YetAnotherKitten
2nd July 2006, 07:02 AM
“Growth in the People…”
When I went to the Pendleton Psychiatric Clinic with my psychology class two years ago, my first assumptions were not pleasant. I saw cold hard doors with large locks and blank off white walls. There were tiny rooms with bunk beds and small dilapidated living areas. There was literally no sound; even the television was barely audible. In the basement there was something to ease my mind, a huge mural of trees during the fall. Tragically, the mural was at the end of a very long, cold, and creepy cement hallway. There was a room for arts and crafts, but further down the hall were confinement rooms for people who are so far gone they hurt themselves or others. There were also remnants of the past, shock therapy tables that were used no less than 30 years before.
Not to diminish the faculty or staff, it was only a first impression, but it was the dreariest, most frightful, and in fact the most depressing place I’d ever been. At this point I found that I had a deep empathy for anyone who lived there and as we traveled to the top floor I thought, “I have to do something, I can play guitar for them, or teach them. I have to do something.” I asked my psychology teacher about it and she thought that I should definitely propose the idea to someone, but I feared that with no background or an idea of what I should do that I would merely harm them more than help them. Since then I have heard and seen tidbits about Music Therapy but I hadn’t the time or the energy to research it. When face with a topic choice it seemed the obvious answer and now, after looking back, something that excites me greatly and warms my heart.
I began asking questions, a lot of them. From my search online, the small amount of journal evidence I have, and my interview with the spunky 80 year old, Dorothy, I found that Music Therapy is varied and not always scientific practice. Also, even thought it has grown in popularity, it was not always respected. Patients now still can’t get their insurance to pay for their sessions.
As a practice, Music Therapy intentionally began during WWII when musicians played in veteran hospitals and saw significant recovery for the injured. Before that music was often utilized by “medicine men” and ancient philosophers. Since WWII, it has grown to a formal practice; you can now find clinics and college/universities of music converging all over the world. In the United States specifically, we’ve had a degree program since 1944, we’ve had The National Association of Music Therapists and The American Association of Music Therapists which combined to make the American Music Therapists Association in 1998 and continues to grow, we also have the Certification Board for Music Therapists which allows Music Therapy to be recognized as a clinical practice along side schools of psychiatry and other professional therapeutic practices. Since then the practice has and will, continue to grow.
In the Ukraine a student of music therapy, Mariya Ivannikova, had discovered the positive effects of such practices. Confirming my thoughts going into this study, Mariya found that people either have little knowledge or faith in the validity of Music Therapy as an active practice “Ordinary people understood music therapy as being the perception of music, meaning that it is music listening without personal activity of patients, like relaxing to music, etc” (Ivannokova 1). Following the theories of Rusina, Popova & Shiryaev and Crossener Schule, which apparently suggested some of receptive therapy (listening to music) but emphasized more of active therapies in dealing with depression and was her area of curiosity, Mariya began working with a group of patients. On discussion of the Crossener Schule technique (which I could not find) Mariya said:
The main point is that every person is creative in his or her own way. Almost no analyses of the music produced by clients or patients are carried out. Only the person in question could know what this or that means, because only this person has her or his unique experiences.
Her findings, to me, were inspiring. She carried out her sessions with the group ( an undefined number of 30-55 year olds) every week day. After many of her sessions which grew in success as time went on; Mariya found a metaphorical representation of depression, “Here my point was that depression could be a consequence of losing a rhythm in life; that is, of forgetting that everything needs a certain rhythm to live and be alive” (1). In the end, I believe she found extremely satisfactory results, her patients showed positive responses such as
The time, which I spent in the group
• “… was good for me and it was also good for others”
• “…made my condition better, raised my mood”
• “…drew away my attention from my sorrow.”
During sessions I understood
• “…that it is not worth to develop complexes”
• “…some things, which will help me in solving my problems”
• “…that I began to feel better”
• “…that everybody has his problems and it is easier to manage them together”
• “…that I can draw my attention from problems and communicate with people.” (1)
Although this article aims towards the laymen and leaves itself open to biases, the results that are shown do not seem to be fabricated. Also, the online journal claims to hold a rigorous review of all articles posted. Most group therapy seems to be done in this manner.
