Finding Your Way Through Therapy
E.151 The Healing Harmony: Exploring the Transformative Power of Music Therapy with Maya Benattar
Have you ever felt a song resonate so deeply that it seemed to echo the very chambers of your soul? Imagine a therapeutic space where such profound connections are not just possible but are the cornerstone of healing. Today, we're joined by the remarkable Maya Benattar, who guides us on an exploratory journey through the world of music therapy. With Maya's expertise, we unravel how music's transformative power is not just for children but a tool for emotional expression and personal growth at any age.
From the authentic presence of a therapist to the cathartic release found in a drumbeat, this episode illuminates the nuances of creative arts therapies. Maya's personal passion for music harmonizes with her professional mission, offering a symphony of insights into how therapists can show up genuinely, creating a bond where clients feel seen, heard, and understood. We discuss the universal language of music, and how it requires no prior expertise to tap into its rhythm—an intrinsic part of our being that can be reclaimed and strengthened through therapy.
Closing on a high note, we debunk myths about music therapy, emphasizing its accessibility to all, regardless of musical background. The episode crescendos with a look at the entire spectrum of life stages where music therapy plays a role—from prenatal care to hospice—underscoring its capacity to enhance emotional regulation and self-expression. If Maya's insights strike a chord, then this listening experience promises to be nothing short of enlightening, offering a new perspective on the healing arts and how they can be integrated into our lives.
Visit Maya Benattar at www.mayabenattar.com
IG: www.instagram.com/mayabenattar
FB: https://www.facebook.com/mayabenattarlcat/
X: https://twitter.com/MayaBenattar
Have you ever felt a song resonate so deeply that it seemed to echo the very chambers of your soul? Imagine a therapeutic space where such profound connections are not just possible but are the cornerstone of healing. Today, we're joined by the remarkable Maya Benattar, who guides us on an exploratory journey through the world of music therapy. With Maya's expertise, we unravel how music's transformative power is not just for children but a tool for emotional expression and personal growth at any age.
From the authentic presence of a therapist to the cathartic release found in a drumbeat, this episode illuminates the nuances of creative arts therapies. Maya's personal passion for music harmonizes with her professional mission, offering a symphony of insights into how therapists can show up genuinely, creating a bond where clients feel seen, heard, and understood. We discuss the universal language of music, and how it requires no prior expertise to tap into its rhythm—an intrinsic part of our being that can be reclaimed and strengthened through therapy.
Closing on a high note, we debunk myths about music therapy, emphasizing its accessibility to all, regardless of musical background. The episode crescendos with a look at the entire spectrum of life stages where music therapy plays a role—from prenatal care to hospice—underscoring its capacity to enhance emotional regulation and self-expression. If Maya's insights strike a chord, then this listening experience promises to be nothing short of enlightening, offering a new perspective on the healing arts and how they can be integrated into our lives.
Visit Maya Benattar at www.mayabenattar.com
IG: www.instagram.com/mayabenattar
FB: https://www.facebook.com/mayabenattarlcat/
X: https://twitter.com/MayaBenattar
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the PsychCraft Network, the goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your guest host, courtney Romanowski.
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Speaker 3:All right, thank you for that wonderful introduction. I'm so honored that I have my own introduction for this podcast now. I am Courtney Romanowski, licensed mental health counselor, registered dance movement therapist, and I am guest hosting today for Finding your Way Through Therapy. Thank you again to Steve for letting me try this out. We are on episode, I believe, 151. I hope I'm getting that right. We are in season 11. And I am actually on my third episode of guest hosting. I am bringing a creative arts therapies expressive arts lens to the podcast. We talked with Audrey Albert King, episode 126, about the power of dance and movement therapy, and then episode 139,. We talked with Krista Verastro about drama therapy and what drama therapy looks like. And today we are with Maya Benatar, who is a licensed creative arts therapist in New York State and a board-certified music therapist. Maya, welcome and thank you again for joining us today. Thanks for having me, absolutely so if you could just introduce yourself and let us know who you are and what you do, Sure.
