AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

Ther­a­py of any kind can help in­di­vid­u­als cope with chal­lenges and im­prove their phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and men­tal well-be­ing. Mu­sic, too, can serve as a form of ther­a­py, help­ing chil­dren and adults with so­cial­i­sa­tion chal­lenges, anx­i­ety and even de­men­tia.

It is a ser­vice avail­able in Trinidad and To­ba­go through pro­fes­sion­als such as Mar­ti­na Chow-An­toine, one of the few board-cer­ti­fied mu­sic ther­a­pists op­er­at­ing in T&T and the wider Caribbean.

Af­ter com­plet­ing a Mas­ter of Arts in Mu­sic Ther­a­py at New York Uni­ver­si­ty, a rig­or­ous two-year pro­gramme com­pris­ing in­ten­sive aca­d­e­m­ic study and 1,500 hours of clin­i­cal train­ing, Chow-An­toine re­turned home.

She re­ceived a gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ship to pur­sue the pro­gramme, with the ex­pec­ta­tion that she would re­turn to T&T and be pro­vid­ed with a job. How­ev­er, when the promised gov­ern­ment place­ment failed to ma­te­ri­alise, Chow-An­toine de­cid­ed to cre­ate her own op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“I was sup­posed to be giv­en a job by the gov­ern­ment, but they didn’t have one set up and wait­ing for me. And af­ter about three months of not do­ing any­thing, I’m not re­al­ly a sit-down-and-wait per­son, I de­cid­ed to make it [mu­sic ther­a­py] hap­pen,” Chow-An­toine told Guardian Me­dia.

She reached out to spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion schools and or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Autism So­ci­ety, ed­u­cat­ing them about the clin­i­cal ben­e­fits of mu­sic ther­a­py.

Af­ter over­com­ing ini­tial hur­dles to se­cure fund­ing and in­stru­ments, she es­tab­lished the So­lari Cen­tre for Mu­sic Ther­a­py in Port-of-Spain.

How mu­sic ther­a­py works

Ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Mu­sic Ther­a­py As­so­ci­a­tion, mu­sic ther­a­py is the ev­i­dence-based use of mu­sic in­ter­ven­tions to ac­com­plish in­di­vid­u­alised goals with­in a ther­a­peu­tic re­la­tion­ship.

“The first thing that I do is an as­sess­ment of what your needs are. I al­so as­sess what kind of mu­sic you like, be­cause every­body’s mu­sic ther­a­py ses­sion is based on their mu­si­cal pref­er­ences,” Chow-An­toine said.

“We al­so talk about your clin­i­cal goals. A lot of the times, per­sons are re­ferred to me by psy­chol­o­gists or psy­chi­a­trists or neu­rol­o­gists, etc., and I need to work along­side these oth­er pro­fes­sion­als to en­sure that we’re work­ing to­wards the same clin­i­cal goals.”

Ses­sions can in­volve a range of in­stru­ments, in­clud­ing the pi­ano, gui­tar, clar­inet, flute, drums, steel­pan and voice.

Who is it for?

The field of mu­sic ther­a­py is grow­ing across the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, dri­ven by in­creas­ing sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence of its men­tal and phys­i­cal ben­e­fits.

Stud­ies show that mu­sic ther­a­py can sup­port in­di­vid­u­als fac­ing a wide range of de­vel­op­men­tal, be­hav­iour­al and emo­tion­al chal­lenges.

“I have mu­sic ther­a­py ses­sions that are one-on-one for per­sons who are fac­ing a mul­ti­tude of is­sues, such as speech de­lays,” Chow-An­toine said.

“I al­so work with per­sons who need so­cial skill de­vel­op­ment, so that might mean some­body who has autism, or that might mean some­body who has AD­HD. That might mean some­body who has Down syn­drome.”

She al­so works with young peo­ple, in­clud­ing those re­ferred be­cause of ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy. In such cas­es, song­writ­ing can be par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful, help­ing clients ex­press their emo­tions and pro­mot­ing bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in fam­i­lies.

“If you’re feel­ing up­set, you can tell me that in your mu­sic. If you are feel­ing hap­py, I can tell from your mu­sic. If you are an­gry, you can ex­press that in your mu­sic. And al­so, find a mo­ment of cathar­sis where you’re able to just have a re­al­ly great re­lease of all of that anger. You let it out in a very healthy and pos­i­tive way.”

Old­er adults and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tions

For old­er adults liv­ing with de­men­tia, Alzheimer’s dis­ease or Parkin­son’s dis­ease, mu­sic ther­a­py can tar­get mem­o­ry re­ten­tion, phys­i­cal mo­bil­i­ty and emo­tion­al well-be­ing. It can al­so help re­duce ag­i­ta­tion, anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion.

“These per­sons will have dif­fer­ent needs. They will need to work on their mem­o­ry skills. They are al­so work­ing on mo­bil­i­ty some­times,” Chow-An­toine said.

“I am there to help bring some joy back in­to their life, to make sure that they know that they’re be­ing heard, and al­so to rekin­dle some of the good mem­o­ries that they have. You know, when you rekin­dle those good mem­o­ries, it puts you in a good mood for the rest of the day.”

In group ses­sions at homes for the el­der­ly, clients fre­quent­ly en­gage in call-and-re­sponse ex­er­cis­es us­ing tra­di­tion­al folk songs and ca­lyp­so, gen­res deeply root­ed in Caribbean iden­ti­ty that can stim­u­late cog­ni­tive re­call and el­e­vate their moods.

Chow-An­toine fond­ly re­called work­ing with an al­most 100-year-old man with de­men­tia who ini­tial­ly re­ject­ed the idea of mu­sic ther­a­py.

“I walked in­to his bed­room, he said to me, ‘So what’s the point of this? I don’t re­al­ly want to do this mu­sic thing. I don’t need this at this stage in my life.’”

Bring­ing a portable key­board to his bed­side, Chow-An­toine in­vit­ed him to try play­ing a few spe­cif­ic keys while she ac­com­pa­nied him on gui­tar.

When he re­alised their brief mu­si­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion sound­ed good, he shook her hand.

“He’s like, ‘I can do any­thing.’ And it changes the whole mood.”