In This Lecture I Will Demonstrate the Connection Between Family Therapy and Music Therapy

Ms Ayala Gerber Israel

In this lecture I will demonstrate the connection between family therapy and music therapy. I will present two families who are taking part in family therapy that is integrated with music therapy.

(Video)

I must pay attention to:

1. Myself listening to myself,
2. The other
3. Every other member of the family.

Understanding results from paying attention.

Paying attention itself results from hearing, listening and observing.

Paying attention may seem to be a totally passive state; in fact, it is an extremely active one.

I have chosen to focus on the topic of paying attention because it is essential, in its presence or absence, to positive communication within the family.

1) Families are different, the musical instruments are unalike and the kinds of music are diverse and varied. The girl created different families of musical instruments and presented them using the idea of flow.

2) I will show how music therapy intervened in the family therapy of two different families, in both of which the familial balance was disturbed, and how music therapy allowed the creation of a different and positive process.

General Principles of Family Therapy

Family therapy is a therapeutic method and technique that approaches individuals within their social context.

1. Therapy is based on a framework intended to create behavioral change in the family.
2. The therapeutic approach: “No man is an island” – our experience is a function of our interaction with our environment.
3. Family therapy is therapy in the “here and now”. In the therapists consciousness must always be a dependence on and awareness of the past, but the past in this instance is the previous organization of the family.
4. The family being treated enters therapy with a readiness to undergo change by means of intervention in the present.
5. Family therapy must begin by presenting a model of the normal family, and from here it is possible to estimate the degree of deviation and the kind of problem.
6. The family’s deviation may be pathological (illness, loss of a member, exceptional child, trauma, and so on.)
7. The attitude to the person and the pathology will be based on the different theories of therapy utilized by the therapist.
8. The request for family therapy can come from different sources, but the most frequent is the I.P. of the particular patient.

It is important to note that in pathological situations in the family structure there is a tendency for members to blame each other or themselves – therapy lies in the creation of new situations and of a readiness to accept the new and behave accordingly.

The Family Therapist

The family therapist may intervene by:

1. Acting as a leader
2. Creating a positive model

The family reacts to the intervention of the therapist and the therapists’ actions create new situations that are then learned.

The Therapist’s Technical and Personal Tools that Establish the Therapeutic Process

1. Joining – The therapist joins the family structure in order to create connective significance to the inner world of the family, by means of supporting attempts to connect between them.
2. Reframing – Sometimes reframing brings people to a new understanding of the problem.
3. Feedback
4. Sharing
5. Mirroring

The therapist checks the flexibility of the internal borders of the family, the attitudes to parental authority, father, mother, forms of interaction and more.

Great importance is attached to the modeling of the attention of the therapist to the different members of the family, and to the content and presentation of the problem. Attention is required at both the verbal and non-verbal levels, and in making sure that each member of the family has their own place.

Music Therapy

Music by its nature is a medium of communication, listening to and organization of an experience created from sounds.

The language of music and the elements that create the organization of music are introduced to the therapeutic task of organizing the family group: every member of the family is a separate entity, with a unique voice, temperament, tempo, life melody. From these very differences comes the necessity for a certain overall harmony in order to live together.

Tools of Music Therapy

1. Primal language (sounds, rhythm)
2. Music has the power to change moods because of its range and the different kinds of music.
3. A gateway to the world of the emotions and the senses.
4. Music speaks to the imagination and to the flow of undefined free association, allowing different reactions to the same piece of music.
5. Music is a game, with rules (or example, trying to find a common rhythm)

Music Assessment

The possibility of evaluating the family by checking the distribution of power, for example:

1. Who takes the role of conductor, leader?
2. Examining the organization of the family.
3. Observation of dynamic processes.
4. Dominance.

Music Formulation

When playing music there is the opportunity to create and shape situations. Playing music helps the family to reveal who listens to whom, who follows whom. These revelations are discovered by the family in its internal interactions as well as by the therapist.

Music Intervention

Intervention by means of music allows the family to undergo new and reforming experiences, because by playing music it is possible to go back and correct and create a new structure.

Intervention by means of music increases the ability to mirror behavior and forms of action vis-à-vis oneself and others.

Musical Elements

The elements of music (including dynamics, louder and softer, emphasis) are metaphors for the different processes and relationships within the family. Musical structures are states of communication, and in both metaphor and fact there are situations of solos, duets, chamber players, the family as a complete orchestra and more.