Speaker 4:So I am, like you said, a licensed creative arts therapist board certified music therapist in New York. Right now I'm in private practice and I work primarily with people who have experienced trauma, anxiety or are highly sensitive, and often some combination of those three. And I've been a music therapist since oh math, since 2007. And I've done a lot of different kinds of work, and this is just where my journey has taken me at this point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so great. Yeah, so you said childhood trauma, highly sensitive people and anxiety. Yeah, but that's quite a combination of populations. What brought you to those populations? And music therapy?
Speaker 4:So I guess I could start with what brought me to music therapy, because that came first. The shortish answer to that is that I was a really musical kid. I was actually named after a song, so that's probably all started way back when I was a really musical kid, musical teenager, and I often will tell the story and I think it's on my website still about how I was a really musical kid, musical teenager and I often will tell the story and I think it's on my website still about how I was really shy and I couldn't ask the kids sitting in front of me in math class like borrow a pencil, but I could sing in front of 200 people, no problem that was a
Speaker 4:place a space where I felt really comfortable and confident, and I wanted to. I loved performing, didn't want to be a performer, I actually didn't love to practice, which my voice teacher in high school was not thrilled with and so I wanted to do something with people and so I thought about being a teacher. I thought about being a social worker my mom's a social worker and I believe I was doing literally I'm dating myself a little bit I was doing an AOL search and stumbled upon music therapy and it was just one of those moments of like oh, this, this is what I want to do. Yeah, and it was. I was like 17, 16, yeah, I started college at 17, so I was quite young. I went to SUNY New Paltz specifically for the undergraduate music therapy program and then I went on to NYU for my master's in music therapy and have not looked back.
Speaker 3:It's just yeah yeah, it made sense for me. Yeah, it's so. So I I went to school for dance for my bachelor's and I had no idea dance therapy existed until five years post undergrad. And I was doing a google search and dance therapy popped up and I didn't know what it was, but I had the same reaction like oh, that's what I'm supposed to be doing, oh, okay it's so nice when that happens.
Speaker 3:For those of us, especially when it's something that we've that's been a part of our lives throughout childhood, and just so much of our identity. I'm a shy kid too, being being on stage. Even though it scared the hell out of me, it was still much more comfortable than like talking to the kid sitting next to me Right. Yeah, totally. And then the population you work with. What is?
Speaker 4:that, like for you, it's really meaningful. I really enjoy the work that I do. I started my career, you know, after I got board certified and I was in grad school. I was working in a nursing home and then I did a lot of work with kids with all sorts of special needs autism, adhd, anxiety, did a lot of you know other mental health work and just when I started my private practice was had a bit of like a wider net I guess I can't think of the word that I want this. And then over the past, yeah, over the past four or five years, just really getting specific on not only who do I most enjoy working with, but who I I work the best with, who you know certainly I've worked with people with all kinds of mental health needs and I just no-transcript again, math, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:Seven years ago I sort of I made a really intentional pivot. I stopped advertising that I was working with kids and teens and I had done like a ton of networking around that and then, just like gradually, you know, I took it off my website and then eventually, like a couple years later, like wrapped up with my child clients, like it was a process of really getting real with myself of like what's lighting me up right now and giving myself permission for that to change. You know, I started my career in a nursing home. I kind of thought I would. I would work in elder care for longer than I did. I did like almost seven years and then just things have gradually gone through changes and just allowing that to happen.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say so, so natural part of life and living, and just things change, we change as much as we may, stay who we are, yeah absolutely, and so there's definitely something I want to come back to that you were just talking about. But before we get too deep into the episode, for folks who don't know what music therapy is, or have heard of it but aren't sure what it looks like, what music therapy is, or have heard of it but aren't sure what it looks like- how would you explain music therapy to someone?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I always put in a little plug here for the American Music Therapy Association's website, which is musictherapyorg. But essentially music therapy is the goal-oriented use of music-based interventions to address social, emotional, physical, spiritual and educational goals. So it will look very different a music therapist working, let's say, in the NICU than a music therapist working with someone at the end of life on hospice, a music therapist working in mental health. But essentially that is the broad definition, and then you know the way it shows up. As in any kind of therapy whether you know it's OT, pt, anything like that it's going to look different at different ages and different stages of life.
Speaker 3:And that's definitely been a theme between talking about dance therapy, drama therapy, music therapy that it looks different depending on who you're working with, even within the same type of population, where you're at what it's for. So it's hard to give I know a concrete what is music therapy and what does it look like?
