This post is a sort of dialogue with a podcast interview about music therapy. I provide the link here and encourage anyone who reads this blog with any interest, to listen to the podcast. The interview is really more about the creation of therapeutic space, but it also economically exemplifies what I have called “Therapeutic Attitude” and has added to my own conception of it.

Philippa Derrington is a Senior Lecturer within the Division of Occupational Therapy and Arts Therapies at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh and leads the MSc Music Therapy course there. Here she is interviewed by Luke Annesley, a jazz musician and music therapist who produces the British Association for Music Therapy podcast series Music Therapy Conversations.

Music Therapy Conversations. Episode 25. Philippa Derrington

In this interview, Philippa describes setting up a music therapy space in a school, in the corner of a garage, and using large instruments (to occupy and therefore command space) and anything she could salvage from the school skip. In doing this she demonstrates beautifully one aspect of therapeutic attitude, which is taking responsibility for the space.

Therapy is exploration and, as such, requires a secure base (1,2). The therapist is as responsible for this aspect of therapy as any other. If a therapist is lucky enough to be able to totally control the physical environment, then they can (and should) do so creatively. But it may be that significant aspects of the environment are fixed and out of the physical control of the therapist. When this is the case the therapist can make sure that, when in the room, they “extend themselves to its boundaries” (3).

When I have managed to put an idea into words and another practitioner from a different discipline expresses something similar, I find it hugely affirming. As I listened to this podcast I found myself thinking over and over again, “this is Therapeutic Attitude!”

Take, for example:

PD: “Respect takes first place for me in work with any adolescent” (16m00s)

– and compare with –

AW “A crucial aspect of therapeutic work with children is the forming of a respectful relationship with them: discussing, offering genuine choices, and relating to them as valid, motivated humans with a right to, and the potential for, a life of their own, rather than simply existing as a product and part of the lives of others.” (BWSG p 151)

Or:

PD “A most important element is being able to get alongside the young person” (18m40s)

compare…

AW “…my position is alongside the child, looking at the conundrum, as though to say, “Is this what you would like us to think about?” (p12)

And:

PD “…the importance of not-knowing, and staying with that.” (20m09s)

compare…

AW Chapter Four on Uncertainty which leans heavily on D. W. Winnicott’s “..contain conflicts…. instead of anxiously looking around for a cure” (4) and John Keats’ concept of Negative Capability (5).

I am excited enough by the similarities, but here is a point of divergence or extension which gives me pause for thought. Luke and Philippa have a conversation (14m08s) about how in the school she is “always a music therapist, but not always doing music therapy”. This is really interesting. I wrote a section (p11) “Being a Psychiatrist” in which I contrasted being a psychiatrist with doing psychiatry, but I wanted to make a different point and distinguish between (in the frame of virtue ethics) being a psychiatrist as opposed to performing a set of tasks which constituted psychiatry but which might as well be alien (being versus doing). I still think that my point is an important one, but Phillipa and Luke’s point is also, and they complement one another . A therapist must have therapeutic attitude when “doing therapy” but the attitude is also important when in one’s professional role – being a therapist – but not actually in session. Philippa clearly protects the sessions in betweenwhiles, but only to the extent that each client requires. This is a form of “holding in mind”. The attitude extends beyond the session and becomes part of the professional person; Perhaps even the person.

Have a listen!

refs:

1. Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory.
   London: Routledge.
2. Byng-Hall, J. (1995). Creating a secure family base: Some implications of
   attachment theory for family therapy. Family Process, 34: 45–58.
3. Being With and Saying Goodbye. Cultivating Therapeutic Attitude in Professional Practice p89.
4. Winnicott, D. W. (1971b). Therapeutic Consultations in Child Psychiatry. London: Hogarth & The Institute of Psycho-Analysis. p2.
5. Gittings, R. (1966). Selected Poems and Letters of John Keats. Oxford:
   Heinemann Educational. p40-41.

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