Today, I was reminded of the triangular relationship that the client, the therapist, and the music have while in a music therapy session. I have a client who tends to enter into the therapy space and sit down, apparently waiting for direction from me. This behavior isn’t unreasonable, but I’ve been encouraging this client to explore some of the instruments I leave available while we sing our hello song. Today, she moved to the ocean drum, and for the first time in several weeks I observed this client transitioning very fully into the sound that she made with the drum. I accompanied on the guitar, and soon found the ocean drum to complement the guitar, and vice versa. At times, we introduced vocalizations, but for more than 10 minutes, we simply used the music. I did hear a little voice in my head saying, Time to move on. Why aren’t you moving on? What if she gets bored with the ocean drum? Why don’t you stop playing before that can happen?, etc. However, I trusted (thank you for putting that word in my head, Lindsay) that the music can hold its own in this context. That is why I’m a music therapist, in fact.
Every so often I need to acknowledge more readily the importance of the music. Do you ever have that problem?