Speaker 4:But I appreciate you know, I give it my best shot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4:I think there's also, like often, the misconception that music therapy or that really any sort of creative therapy is just for kids. And certainly, like I said, I worked with kids for years. I have a ton of colleagues who work with kids. I don't right now, but music therapy and any creative, you know, creative arts therapy is for anyone, right? We don't. We don't lose that capacity to engage with the creative part of ourselves Beyond childhood. We might get disconnected from it, but we don't really lose it and music therapy is just a way to connect to that creative, embodied part of yourself. That you may, not I. They're not actually feeling it, expressing it, unpacking it, working through it. And while talk therapy can be great, depending on the lens that a talk therapist is is working through, it probably doesn't. It often doesn't connect to the body that much or to like creative expression, and so that's where that's where my work kind of comes in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, great, and so my, my, my questions and train of thought are all kind of like culminating in this. So on your website too, you mentioned that you are not a vanilla type of therapist. You know you want to be real with your clients so that there's a space and opportunity for them to be real with you. So, twofold, what does that mean Not being a vanilla therapist? And how does then music therapy play into the availability of being real?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:I will. I will start with the.
Speaker 4:I'll start with the first one please, thank you so when I talk about not being a vanilla therapist, I had a lot of experiences with myself in therapy with therapists who were just pretty like blank slate it's often called. They weren't giving me a lot back. I didn't feel like really connected to them. There was sort of it's a little bit of the like, often like kind of the Freudian model, very like old school psychoanalysis, where, like therapist doesn't say much. They, you know they may not even ask questions, they might just let you talk.
Speaker 4:They're pretty like blank slate and I never loved that. I didn't love that for myself and I found that when I, years ago, at this point, when I started allowing myself to just be who I am right, I talk with my hands in session, um, like I'm talking in my hands now, like literally I'd have to sit on them, probably in order to not do that. But it means that I, you know that I dress comfortably, that that I wear, you know, my um, I'm not wearing right now, but I have a necklace that, uh, that says.
Speaker 4:Nevertheless, she persisted yeah awesome and that I wear you. I wear that in sessions or I'll curse, which scares the crap out of a lot of my clients the first time they're like, oh, we can do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Cursing like makes sense, like it, you know it's okay to do that. It's an accurate expression of how you're feeling in the moment. Or it gives the emphasis like why, why not?
Speaker 4:it's an accurate expression of how you're feeling in the moment or it gives the emphasis like why, why not? It means that if it makes sense for the client and their process, I might share a little bit about myself. I'm really intentional with how I do that. When I do that, why I do that, I make sure that it's not for my own gratification. But if it might help the client feel more connected to me or less shame to know that I've also struggled with anxiety, then I share that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, if it, you know, will help the client a little bit to know that you know my family, like part of my family story, is one of displacement and exile, then I share that, you know. Or of being other, then I share that Like that makes sense for people and often that really really deepens the work. It really helps them feel really heard and seen and a lot of much. All of the clients that I have right now that I've had in recent years have had some experience of feeling othered, whether it's through identity or through like kind of being the black sheep of their family, sure, and so to feel that they're not alone. If I share part of that experience, I'm not going to make up something that doesn't exist, but a lot of times people come to me because there's something about me they connect with, and so if there's something about me they connect with, whether it's, you know, on Instagram or on my website or whatever I'm not going to then show up in session and be like you know.
Speaker 4:Very I don't know what this, this persona, is, right here but like very straight laced and proper and and and you know, kind of deadpan, because that's not what they came for. They came for a therapist who can be, who can be real with them, who can laugh with them, who can, you know, have tears well up and that be okay, or get angry on their behalf, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am very similar in my approach, like I don't see for me and it's it's not against any therapists who operate more of a Freudian type of way, where they do just sit back and listen and there's. There's something to that for others, but for me too. I, if I can't offer my genuine self, like you said, how can I expect that back? And sorry, this is my tangent. This today, apparently, is like there's so much disconnection in our world right now that my hope is to bring some sort of connection for this person who is here to open themselves up and really dive deep and it can be.
Speaker 4:The word that's coming to mind, as you're as you're talking, is that it can be so reparative right To be therapy as a relationship. Right, it's a relationship unlike any others in our lives, but it's a relationship and a lot of my clients have had the experience of. Lot of my clients have had the experience of relationships that were more harmful than than not. Or parents who were absent. Maybe they weren't, you know, physically abusive to, to their you know, to their children, but they were absent or they or the clients.
