Between Pre-Objectivity and Objectivity: a Phenomenological Study of Nordoff-Robbins Music

Between Pre-Objectivity and Objectivity: A Phenomenological Study of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapists’ Experiences of Healing in Music By Megan Elizabeth Graham A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts In Anthropology Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2013, Megan Elizabeth Graham Abstract Following four months of fieldwork at the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy in New York City, this thesis investigates the experiences of Nordoff-Robbins music therapists who work with “hard to reach” clients from a phenomenological perspective. The “hard to reach” client is conceptualized as having a disorder of communication which therapy restores. Based on therapists’ experiences, three phenomenological problems are addressed: the problem of training therapeutic habits of perception, the problem of creativity, and the problem of language to describe lived experience in music. It was found that creative music therapists learn to listen and respond with clinical intention, guiding the pre-objective, synaesthetic perception of the client. In improvisation, determinacy and indeterminacy are negotiated with each musical expression, moving between pre-objective and objective experiential realms. Finally, therapists’ lived experience is partial and indeterminate and is expressed through metaphor and poetics to best capture the pre-objective experience of the world. ii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the help and generous contributions of all the music therapists at the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy at New York University, as well as the Rebecca Center for Music Therapy at Malloy University. I am grateful to Adam Bell, my Canadian predecessor, at the Nordoff-Robbins Center who supported the most important early stages of establishing a connection with the Center and beginning my research there. Thank you also to the trainees and student interns at the Center with whom I became friends and shared many discussions. The guidance of my supervisor, Dr. Bernhard Leistle, was invaluable throughout the devising and carrying out of this research. I extend a special thank you for the ever-patient administrative support of Paula Whissell. Many thanks to my mother, Christian, and my family and friends, for cheerleading throughout this adventure. Finally, I am grateful for the vision and work of Clive Robbins and Paul Nordoff, who informed and inspired me during this project, whether through their own voices or through those of the music therapists who knew them. iii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: Literature Review 11 Anthropology and the Study of the Healer and the Performance of Healing Lived Experience of Music Therapists Phenomenological Analyses of Music Therapists’ Experiences of Clinical Work Chapter Two: The Nordoff-Robbins Approach to Music Therapy 22 Rudolph Steiner and the Curative Education Movement Raising the First Generation of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapists The Therapeutic Power of Music Core Principles: Teamwork, Musicianship, Indexing Core Principles at Work in Contemporary Nordoff-Robbins Practice Sociality and Universality of Music Chapter Three: A Phenomenological Approach to Understanding Music as Therapy 41 An Example of a Music Therapy Session Indeterminacy and Pre-Objectivity of the World, and Synaesthetic Perception “Hard to Reach” as a Disorder of Communication and the We-Relation The Power of Sound: The Role of Music in Restoring Communication and the We-Relation Chapter Four: Musical Portraits: Learning to Listen to the Other 67 Deep Listening as a Synaesthetic Practice Poised in the Creative Now: Training Habits of Preparation and Perception Clinical Intentionality as a Form of Phenomenological Intentionality iv Silence in Music Therapy: Learning to Listen and to Keep Listening Chapter Five: Creative Clinical Improvisation: Learning to Respond to the Other 89 The Creative Act: Expression and Flow between the Pre-Objective and Objective Negotiating the Indeterminacy of Communication through Structure and Improvisation Universality of Music?: Creativity as Objectively and Subjectively Experienced Chapter Six: “A Hit and a Miss, A Hit and a Stick”: The Performance of Healing 112 The Therapeutic Milieu and the Musical Invitation to Play Music is Inclusive: The Team and the Client “A Hit and a Miss. A Hit and a Stick” Rejection as Resistiveness, Degrees of Relatedness A Hit and a Stick: Experiencing the Other in “The Real Thing” Chapter Seven: Lived and Objective Bodies: The Problem of Language 139 The Music Therapist’s Dilemma and the Role of Metaphor Documenting Sessions: A View from Behind the Camera Lens Indexing and the Language of Emotions Challenging the Notion of Failures in Perception Conclusion 155 Works Cited 161 Appendix A: Example of Session Indexing Note 167 v Introduction This thesis is an ethnographic study of the phenomenological structures of human experience that are intrinsic to music therapists’ experiences of working with “hard to reach” clients. The music therapy practice that has been chosen for this study is called the Nordoff- Robbins approach. Humanistic in its orientation, the approach focuses on creative clinical improvisation to create a musical relationship between the therapist and the client. The “hard to reach” client is one who has difficulty forming meaningful social relationships and experiences disorders of communication. The goal of the therapy is to restore social communication and bring the client back into relationship with other people in the world, constituting a major existential shift. I will argue that improvised music effects therapeutic change because sound has both form and flexibility, expressing what otherwise cannot be expressed. Through the indeterminacy and pre-objectivity of experience, the music therapist can create a milieu in which they can meet the client and understand one another without objectifying experience in words. Music therapy is a sought after option for many people with communicative and physical disabilities. Empirical studies have shown that music can significantly improve functioning in all levels of human experience, particularly the application of various forms of music therapy. There are many approaches to music therapy, some which focus on the neurological processes of the brain in response to music, while others are more humanistic and experientially-oriented. While music therapists at the Nordoff-Robbins Center are collaborating increasingly with psychologists and neuroscientists, the approach as it is taught is fundamentally humanistic and creative. The Nordoff-Robbins approach is classified as a model of improvisational music therapy, using creative musical improvisation as its primary therapeutic tool. According to Bruscia (1987), Nordoff-Robbins is called “creative” for three reasons: the therapist creates and 1 improvises the musical material, the music therapist creates the therapeutic experience by improvising music that seeks out and establishes contact with the client, and the music therapist creates a progression of experience that guides and supports the client’s development (Bruscia 1987:24). In addition to the creative application of music to achieve therapeutic goals, the therapists create the musical resources that they use in therapy with their own bodily performance. Recordings of music are not used in therapy; rather, each music therapist performs in session with the client in a live music-making experience. The research for this project took place at the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Center at New York University (NYU) in New York City. Not only does the Center have a clinical practice that draws from local school board programs and private clientele, but they are also one of the few Nordoff-Robbins training facilities in the world. Each year, about ten music therapists are accepted into a one-year professional certification course for one of three graduated levels of training. The music therapists with whom I worked had completed either the second or the third level of certification, and trainees were typically taking the first level of certification. Training consists of classroom-based courses and clinical practice under the supervision of a senior music therapist. The Center also runs shorter programs during the summer for those interested in the approach to music therapy but who cannot take the year-long training. Though small in scale, the Center was always buzzing with activity. Often described by interns as a “bee hive,” there was hardly a quiet moment and I would often arrive to find a full waiting room and music emanating from different ongoing sessions. Clients ranged from pre- school children up to middle-aged adults, some of whom were new to the Center that year, while others had been coming for over a decade. They seek help for one or more issues related to physical challenges, neurological conditions, and cognitive, psychological, and emotional 2 disorders. I witnessed many clients making marked improvement during my time there, while other clients’ progress was less apparent to me as a newcomer to the Center. The therapists evaluated improvement in many ways depending on the therapeutic goals: increased interpersonal communication, expanded emotional expression, improved self-awareness and awareness of other people (often described as “waking up”), as well as improved physical and motor capabilities. There was a constant positive atmosphere

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