At the Aalborg Clinic though, they aim towards having a highly interactive patient, “The music therapy sessions mainly develop an interaction between music playing (here at the clinic, primarily improvisation) and verbal discussions with the aim of working through and integrating the experiences from improvised music” and wish to intensify the session by making it person to person (Aalborg 3). This seems to build on the theories and practices of Nordoff and Robbins, two pioneer music therapists from the 60s-70s. Nordoff and Robbins created what is called “Creative Music Therapy” and wrote together (Nordoff adding the musical perspective as a doctor of music and Robbins the clinical as a Doctor of special education) three books on their experiences and studies. From that they developed clinical learning centers and degree programs to teach others to help their own patience using this practice and thusly from that their own students have been improving upon and branching out the practice, most specifically by adding the psychotherapeutic practice of therapy. This, I believe, is where Aalborg derives its patient to professional, play and analyses type therapy.
In searching for an interview I learned that the local psychiatric center mentioned previously does in fact have a music therapist and she seems to follow a practice similar to Mariya Ivannokova but with her own special twist. Her name is Dorothy Book. Dorothy Book is 83 years old and has been a practicing music therapist for about 8 years (she says she’s not to sure about the specifics).Sometime in her younger life she received a degree in music education and taught private lessons for sixteen years.
As expected she later retired, but found herself interested in applying her musical knowledge to the developmentally disabled. She tells me that “retirement is worse than working; at least when you have a job you can go home and sleep” (Book interview). Even though she has no clinical training, after 8 years she has written an article titled “The Healing Power of Music” and honed her system to suit the needs of her patients. She says that the key to success in music therapy is to “have a feel of what the people enjoy… it depends on where it is and who it’s with, just get to know the people and find what they like” (Book). Dorothy does mostly group therapy but at times plays piano for individual patients. She found that many of her older patients cry when a song brings back a memory and felt it was important in the healing process. They also paint to music and dance on Thursdays, those who are wheelchair bound engage in “wheelchair dancing” to their choice of music. When asked to bring a specific memory of an important aspect of her work she told me a story about interaction with a patient and a doctor during art therapy:
Some of them get so excited by the music they push the brushes right through the page! One time one of their doctors came in and tried to show one of the patients how to do it correctly. They just grabbed his hand and did it for him. Well I said to them, “You don’t do that for them. You just let them do it, because what they paint is precious to them
This story leads back to Dorothy’s theory that everyone is different and needs to have the freedom of choice to progress. I’ve found that even fully able persons appreciate this method; if I tell my friend he has to help me, most likely he will feel forced to do so and probably be upset, but if I give him an option and he chooses to help me, he will do so with a free conscience and pure intentions. I’m quite sure Dorothy and her patients receive a great deal of warmth and freedom and also keep their brain sharp during her sessions. They do this of their own choice and possibly find it to be the best part of their week.
Music Therapy exists everywhere, in scientific and informal venues. It is a flexible and non-invasive form of therapy; everyone, even healthy persons, should take a look at it. Hopefully though, doctors and patients will continue to be excited and take active music therapy with psychotherapeutic aims seriously enough to grow with each other and within the medical world and eventually be recognized as a legitimate, complex, and highly fulfilling scientific practice.
-fixed- /discuss would you like links to some articles??
i wrote this shit myself heres the bibliography--
1- American Music Therapy Association. Copyright © 1999, musictherapy.org http://www.musictherapy.org/faqs.html#WHAT_IS_THE_HISTORY
2- Music therapy, wikipedia.org, page was last modified 18:21, 4 June 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_therapy
3- CBMT Information, cbmt.org, http://www.cbmt.org/default.asp?page=CBMT%20Information
4 The Music Therapy Clinic - Center for treatment and research-A short presentation. Aalborg Psychiatric Hospital Last modified: 12/09-2001. http://www.musik.aau.dk/research/musikterapi/clinic-uk.html
6. Mariya Ivannikova (2004). Ukrainian Music Therapy - Does It Have a Chance to Exist?. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved June 4, 2006, from http://www.voices.no/mainissues/mi40004000161.html
7. History of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, NYUSteinhardt, http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/page.php?page_id=724
8. Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy, NYUSteinhardt, http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/page.php?page_id=718