Speaker 4:You know they were critical a lot of times. That that comes up in the work that I do, that parents you know were present and but really critical or really shaming, and so to have the experience of having a relationship with their therapist that feels reparative, that feels warm and holding and present. You know you can't provide that presence, I think, without being your full self right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:And so that act of like therapy as a relationship that repairs is really, really important to me.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, Absolutely. And you know, for those of us who have had relationships with the arts, creative arts, expressive arts I feel like it can, the use of it in therapy can just build this you such a stronger relationship, or I don't know if that's what I'm trying to say, but it's. There's something different about using the creative arts in therapy that I think can really even build a stronger connection between therapist and client absolutely.
Speaker 4:I mean, there's so much like you're. I think the second part to your question was like how does how does music therapy help? Or how is it connected with being like a non, a non vanilla therapist? I don't know what the opposite of vanilla is, but non vanilla right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, and I think part of that is that music is so, so enlivening, right.
Speaker 4:It has so much texture, it has so much rhythm, there's so much that's available in that, and so a lot of times I have clients who come in and they have a connection to music, but they've had some difficult experiences around it.
Speaker 4:You know, maybe it was you know they had to practice piano three hours a day and that was part of their parents thing about, like you do the thing that you're expected to do, be a good girl like I hear that a lot, or they were told they weren't. You know good enough to be a good girl, like I hear that a lot, or they were told they weren't. You know good enough to be in choir or whatever it is, and so being able to be in a space where any kind of music is accepted and that's where improvisation comes in which I can absolutely talk about more and that I'm not just sitting there like watching them, right which I think for those of us who have any sort of know, performance background, can be really evocative of, like you know, I did NISMA, which is like a New York state oh my gosh, I can't remember what all the other letters stand for. But essentially it's like a you know thing where you get scored and graded and stuff on your performance, um, in high school.
Speaker 4:And so if I was to sit there and just be like you play, I'm going to watch, like what that's going to evoke something else. And sometimes it's appropriate for me to just sit back and say like, hey, you know this feeling that you're having, can you play it? And I don't always need to play with them, right. But sometimes it can feel really supportive or really freeing of, like I'm going to get an instrument too, like is there something you want me to play? Or you know, I can figure out a way to support the expression that they're exploring on an instrument. And so if I'm going to play, which I often will, it makes me a real person in the room, right, like it gives. Again. The word texture has been coming up a lot for me this week.
Speaker 4:It gives texture, it sort of enlivens everything, and also that any kind of music is welcome, right, I have clients who really will kind of agonize over like is this an okay piece to listen to? Can we listen to a piece that has, you know, has curse words in it, and I don't, I don't care, um, that's fine, like, and, and just that. Freedom of like. Any kind of expression is welcome here.
Speaker 3:So you know again, for the folks at home who maybe have no idea what they would be walking into if they were going to a music therapy session Okay, so I just come in and we listen to music, Like how is that therapeutic, how is that going to help us build a relationship together, Right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so oftentimes oh, it's such a great question I'm trying to think where to start. So in the way that I work, the way that I work is really influenced by by my training. So I've done post-graduates in vocal psychotherapy, which is a whole other topic about the voice and the role that it plays in our relationship, their relationship with ourselves, like early attachment trauma all that Also done trainings in creative arts and trauma treatment. And then I'm right now doing guided imagery and music training. So all of that influences like how I work, how I sit with people, the kinds of music experiences I might offer them.
Speaker 4:But to go back to your question, like sometimes, yeah, sharing a piece of music that means something to you can be deeply meaningful. I think we overlook just in our society how meaningful the simple stuff can be. Yeah, absolutely, you know, it's just a good general statement. So when I'm getting to know a new client in particular, yeah, I might ask them, like can you do you feel comfortable sharing a piece of music that means something to you? And that might sound really simple on the face of it, but actually it can be really vulnerable, right, like, if I think about that for myself right now, like a piece of music that's really meaningful to me, like, yeah, it brings that pause of like where am I right now?
