My Bachelor’s degree is in music, but not just music. Technically I hold a degree in Music Therapy. I am an RMT, BC - Registered Music Therapist, Board Certified.

As part of the process of earning my Board Certification, I served a 6 month internship at a major state mental hospital in Napa California. I later worked for the State of California in two of their other residential facilities.

In the 1970's music therapy was a behavioral therapy. Patients could attend music sessions only if they had earned enough “good behavior” points down on the ward. Once they were admitted to the music session they could only remain as long as their behavior was considered appropriate. The session could be a sing-a-long, a guitar lesson, a rhythm band or song writing session, but always with the goal of appropriate behavior.

I kept looking for something deeper. How could a therapist get past the behavioral goals and truly change the patient’s life? That was always the question that haunted me, but my teachers and mentors were resistant to work outside of the behavioral model and I was merely a babe in the world...23 or 24 years old.

I attended as many alternative style conferences as I could, and you know, in the San Francisco Bay area that would have been many. I attended workshops on guided imagery and music, chakras and sound wave lengths, the effect of pitch on brain waves, even a workshop on “music of the spheres,” the sounds supposedly heard in heaven. But after all this I was still no closer to unlocking the healing power of music.

Back at the ward I plodded on, not knowing what my true goals were for my clients. I was bored and so were my highest functioning patients. Out of sheer desperation I put together a Barber Shop Quartet style choir of psychotic people with IQ’s below 90. We were just having fun.

One day I saw a flyer advertising the hospital talent show. I became very excited and decided to enter my Barber Shop Singers on the program. I used recreation money to buy straw hats, red vests and little stick-on moustaches. The two girls in the group refused to wear the moustaches so we became “The Handlebar Six Plus Two.”

The night of the performance my supervisor saw me giving my group a last minute pep talk. She saw the costumes and demanded to know what in the heck I was doing. Didn’t I realize the talent show was only for HOSPITAL STAFF! Didn’t I understand that these people were dangerous psychotics who were being tied in straight jackets almost every night just to keep them from tearing the place apart. First I felt like a fool. Then I was outraged that my patients were not welcome to participate. I hadn’t seen any of this violent behavior that was reported every morning at grand rounds. Was she sure she was talking about my singing group? And if patients could sit in the audience, why couldn’t they be on stage as well?

We went on as scheduled and they really pulled it off. They thrived on the applause. I think for a moment one or two of them even lost the tell-tale shuffle caused by the anti-psychotic medication. They were the stars. They were the heros.

The following day my supervisor was singing my praises. “I don’t know how you pulled it off!” she just kept saying. And for a brief time I believed that I had found the way to change people’s lives through music. But I also knew that this outcome had not been the result of a formal treatment plan designed by a multi-disciplinary team, signed and submitted in triplicate. It just happened while we were having fun.

Well that was exactly 30 years ago. I have traveled down the road of life and along the way I adopted two older girls from the Hogar Rafael Ayau in Guatemala. My older girl was already 10 years old when we brought her home. We expected a tough transition, but when her defiant anti-social behavior only got worse instead of better, we consulted a professional. Our daughter was diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder as a result of severe neglect in the first few years of life. As a result we could expect her to be untrusting, defiant and most of all very controlling.

My husband and I have worked hard over the last 6 years to re-parent this child. Most of what needed to be done would have been more appropriate for a much younger child. Even though she would not allow us to physically hug her or hold her, she needed to be held very tightly in our hearts. She would metaphorically squirm and wiggle and try to get away, engaging in negative behaviors, hoping to wear us out, hoping we would give up and send her back to the orphanage. But by the grace of God, we refused to loosen the grip we had on her in our hearts.

Lately things have been pretty cool around our house and we’ve actually been able to have fun. One evening, about 4 months ago my younger daughter and I were jamming on harp and piano. The older one had not shown much interest in learning music and I just wanted her to learn to be socially appropriate. (There’s a behavioral goal for you!) The older daughter came into the room and expressed a desire to be included. I taught her a simple melody on my larger harp and picked up the smaller harp to provide an accompaniment. My husband, sensing that the joy would be brief, picked up the camera and took a picture.

Since that evening, my daughter has been faithfully studying the harp with me. There’s something different about the time we spend together at our harps. She defers to my authority. She takes instruction humbly and graciously. She even allows me to touch her as I reposition her hands. At the harp, my daughter has relinquished control. This is something we have been trying to accomplish with her for the last six years, but the therapeutic goal was achieved while we were just having fun and it might be possible that I am changing a life through music.

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