9. Dorothy Book, telephone interview, June 9th 2006.
When I went to the Pendleton Psychiatric Clinic with my psychology class two years ago, my first assumptions were not pleasant. I saw cold hard doors with large locks and blank off white walls. There were tiny rooms with bunk beds and small dilapidated living areas. There was literally no sound; even the television was barely audible. In the basement there was something to ease my mind, a huge mural of trees during the fall. Tragically, the mural was at the end of a very long, cold, and creepy cement hallway. There was a room for arts and crafts, but further down the hall were confinement rooms for people who are so far gone they hurt themselves or others. There were also remnants of the past, shock therapy tables that were used no less than 30 years before.
Not to diminish the faculty or staff, it was only a first impression, but it was the dreariest, most frightful, and in fact the most depressing place I’d ever been. At this point I found that I had a deep empathy for anyone who lived there and as we traveled to the top floor I thought, “I have to do something, I can play guitar for them, or teach them. I have to do something.” I asked my psychology teacher about it and she thought that I should definitely propose the idea to someone, but I feared that with no background or an idea of what I should do that I would merely harm them more than help them. Since then I have heard and seen tidbits about Music Therapy but I hadn’t the time or the energy to research it. When face with a topic choice it seemed the obvious answer and now, after looking back, something that excites me greatly and warms my heart.
I began asking questions, a lot of them. From my search online, the small amount of journal evidence I have, and my interview with the spunky 80 year old, Dorothy, I found that Music Therapy is varied and not always scientific practice. Also, even thought it has grown in popularity, it was not always respected. Patients now still can’t get their insurance to pay for their sessions.
As a practice, Music Therapy intentionally began during WWII when musicians played in veteran hospitals and saw significant recovery for the injured. Before that music was often utilized by “medicine men” and ancient philosophers. Since WWII, it has grown to a formal practice; you can now find clinics and college/universities of music converging all over the world. In the United States specifically, we’ve had a degree program since 1944, we’ve had The National Association of Music Therapists and The American Association of Music Therapists which combined to make the American Music Therapists Association in 1998 and continues to grow, we also have the Certification Board for Music Therapists which allows Music Therapy to be recognized as a clinical practice along side schools of psychiatry and other professional therapeutic practices. Since then the practice has and will, continue to grow.
In the Ukraine a student of music therapy, Mariya Ivannikova, had discovered the positive effects of such practices. Confirming my thoughts going into this study, Mariya found that people either have little knowledge or faith in the validity of Music Therapy as an active practice “Ordinary people understood music therapy as being the perception of music, meaning that it is music listening without personal activity of patients, like relaxing to music, etc” (Ivannokova 1). Following the theories of Rusina, Popova & Shiryaev and Crossener Schule, which apparently suggested some of receptive therapy (listening to music) but emphasized more of active therapies in dealing with depression and was her area of curiosity, Mariya began working with a group of patients. On discussion of the Crossener Schule technique (which I could not find) Mariya said:
The main point is that every person is creative in his or her own way. Almost no analyses of the music produced by clients or patients are carried out. Only the person in question could know what this or that means, because only this person has her or his unique experiences.
Her findings, to me, were inspiring. She carried out her sessions with the group ( an undefined number of 30-55 year olds) every week day. After many of her sessions which grew in success as time went on; Mariya found a metaphorical representation of depression, “Here my point was that depression could be a consequence of losing a rhythm in life; that is, of forgetting that everything needs a certain rhythm to live and be alive” (1). In the end, I believe she found extremely satisfactory results, her patients showed positive responses such as
The time, which I spent in the group
• “… was good for me and it was also good for others”
• “…made my condition better, raised my mood”
• “…drew away my attention from my sorrow.”
During sessions I understood
• “…that it is not worth to develop complexes”
• “…some things, which will help me in solving my problems”
• “…that I began to feel better”
• “…that everybody has his problems and it is easier to manage them together”
• “…that I can draw my attention from problems and communicate with people.” (1)
Although this article aims towards the laymen and leaves itself open to biases, the results that are shown do not seem to be fabricated. Also, the online journal claims to hold a rigorous review of all articles posted. Most group therapy seems to be done in this manner.
