Music therapy - Olivia & Finding Frank

Olivia Bradbury is a musician and performer, who uses music as a therapeutic tool, who recently moved to Powys from London. She has considerable experience of working with people in mental distress. She tells us more about her past work, her play 'Finding Frank' which will be staged in Hay-on-Wye in June 2015, and her hopes for the future.

Olivia leading an orchestra

About me

I am a musician and creative facilitator working for the past few years mainly in mental health settings. This is where I am most interested in working and where I feel music is badly needed. Music workshops provide a way to connect with people who, for whatever reason, struggle with communicating their feelings. I have found that if patients and service users can find ways to speak through making music, they generally feel happier and consequently feel more motivated to take a positive, proactive approach to improving their mental health.

Olivia conducting the Crisis Choir

My workshops

My workshops provide environments in which participants feel supported to express what they want to express through the more abstract route of music/poetry/rhythm which may feel safer and more satisfying than communicating verbally. I provide starting points for participants’ ideas and frameworks in which their ideas can grow. This helps people not to  feel overwhelmed by the freedom of creativity. This careful balance of structure versus freedom is something that is tricky to get right and I have spent years trying to achieve this!

Too much freedom = overwhelmed, too much structure = stifled. I feel this is what is special about what I can offer and what is central to the nature of my workshops.

Olivia in 'Finding Frank'

My play

One of the places I have led workshops in London is Bethlem Royal Hospital. Here I met an elderly man who was suffering from severe anxiety and depression which was having a devastating effect on his communication skills, his memory, his relationships and his senses.

Over six months I saw him improve. It was the most rewarding experience of my career so far. I was so moved by what I saw in this man that I wrote a play about it -  'Finding Frank'. I had questioned whether making music did anything significant in the past, but this confirmed my belief that it most certainly did. This man was transformed! He used to get lost walking from the music room back to his ward, but not after the music work. He began communicating with his wife again and he was remembering how to play chord progressions on his guitar having initially described it to me like holding a foreign object - like an aubergine! He was cracking jokes, looking at me in the eye... I won’t say what else he achieved as I don’t want to ruin the story if you come to see the play.

When the funding cuts hit, I lost my work at Bethlem. Many who work in the arts have lost work over the last few years and it is only depriving thousands of people from a way of healing which is natural, sustainable and life enhancing. The play draws attention to this issue and my touring the piece is my way of building up awareness of the importance of music in treating mental health. 

Whilst making Finding Frank, I carried out many interviews of other people. I ran workshops with people who lived with mental health issues. I wanted to hear as many people's stories as possible - of their experiences of their minds and of their interactions with music. I learnt a great deal and felt very lucky to be able to gain this insight. I used audio clips of some of these interviews in the play (with their permission) and those that were featured came to see it and told me they were "proud to be part of a genuine piece" that talks "fearlessly and respectfully" about mental health. I felt very relieved that they approved! It was music that brought me close to all of these people. Music which is a bonding and unifying experience for any that get involved in it.

And now?

I have just moved to Powys after 11 years in London working in this field. I would love to continue my work here but need to find opportunities to do so. I know that organisations have an allowance for workshops but I know that funding is tight across the board. If you work for a hospital that would benefit from some musical activities and/or know of how I could source some funding to carry on with my work, I would love to hear from you!

For more information about what I have been up to and for contact details do have a look at my website.

Finding Frank is on at The Globe Theatre in Hay-on-Wye for three nights - 18, 19 and 20 June. Watch this YouTube video made for the production in London:

Exploring Mental Health and Trauma: Books To Get Us Thinking ....

Guest Blog by Jane Cooke.

There has been a focus on trauma-oriented work and ‘treatment’ in recent Powys conferences.  You can watch Jacqui Dillon at the Powys Stronger in Partnership conference last year here and you can watch Sami Timimi at the Finding Meaning in Psychosis conference in March 2014 here.

One of my roles in life (when I’m not working within PAVO’s mental health team) is as a counsellor/psychotherapist. I have a trauma-oriented approach which has been reinforced by listening to these speakers and by reading around the subject.