Speaker 4:What's meaningful, what was you know? Would I just to use myself like, would I share the piece of, you know, the song that I was named after? That's deeply meaningful. You know, like would that be too much to share with? Like there are levels of you know how much to share. So even just that simple way of beginning. But no, we don't sit. To go back to your question, we certainly don't sit and usually and listen to music the entire time, but we might pause and choose a piece of music that connects to a feeling.
Speaker 4:Let's see if we can explore that. So it might be, you know, a piece of music that connects to a resource, right, a feeling that you want more of, and that's some of the work that I do already in music and imagery, and it's really hard for us, again, societally, to hold on to a good feeling, a feeling that feels nourishing or easeful or just okay, particularly for people who have experienced trauma. Right, and I, for people who have experienced trauma, but also just again, in general, we're always oriented towards what is wrong and what needs to be fixed or solved, and a lot of people come into therapy with that mindset and absolutely. Therapy is a space for diving deep, for unpacking, but it's also a space for deepening what's working right.
Speaker 1:You want to be able to feel access to that.
Speaker 4:This is reminding me of a yeah, I think an Instagram story I put up earlier in the week that like it's okay to feel good in there, it's okay to feel calm, it's okay to feel connected, and so we might choose a piece of music that that helps hold you in that feeling. It's harder than it sounds actually to be able to stay with. Oh, I feel a little calm. Okay, where do you feel that? Like what? What might that sound like? Like even just the process of cause. It's not just any piece of music that's going to bring you that feeling.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:Right, and so music and imagery, which is the first two levels before guided imagery and music, which is what I'm doing now, is the first level is about supporting right, so resource oriented, so finding a piece of music that support the specific resource, and it can take 15, 20 minutes to like, go through some musical options and and really get so specific and intentional of like, oh, this piece has the warmth that connects me to the feeling of calm, but it's a little too fast, okay, then we find a piece that is a little slower.
Speaker 4:And it's so it's really about this slowing down and valuing of this resource, right. So often we're like, oh yeah, I feel calm. Okay, onto the next thing. Right, right, right. And being able to, like, have that, not only to think about it, but to feel it, to have that feeling really deepened in the body, to have access to it. And so music listening is an option, right In all the ways, and it's sort of the flip side of that is finding a piece of music that connects to a point of tension as a way to stay with it but to build a different relationship to it.
Speaker 4:Because the reality is is that we do need all of our feelings, even the ones that we try to push away or ignore, we've gotten shamed for. We need to be able to feel anger and sadness and anxiety. All of these give us information, they make us. What is this? Well-rounded humans like you can feel. You can't, yeah, whole, thank you. Who can feel, you know, joy and sadness Like it, you know you can't feel one without you need to be able to feel both of those, to have access to any of them.
Speaker 4:Essentially, that's what I'm saying. So sometimes we might you know, I might do music and imagery around, staying with your sadness. Okay, you know, that's actually really important to be able to feel and to build a new relationship to right. A lot of people have these sort of you know, we are creatures of habit and so we might feel sad and then have a specific response or, you know, jump away from it, and a lot of times that happens with people who have depression, who have anxiety. Like that it's too much. And so the music is a way to stay with a feeling, not to just talk about it, Right, cause that'll just run the same neural pathways over and over, but to experience the feeling in an encapsulated way. That's this, this gesture of mine, you know, like a three minute piece that connects to some aspect of the anxiety and then drawing it right.
Speaker 4:Like can you stay with this? What is it like to stay with it? Like just deepening the capacity to stay with challenging feelings? Because the reality is is that we don't live in a world, we absolutely do not live in a world where everything is calm all the time and we need to be able to, to feel these feelings in a way that feels safe and contained right, that doesn't feel overwhelming and triggering. So that's another aspect of how, like music, listening and what comes after it can show up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, wow, so fantastic. I mean, I'm thinking even of some clients that I know they have playlists that they listen to when they know that they need to cry or be sad, but they can't get there, get themselves, or or that playlist that kind of pumps them out of it, which is it's necessary, right, sometimes we need something too, but so interesting to use that like okay, here's three minutes of of being yeah of staying with, and sometimes we'll loop it like part of the music and imagery model is that you stay with it until your image is done to, your experience is done.