At the Aalborg Clinic though, they aim towards having a highly interactive patient, “The music therapy sessions mainly develop an interaction between music playing (here at the clinic, primarily improvisation) and verbal discussions with the aim of working through and integrating the experiences from improvised music” and wish to intensify the session by making it person to person (Aalborg 3). This seems to build on the theories and practices of Nordoff and Robbins, two pioneer music therapists from the 60s-70s. Nordoff and Robbins created what is called “Creative Music Therapy” and wrote together (Nordoff adding the musical perspective as a doctor of music and Robbins the clinical as a Doctor of special education) three books on their experiences and studies. From that they developed clinical learning centers and degree programs to teach others to help their own patience using this practice and thusly from that their own students have been improving upon and branching out the practice, most specifically by adding the psychotherapeutic practice of therapy. This, I believe, is where Aalborg derives its patient to professional, play and analyses type therapy.
In searching for an interview I learned that the local psychiatric center mentioned previously does in fact have a music therapist and she seems to follow a practice similar to Mariya Ivannokova but with her own special twist. Her name is Dorothy Book. Dorothy Book is 83 years old and has been a practicing music therapist for about 8 years (she says she’s not to sure about the specifics).Sometime in her younger life she received a degree in music education and taught private lessons for sixteen years.
As expected she later retired, but found herself interested in applying her musical knowledge to the developmentally disabled. She tells me that “retirement is worse than working; at least when you have a job you can go home and sleep” (Book interview). Even though she has no clinical training, after 8 years she has written an article titled “The Healing Power of Music” and honed her system to suit the needs of her patients. She says that the key to success in music therapy is to “have a feel of what the people enjoy… it depends on where it is and who it’s with, just get to know the people and find what they like” (Book). Dorothy does mostly group therapy but at times plays piano for individual patients. She found that many of her older patients cry when a song brings back a memory and felt it was important in the healing process. They also paint to music and dance on Thursdays, those who are wheelchair bound engage in “wheelchair dancing” to their choice of music. When asked to bring a specific memory of an important aspect of her work she told me a story about interaction with a patient and a doctor during art therapy:
Some of them get so excited by the music they push the brushes right through the page! One time one of their doctors came in and tried to show one of the patients how to do it correctly. They just grabbed his hand and did it for him. Well I said to them, “You don’t do that for them. You just let them do it, because what they paint is precious to them
This story leads back to Dorothy’s theory that everyone is different and needs to have the freedom of choice to progress. I’ve found that even fully able persons appreciate this method; if I tell my friend he has to help me, most likely he will feel forced to do so and probably be upset, but if I give him an option and he chooses to help me, he will do so with a free conscience and pure intentions. I’m quite sure Dorothy and her patients receive a great deal of warmth and freedom and also keep their brain sharp during her sessions. They do this of their own choice and possibly find it to be the best part of their week.
Music Therapy exists everywhere, in scientific and informal venues. It is a flexible and non-invasive form of therapy; everyone, even healthy persons, should take a look at it. Hopefully though, doctors and patients will continue to be excited and take active music therapy with psychotherapeutic aims seriously enough to grow with each other and within the medical world and eventually be recognized as a legitimate, complex, and highly fulfilling scientific practice.
-fixed- /discuss would you like links to some articles??
i wrote this shit myself heres the bibliography--
1- American Music Therapy Association. Copyright © 1999, musictherapy.org http://www.musictherapy.org/faqs.html#WHAT_IS_THE_HISTORY
2- Music therapy, wikipedia.org, page was last modified 18:21, 4 June 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_therapy
3- CBMT Information, cbmt.org, http://www.cbmt.org/default.asp?page=CBMT%20Information
4 The Music Therapy Clinic - Center for treatment and research-A short presentation. Aalborg Psychiatric Hospital Last modified: 12/09-2001. http://www.musik.aau.dk/research/musikterapi/clinic-uk.html
6. Mariya Ivannikova (2004). Ukrainian Music Therapy - Does It Have a Chance to Exist?. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved June 4, 2006, from http://www.voices.no/mainissues/mi40004000161.html
7. History of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, NYUSteinhardt, http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/page.php?page_id=724
8. Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy, NYUSteinhardt, http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/page.php?page_id=718
9. Dorothy Book, telephone interview, June 9th 2006.