In a recent session I had one of those moments of doubt. The thought came to my mind that music therapy just doesn’t work. A child I am working with because of some particular difficulties was able to talk about them a bit, and was able to make music, to respond and interact, to be expressive. But I didn’t feel there was any link between the two. I felt that the supposed thread running from reasons for referral through the music therapy intervention itself, to some kind of positive outcome, was nothing more than a fiction, possibly even a con. The idea grew in my mind: music therapy is an activity, a way of people spending time with each other possibly, maybe an enjoyable experience, but the proposition that it has the potential to effect change, particularly change of any specificity, seemed ludicrous. How on earth could this child, by spending time with me hitting a few percussion instruments and then maybe singing a goodbye song, reach any kind of resolution of their broader difficulties? It was bordering on dishonest to claim anything of the sort.
Then I dropped it and got back in the room. I let go of the idea of fixing the problem and returned to the present moment. From then on the session changed dynamic. Things started to happen, including symbolic things, like the child talking about the way they would like things to be, the things that they miss in the session, which they wish were in the room. They became more expressive and imaginative.
Quelle surprise! But it’s easy to forget this tendency, and it’s tempting to assume that big sweeping thoughts are about big sweeping things, rather than really about what’s happening right now. Perhaps this is a good example of counter-transference, or projective identification. Perhaps I took on something from this child unconsciously and it was abstracted and expressed in my own psyche as a negative, particular thought. It would be possible to view this as a dangerous moment, where the potential to rubbish music therapy presents itself, a moment of final disillusionment with the process, and even with the profession. More useful, however, is the idea that moments like this are vital to the process of therapy, that we have to allow the client to take us to this empty place before we are able to press the reset button and experience the present moment anew. Bion was right about memory and desire, but knowing this doesn’t stop them creeping into the session, especially when we have care plans and evaluation forms and ‘aims of therapy’ rattling round our heads. In the room you have to forget that stuff, just as Mo Farah has to forget about winning while he’s actually running.
And what’s the point of music anyway? As soon as you have to ask that question you know you’re off track. I was at a concert of Bach last week. I knew it was good, but I couldn’t get into it. For a moment I thought ’What’s the point of Bach?’ But then, what’s the point of there being a point, and does there need to be a point, and why all this worrying about the point? Is this a superego thing? Is there a voice inside there somewhere asking about aims and purposes and outcomes all the time, which gets louder or quieter, depending on the level of meaning of whatever is happening right now? Maybe there is this for the client, too. Maybe the better it’s going for both of us, the less we are likely to be asking ourselves stupid questions, or making big empty internal pronouncements. But I don’t think there’s any escape from this. It’s part of the role, and the job, to keep questioning. Just so long as the questions can make way for the real work when the time is right, ‘the time’ being right now.