When the family is a group every member listens to the music of the others. It is important to note that it is the choice of the family to come to me (a music therapist) for family therapy. I emphasize that the very fact of the process of working with music will strengthen the tools for connecting the family members.

Family A

Family A comprises two parents and five children, two adult daughters. The I.P. is the middle child, an 11-year-old boy, and he has two younger siblings, a boy and a girl.

Reason for Therapy

The family requested therapy, with the parents claiming that the son was “unbearable” at home. They added that he was “very sweet and we love him...BUT he doesn’t pay attention to anything and it is very difficult.”

They told him “we are going to get advice so we will know how to get along better at home.”

The mother is very dominant and ambitious.

The father is very withdrawn. He wants to get on quietly with his job.

It is important to note that each child in the family has created a different relationship strategy, and every child, according to the structure of his or her personality, has taken on a different form of behavior.

Now let us watch the video.

We will concentrate on the parents and the IP; the objective is to create a different place and space, which will allow a different kind of observation and comprehension.

Process of the Meeting

The child told his parents that: “You never have time, you are always busy. I don’t listen to you because you never listen to me, ever.”

We start the music therapy. I ask the boy “How do you think you can make your parents listen to you?” He replies “I want them to listen to me, to something that I really like but that makes them angry – my music.”

He invites his parent to come close to the sound system. “Now you have to listen to me,” he says, and plays his music at full volume.

(Video)

An experience was created – with laughter, love and a sharing/feedback connection.

Part Two

As the process continues the child announces that “Now I will listen to you.” He asks us to video the father speaking, and talking, in a dry monotone, about how the child has to change his behavior at home and at school and so on and on and on.

Musical Intervention

I ask each member of the family to choose an instrument. They are to express their togetherness, and then see who leads, who listens to whom and what kind of interaction takes place.

The dominance of the boy is evident, so I intervene and ask the father and mother to play together with the father leading the rhythm...sharing/feedback.

Family B

Family B consists of two parents and two children, a ten-year-old boy who psychomotoric testing has assessed as being hyperactive, and a daughter with high mental and emotional retardation and very clumsy behavior. A family with a difficult pathology.

The Ministry of Social Affairs referred the family to family therapy

Problems include:

1. Personality of the parents
2. Their interpersonal relationship
3. Parent functioning

The family has been unbalanced since the very first stages of the relationship. The birth of the son created an additional imbalance, with the baby being rejected. This increased when the daughter was born. The parents reacted angrily to the boy’s behavior and they became physically abusive, until the Ministry of Social Affairs removed the child from the home.

The child’s removal caused a severe trauma. The parents fought for the return of their son, and this huge problem triggered an attempt to improve their relationship and a desire to reunite the family.

After an extensive period of treatment by social workers, the family was referred to me with the goal of working on intra-family relations, and a re-learning of these relationships. This led me to think how to enable the family to undergo positive experiences that would contribute to reorganization of the family.

They must listen to each other in order to enable the full presence of each individual and to create togetherness., while in the background is a whole dictionary of problems: limits, conflict, anger and dissatisfaction against a background of issues of identity and belonging.

(Video)

The family as a model in a music therapy session (as seen through the observation window).

In order to get to the session the family had to organize for a (relatively) long journey. The journey was seen as a positive experience and as a joint recreation.

Process of the Meeting

The family is excited from the journey. They have to be calmed down so that they will pay attention to each other.

Musical Intervention

Calming music after which each family member reacts in turn, perceptions, feelings and so on.

The boy remarks that he hasn’t been listening: “I forgot to take my Retilin today.”

The mother is angry that he forgot, but I (acting as a positive model) say that we will give the boy another chance to listen and connect, knowing that the contact with the music will help him calm down.

(Video)

Later....

Using the musical instruments, each member of the family expresses kinds of communication with the others, listening each time to someone else (I emphasize the place of the father as the conductor/leader...)

Words and Music

By using music and songs with words it is possible to communicate new messages that are created as part of the process. Frequently these become positive life-mantras, which continue to resonate within us.

After I asked Family B to summarize the meeting, the words they used became the message:

When you want to make a family

You have to listen to each other

You have to listen to the parents

You have to go out and have fun.

With the music....

And I conclude with a different song for all us therapists, a message of hope:

Thank you for being us,

Together

Thank you for listening to us,

Together.

Remember, our ability and our calling

Is to listen

To all the music,

All the melodies -

Even if they do not always

Sound so harmonious

To us.