervisor) how the experience of silence is so different with each of my clients.  With one person there’s an anxiety of “what do we now?” while I sense a simple quietness with another.  Sometimes there’s an anger to the silence- anger in a defiant sense, and sometimes there’s a waiting quality.

I can’t quite get a sense of B’s silence yet.  Is it something he needs?  Or is it something he chooses?  Either way, why?  And how is his silence important to him?  What are the qualities of his silence?

Now that I know to focus more fully on that aspect of our work, I can prepare myself to listen to the sounds of B’s silence.  

"Killing me softly with [her] song"

One of the guys I work with has been flatly refusing to allow me to play music during his sessions.  He hasn’t always been this adamant about the music needing to be stopped.  And I do mean stopped.  When I start to play he pulls the guitar off of me, or he takes my hands off of the piano.  He’s even thrown my sheet music to the floor.  He’s also tossed quite a few of my rhythm instruments across the room- to the point where I only leave the lighter weight instruments available so that they won’t break or kill me if they land on the floor too hard or hit me in the head.  We’ve worked together for ten years, and during much of that time he was willing to let me play- not all the time, but there was music going on in the sessions, and I was the one doing the playing.  

A lot of years ago (I mean...a LOT of years ago), I went to a presentation by Ken Bruscia at a music therapy conference, and I took a lot of notes (as I tend to do).  One of the things that I recall most vividly from his talk was his description of music therapy as having three components:  the client, the therapist, and the music.  And the music therapist’s job is to sort out all of the various relationships which occur between these three...elements (or maybe aspects is a better word?) in a music therapy session.  

See, now this is what makes music therapy so fascinating and complex to me.  If you think about it (and obviously this is not news to music therapists who use a psychodynamic approach), the music therapist and the music act as co-therapists.  You might notice the nicely parental quality that this duo implies. 

At any rate, it’s interesting (to me anyway) to speculate as to what it means when a client “abandons” the music.  It has crossed my mind that by abandoning the music my client is playing out the abandonment he himself has felt in his life.  He has some issues around parental abandonment, I believe (he hasn’t seen his family for years), and the music is part of a “parental team” (so to speak), so I wonder... is this his way of protecting himself from being abandoned again?  Or maybe “I’ll abandon you before you abandon me” is his unconscious thought process.  

He is clear that the relationship with me is important, but his relationship with the music has been ambivalent, to say the least.  Maybe there’s some sort of splitting involved (as in, I could be temporarily playing the role of the “good mother” while the music has taken on “bad mother” qualities).  

I guess another possibility is that he doesn’t particularly like the music I’m choosing, or he doesn’t like the way I sing or the way I play (which would be an interesting enough issue for us to explore).  Or the songs I’m choosing have no relevance to him.  I doubt that’s the case, but I could be wrong.

From another perspective entirely, could there be something around being heard (or not being heard, as the case may be)?  It occurs to me that an autistic person who doesn’t use speech to communicate and who has lived in an institution for the vast majority of his life is used to a lot of silence when it comes to his feelings, his thoughts, dreams, opinions, fears, loves, and so on.  To hear them suddenly expressed (spoken out loud) in the music- even if I’m not exactly right on in my guesses- can be daunting and feel rather like being exposed, I imagine.

I was thinking about that this afternoon during his session, and the song I chose to use was “Killing Me Softly With [Her] Song”.  And you know what?  He didn’t stop me from playing this song:

I heard [she] sang a good song.

I heard [she] had a style.

And so I came to see [her] to listen for a while.

And there [she] was, this young [girl]

A stranger to my eyes

Strumming my pain with [her] fingers,

Singing my life with [her] words.

Killing me softly with [her] song,

Killing me softly with [her] song,

Telling my whole life with [her] words,

Killing me softly... with [her] song.

I felt all flushed with fever,

Embarrassed by the crowd,

I felt [she] found my letters 

And read each one out loud.

I prayed that [she] would finish

But [she] just kept right on

Strumming my pain with [her] fingers,

Singing my life with [her] words.

Killing me softly with [her] song,

Killing me softly with [her] song,

Telling my whole life with [her] words,

Killing me softly... with [her] song.

[She] sang as if [she] knew me,

In all my dark despair.

And then [she] looked right through me

As if I wasn’t there.

But [she] was there, this stranger,

Singing clear and strong

Strumming my pain with [her] fingers,

Singing my life with [her] words.

Killing me softly with [her] song,

Killing me softly with [her] song,

Telling my whole life with [her] words,

Killing me softly... with [her] song.

© 1972 by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel

As I talked about this with him, we noted the irony of the fact that his silence affords him a measure of privacy in an institution, one of the least private places in which a person can live.  