A trauma-oriented approach, as advocated by Sami Timimi, is a gentle way of beginning work that enables a person to feel safe and able to gradually build up a personal sense of control over their own boundaries and in time over responses to events or reminders that can lead to upsetting and overwhelming reactions. Even if a person doesn’t identify trauma as being relevant to them and why they come for therapy, this approach is empowering and helpful anyway. (It is not about forcefully inducing ‘catharsis’, re-living the situation, ‘facing up to it’ or any other similar techniques which can be re-traumatising or even abusive in themselves.)

Sami Timimi is a psychiatrist and a founding member of recently established Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry.  He believes that working in a trauma-oriented way makes sense for most people who come into contact with mental health services. Much more sense than identifying ‘pathology’, symptoms and ascribing a diagnosis; all of which generally ignore the story, the experience of the person, how it is that they are who they are.

There are two writers who I have found very helpful and their work complements each other. Both Judith Herman and Peter Levine are concerned that people (clients, patients, service users, survivors) gain/regain their own sense of personal power and agency as they recover from their trauma/s.

Peter Levine has written a number of books about trauma. One of his books “Healing Trauma” is a slim self-help book with a CD covering a programme of exercises that anyone can follow to help overcome the neurological ‘holding’ of trauma. It is, he says “for restoring the wisdom of your body”.  He does caution that professional help may still be required. An empowering way of working could be therapist and client working together with the book and exercises, keeping the client in control of the work.

‘Trauma’ is a word we use in everyday speech,  but paradoxically in relation to emotional well-being there is a limited perception that trauma has to relate to major events that are, for example, combat situations, witnessing  extreme violence, being in danger of one’s life or experiencing sexual violence or abuse in childhood or adulthood. However, as Peter Levine says “People, especially children, can be overwhelmed by what we usually think of as common everyday events …The fact is that, over time, a series of seemingly minor mishaps can have a damaging effect on a person. Trauma does not have to stem from a major catastrophe” (his italics).

There is increasing evidence for this. So, for example, bullying, repeatedly not getting your needs for love and positive attention met, feeling fear regularly such as maybe a frightening  walk to school, regular contact with a frightening , threatening teacher or relative; being regularly shamed by powerful people when you are young.  Many things can build up to create a response in the nervous system which then needs to be ‘taught’ to respond to the here and now and to recognise/feel  current sources of support and comfort, including your own capacity  to support and nurture yourself.

Jacqui Dillon (a survivor of childhood sexual abuse) told us how much she had been influenced and empowered by Judith Herman’s book “Trauma and Recovery”. Herman looks at the way in which women’s (and children’s) experiences of violence, fear, captivity (and you can be captive in all senses without the doors being locked) and powerlessness in the domestic and community realm have been seen as variously: natural, bought on by the victim themselves, exaggerated  and overcome-able by normal acts of will. She looks at the way in which their experiences are minimised and belittled.  “Social judgement of chronically traumatized people tends to be extremely harsh” .She also looks at ways of working with people who have experienced trauma. Judith Herman has a framework for recovery from trauma. There has to be in her experience, in sequence (and returned to as often as necessary) Safety, Remembrance and Mourning and Reconnection. This works very well with Peter Levine’s work which in the early stages emphasises ways of achieving an inner sense of safety, and of course actual safety in daily life is essential.

Judith Herman is very clear that therapists need good training and good support, this is work that can be complex and challenging.

There are many books about trauma; I would recommend these two. They are compassionate and well-grounded in research and experience. They are as much for the person recovering from trauma as they are for therapists and other workers.  

Judith Herman’s “Trauma and Recovery provides a radical, community oriented approach to recognising trauma in the lives of women in particular as well as a way of working that can lead to recovery.

Peter Levine’s book is a gentle, practical self-help book (although he does not minimise the need for professional support as well).

Between them they are a very good ‘starter kit’ to this subject whether you are a health professional, or someone who has experienced, is experiencing, trauma – and you could very well, of course, be both.

Trauma and Recovery. Judith Herman.  Pandora  ISBN 978-086358-430-5

Healing Trauma. Peter Levine. Sounds True ISBN 978-1-59179-658-9

Written by Jane Cooke

Member of PAVO Mental Health Team:  jane.cooke@pavo.org.uk

And when not working for PAVO....

Gestalt therapist, ecotherapist  and interpersonal skills trainer.  Jane.cooke@heartfeltwork.co.uk

www.heartfeltwork.co.uk