Tuning the Music Therapist

Music so strongly evokes emotional responses that it is being more frequently employed in the context of psychotherapy as a powerful healing modality. As a novice in this field I inquired at a recent conference on music therapy as to how this tool effects healing in clients with emotional disorders.

Conceptually, it is my understanding that the music therapist often employs musical improvisation to communicate with the unconscious aspects of the patient's psyche. The therapist may set out to convey an empathic or supportive intention with the use of a musical language that communicates at an emotional rather than verbal level. The intention of the therapist may be completely informed by what she/he "thinks" the patient needs for his/her healing i.e. a unidirectional healing intention. Alternately, it may be more dynamically informed.

In the latter case, the therapist's intention is informed dynamically through her/his empathic attunement to the patient's emotional state as the musical dialogue unfolds. In such a case the emotional quality of the music may evolve as the therapist and patient interact through the musical medium.

Ideally in a genuine healing situation it is expected that the therapist will evoke in the patient an emotional state that brings with it greater internal harmony associated with such feelings as relaxation, peace, joyfulness, contentment, and a sense of light heartedness. This feeling of harmony, from an energy psychology paradigm, is associated with an ordered and sustaining bio-field of energy that supports both structure and function of the body at all levels.

Metaphorically, the therapist could be seen to be helping the patient "tune" him/her self to an optimal bio-energetic field of frequencies that then spontaneously effect healing. To say that the therapist is directly doing the healing would be difficult to justify as the therapist couldn't possibly know how to direct the multitude of biochemical reactions necessary for healing to occur. She/he however may be facilitating the re-establishment of a healing bio-energetic field within and around the patient that itself orchestrates the biochemical re-organization.

If we extend the use of this metaphor, the therapist could be considered as a tuning device, similar to that required to tune a musical instrument. Hence we can speak of the therapist as the tuner for the patient's bio-energy field.

It becomes obvious then that if a tuning device is itself out of tune the musical instrument to be tuned will be out of key, no matter how well the musician's technique.

In the same way, if the music therapist who is helping to facilitate a realignment of the patient's bio-energy field is "out of tune" this will not only limit the healing process but could also potentially be harmful for the patient. It becomes imperative then that the music therapist, apart from being a skilled musician, also undergoes an internal bio-energetic realignment or retuning.

What will the therapist use as a tuning device however? In order to answer this question we must reflect on what it means to be in tune. As we alluded to earlier, when the patient is in harmony he/she feels relaxed, peaceful, joyful, contented, and lighthearted. We also notice that in such a state, stress is reduced and physical and emotional resilience is enhanced. This is clearly a state in which healing is optimally supported and might therefore be accepted as a state of optimal tuning of the bio-energetic field.

Unfortunately, music alone cannot effect such an optimal state of tuning. If it could we wouldn't need the presence of the music therapist in the therapeutic situation. Hence, in the same way the music therapist cannot rely on music alone for the realignment of their own bio-energetic field. We are therefore left with a slight conundrum. In order to address this it becomes necessary to ask: where does the internal source of harmony that is represented by the feeling state mentioned above, originate within an individual.

We note that his feeling state of harmony can be rapidly evoked when one actively appreciates something they like about themselves. Through the action of self appreciation one can spontaneously begin to feel