Speaker 4:But, absolutely like to speak to playlists. I had a couple of conversations about that this week. Like, sometimes we need to meet and match the feeling. And when we meet and match the feeling, I have a lot of clients who will have a fear of like, well, if I stay with this, aren't I just gonna be stuck there forever? And actually, when we meet and match the feeling, we move through it. It loses its intensity, we move through it. What we move to, I don't precisely always know, but we always move somewhere.
Speaker 4:And then sometimes it's about so like playlists can be about getting you to the feeling, and they could also be about walking you to another feeling, which is um ISO principle technique where sometimes you know if we're feeling, if someone is feeling anxious and I talk a lot about this um, if someone is feeling anxious, the tendency might be okay, I need to calm down, I'm going to put on the peaceful piano station or something like that and I need to calm down, and that's not even going to register most of the time if you're really super anxious. So ISO principles about meeting the music, meeting you where you are and then moving you towards where you'd like to be, Mm-hmm, and so that can happen. If a music therapist this often happens in hospital work, hospital-based work, when someone is in a lot of pain or they're really anxious a music therapist generally is not going to come in and start playing beautiful, calming music, it's not even going to be processed. They need to be matched and then moved right, and so that might take.
Speaker 4:It's an entrainment process. It might take 20, 30, 40 minutes, but to help someone feel less pain or to fall asleep or to be less anxious, it's a beautiful process when it happens, live, and we can replicate it in many ways with the use of playlists. It has to be super intentional and there has to be the flexibility of like what worked for you yesterday may not work today, but often I will encourage clients in between sessions to like create their own playlists, and oftentimes I'll have clients who will. Anything we listen to together, they'll add it to what they call like a therapy playlist or something they call it a Maya playlist which is very sweet yeah.
Speaker 4:Um, so that they can go back to to the music that we've listened to together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, some similar ideas have come up with movement therapy of like, if I'm feeling super anxious, I'm not going to try to sit down and keep myself still right. That might create more frustration, more tension, this feeling of wanting to just give up on the calming. So, you know, what can I do with my body? To meet that like what you were saying? Right, to use that energy and then to slowly integrate maybe a little bit of a shift in how I'm moving, eventually finding some stillness and maybe moving back into a swing or a sway and again, and it I feel like the movement, the music, the use of that so meets a more realistic approach to everyday living. You know, as opposed to, instead of like the jolting of. You know, our our, um, oh my god. Words, today our systems are gonna feel like oh my god, what is happening. You know, as opposed to the, the meeting and matching, and then the solely there's something, something really valuable.
Speaker 4:I think that happens and it can happen. You know when you're talking to someone right, and a lot of times it happens in gesture, in affect, in like voice tone. It doesn't it can happen in words, but like the feeling, met and matched right In any way. For people who have not had that experience, right.
Speaker 4:Again. I guess we're being, you know, reparative is just my word of the day, but that is so reparative right For someone, for me as a therapist, to say to someone you're angry right now, I don't need you to be anything other than what you are. I'm not scared of your anger, I'm not overwhelmed by it, I'm not judging it. And for someone who's sitting in my office with me, do we want to? Can we hang out with this? Like, do you want to get a drum? I'll get a drum. I will hang out with you in this feeling. The communication for, especially for people who've had experiences of childhood trauma or neglect, to be told so explicitly and implicitly you're not too much, you're okay Just as you are, I accept you and I can be with you in this feeling, is so fucking huge. Like, it's just so huge, right. And if you come from a family system that doesn't do anger?
Speaker 4:whatever that means whether it gets ignored, it always shows up somewhere. But that doesn't when I say do, whether it gets ignored, it always shows up somewhere. But that doesn't. When I say do like doesn't express it in a healthy way, which is a lot of families to have the experience of someone saying to you, it's fine, I'm with you and in fact we can express this together and a lot of people need that support if they've never had someone say like it's okay to be angry right, like of course you're angry yeah, like, ideally people get that as kids, you know, as teenagers, in all of their relationships.
Speaker 4:But if they haven't had that, the experience of like I can be with you in this, I'm not afraid of it.
Speaker 4:I'm not afraid of you like a lot of times by the time I work with adults now, so by the time they get to me and they're often 30s, 40s they've had so many experiences of being judged or shamed for anger, of having to, of trying to like tamp it down or deflect it or ignore. And if you tamp it down it doesn't actually go anywhere, it just gets compressed, and that's usually what's at the root of a lot of anxiety and depression. But it's usually in there. And so I'm now on this anger thing. Let me just work this through for a second.
