Anxiety, depression and stress have soared since Covid-19 entered our lives, but music therapy may help soothe your blues away.
A research team of Nelson Mandela University psychologists recently undertook a study to look at the psychological impacts of the lockdown on mental health. They found that the Covid-19 pandemic had escalated mental health issues and the overall wellbeing of people across the board.
South Africans have a sky-high rate of stress: one in every three South Africans is on medication for anxiety or depression and an average of 1,400 people call the South African Depression and Anxiety Suicide Helpline every day.
And, while mental health professionals have their hands full, there certainly seems to be scope for less well-known therapies such as music therapy.
Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay each has a practising professional. Both are passionate about its benefits.
East London music therapist Caitlin Schulze said music had the ability to speak to us on a deeper level than words alone.
“We all have songs that make us feel happier, or help to comfort us,” she said. “Music, by itself, can help to calm people dealing with anxiety; it can help regulate breathing, and give us something to identify with when our emotions are difficult to handle.”
However, there is more to music therapy than just playing a happy tune.
“Music by itself is great, but there is a lot of value in being relational with someone else,” said Schulze.
“The clinical use of music by a trained professional can help to use the natural effects of music to help get to the root of an issue, and strengthen clients to better process and express their emotions.”
She said by this stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people had run out of words to express their feelings: “it is difficult to talk about where we are, and a lot of people are just tired of trying to talk about it”.
“Music therapy offers an alternative way to process how people are feeling and what they are going through because it goes past words and meets clients on a very personal and intuitive level.”
Gqeberha music therapist Christine Joubert said she had seen an increase in interest in this field over the past year. As part of the South African National Arts Therapy Association, Joubert has been giving emotional support to clients over Covid-19.
“In the mental health area, people are crying out for a different way of looking at things,” she said.
“Many of my clients also have a fear of venturing out, of connecting with people, of dying, of having a loved one die from the disease. A lot of people struggle to process all this fear so they are turning towards the arts — music enables us to communicate, express and deal with our feelings in a positive, non-judgmental way.”
Joubert is also a creative arts therapist in Frontline Support, a national group that has been giving free online services to health-care workers and the public.
She was surprised that though she had worked virtually over Zoom, the affect of music therapy had still been profound.
“I’ve been working a lot with anxiety and grief,” Joubert said, outlining the loss and isolation seen in clients over the past 12 months.
Joubert also runs regular self-care retreats aimed at women under her umbrella company XpressionSessions Music. “I saw from my circle of friends the pressure on moms in particular.
“As humans, we function as musical beings; we have music in us, our muscles contract at a specific frequency and our heart beats in a rhythm; everything about us is quite musical.”
Music therapy sessions might include singing, humming, breathing or using some kind of musical instrument such as drums, a pennywhistle, tambourine or piano. What a music therapist does depends on who the client is, says Schulze.
“Sometimes we work more actively, where we make music with the client, using voice, instruments, and movement; and sometimes we work more receptively, where the client listens to music, chosen by the therapist to address a specific goal, and responds to it, either through music of their own, verbal processing, or even art, where appropriate.”
In other words, what a music therapist will do, will depend on why the client has come for therapy.
As Schulze says, “if music therapy suits you and can offer a way to explore and process what you are going through, it can be a really great option”.
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