After I sang the song, he got up and moved to a different area of the room.  It seemed as if he needed to think about this for a while.  I’ll be thinking about it too.  A part of me felt as if I needed to apologize to him for being musically invasive in some way.  On the other hand, it’s my job to offer him a different way of seeing his life and his experiences.  I do that using music.  Well, it certainly does remind me of, first, how powerful music is, and, second, how much power I have as a therapist (and the need for me to be conscious of that power and to use it with care).  

Having been through my own therapy, I know how hard it is to recognize something in yourself suddenly.  In music therapy, the effect is even more sudden, because, as my clinical supervisor, Janice, notes, “Music hits you at the speed of sound.”  

 

Silence is golden

A few of my clients often refuse to allow there to be music in their sessions.  They don’t usually play any of the instruments, and their vocalizations are sporadic.  When I start to play they either physically intervene (taking my hands off the piano or pushing the guitar off my lap) or they find ways to make sure the process of the music is stopped.  I suppose I could spend time worrying about this (okay, the truth is that sometimes I do worry about it), but I’m starting to figure that it really is all “grist for the mill,” as Janice, my clinical supervisor, has told me over and over again.  

One of the men I work with is very sensitive to sound (I mean VERY sensitive to sound).  The cottage where he lives is loud most of the time, to say the least.  The ceilings are high, and a large room is subdivided into four group areas, each equipped with various stereo components, televisions, and extremely powerful speakers (or so it seems).  And it is highly unusual for me to be in there and not hear four different sets of sounds coming from four different areas, all echoing off of the walls.  There are no carpets or other sound-absorbing devices, so the sounds are quite “live”.  I have often wondered if my client has grown to hate music with a passion after enduring that kind of intense non-stop noise all day long.  I wouldn’t blame him if he did.  I’d probably feel that way myself.

A thought that ran through my mind during our session today (aside from noting out loud that “in your case, silence is indeed golden”) was this:  if anyone in the world is to teach me that music therapy is not all about sound- silence is just as crucial, and honoring the need for silence is definitely necessary- it’s this man. 

Another reason he may be “asking” me to stop playing music is that when I do play, it is often a song that has emerged from my countertransference reaction.  Naturally, those songs tend to be intense and full of emotional meaning.  Understandably, he may be hesitant when he hears me fire up the old guitar and start strumming a few chords.  

I wonder, also, if his wanting me to not play music (and his own refusal to participate musically) is a way to fit me into a particular image he may have of me (in other words, his transference).  Maybe something in a “you’re not my music therapist, Roia...you can play the role of my family, and I can finally have someone visit with me after all these years.”  

Certainly that seemed to be the case with another gentleman I worked with this afternoon.  I usually see that particular person on Fridays, but because of our celebration he missed his session.  I had some time today, so I asked him if he wanted to make up his time.  He did.  I knew he probably wouldn’t make it to the Music Room (he hasn’t for a while, but he has been clear that he wanted to maintain the connection with me).  I presumed that we would walk to the building where the Music Room is located (we did), and he would probably turn around and want to leave (he did).  

Things were going fine (and as expected) until we got back to his cottage.  For the past month or so he has been content to do one of three things:  head back in to his group, head in to the cottage and have me sit with him in the back hallway, or hang around outside (in the front yard of the cottage) until it’s time to go.   Today, though, as his cottage came into view, he pulled me insistently back toward the Music Room building.  It was quite sunny and rather humid out, and I was starting to feel a bit desperate for shade.  

He is at least a head and a half taller than I am, so when he doesn’t mean to be turned around it’s hard for me to convince him otherwise.  I noticed that he was quite clear, also, about holding on to my hand (along with his important plastic objects- I know I’m important to him now, because he actually seems to want me to share space with his beloved objects).  Although I started to feel frustrated with his pulling, and uncomfortable with my own response of trying to pull him back toward the cottage, I knew he needed me to support him in some way.

When we reached the Music Room building, he managed to pull me into the Canteen (which is just inside the entrance).  I didn’t want us to be in there, because, for one thing, I didn’t think I’d be able to get him out, and, for another, neither one of us had any money.  Mostly, though, I continually remind him that he and I don’t have a “canteen-going relationship.  We do music therapy together.”  

Well, at 1:45 PM on a Saturday afternoon, the Canteen usually has a few families scattered about visiting with their sons or daughters.  That was when the light finally went on for me.  I realized that, on my way over to pick him up, I had seen one of his house-mates heading out for a visit with his family and another family on their way in to the cottage.  As we were walking, we saw a man visiting with his brother.  He knows I like him, and here I was, coming on a Saturday and not his usual Wednesday or Friday.  It must have seemed quite familial to him.  

As soon as I acknowledged his apparent longing for family to visit with on a weekend (and that he seemed to wish for me to play that role), we were able to leave the building and go back to the cottage with some measure of peace.  Well, it was difficult for him to actually let me go when we arrived in his group area, but there was, finally, a different level of understanding. 

You’d be hard-pressed to find any music in that session.  But it was, I think, an important session.  Definitely, in spite of the challenges, it was a necessary part of the process for the two of us.