Speaker 4:Like to to feel that either we can stay with it, like sometimes it's just catharsis you know we need the catharsis of like I'm on the piano, you're on the drum, we're just going to feel this, it might lead to something else, or I might guide, if I know the client and I know where we're headed, or you know we might, the music might shift right or we might pause and say you know, maybe tears come up, ooh, like what's that about?
Speaker 4:And then we've got something else. We've gotten to what's underneath and having experiences of anger that are not completely overwhelming for a lot of my clients and I feel like you know, I work primarily with women or female identifying people and you know the experiences of anger either they explode or they shut it down.
Speaker 4:Right and a lot of you know a lot of times. Just again, societally, women are not supposed to be angry, which I have a big problem with, as evidenced by my nevertheless she persisted necklace. So to have, yeah, to have that experience of like it's okay, it's like it's okay to be angry, and you know, Lord knows, I am thankful for, you know, a soundproof office because we can be like loud and really emphatic, because there's a lot to be angry about, and if you don't feel it, that energy goes somewhere.
Speaker 4:And so to have the experience, just to wrap that thought, the experience of like anger that is cathartic but not overwhelming, right, a lot of time catharsis, if it's not held, can be really overwhelming or flooding for people. Right right, and so catharsis that is contained is really really key, particularly for people who have experienced trauma.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I hear folks that I work with. I don't want to start crying or start sharing my anger because I don't think it'll stop right and it's that needing of containment, but I was wondering if this is a good place to ask you about improvisation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for sure, wondering how to, how to start improvisation is such a such a huge topic.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah. So maybe if I pare it down, considering this is my first episode on how music therapy is used and how it can be beneficial, you know, if, if I come into you and like I've never played a musical instrument, I am not a musician, I'm not creative, how am I supposed to do this? Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 4:I was not familiar with improvisation when I, like I, was classically trained vocalist, which for for the listeners who don't know what that means and I would get up on stage and sing my italian aria or something like that, and be, you know, like I would not be using my hands which is strange, but yeah, right like you know it was, you sang the notes, they were right or they were wrong.
Speaker 4:Right, and for anyone else who's classically trained in any instrument, like it's right or it's wrong, yeah, um, and there's a lot of pressure in and around that, it can bring up a lot of perfectionism, so just as like sort of a backstory or side story. That was my experience until I got to music therapy school and it was improvisation, like I don't know how to do that, so I've had. I have so much of my own experience of you know, in NYU you essentially you spend the two years in a music therapy group which is essentially like group therapy to experience what it's like to have this experience for yourself as a client.
Speaker 4:Right, and it was really challenging for me to improvise. To improvise especially using my voice. Right, I was used to sing. You sing the song from beginning to end. So I, the way that I work with improvisation is, above all, it has to feel approachable. So I'm not going to say like, oh, first session here, have at it, sit at the piano. Like, let's do this Occasionally I'll have a, you know, I'll have a client who you know has a jazz background, or maybe they're a music therapist themselves and that's comfortable for for them, awesome. For most people, it's about finding an instrument.
Speaker 4:That's usually what I start with you know, so let's say we're talking about anxiety comes up a lot in my office, yeah, and I'll you know if someone's been talking while I'll say you know, let's, let's pause for a sec. I want to like bring this a little bit deeper right. A lot of times when we talk we're really in our heads yada, yada, yada, the whole like creative arts, therapist speech. And I'll ask them I wonder if you can find an instrument that in some way connects to this feeling. If they don't know quite what the feeling is, I'll say, like, how does it feel in your body? Right, we'll do a little bit of tracking, like what do you notice if you drop inside? Sometimes it's, you know, mygy, whatever it is Right. And again, accepting of whatever. However feeling shows up and then I'll ask people can you find an instrument in the room that connects to that in some way?
Speaker 4:Letting your fingers guide you is a favorite thing that I that I say because that I found I found over the years that that something about that brings out a little bit of playfulness and curiosity, like let your fingers guide you, there's no right, there's no wrong.
Speaker 3:I don't have a treasure trove of like these are the anxiety instruments.
Speaker 4:You know, like Ooh, you picked that one Right Like I'm not, and so that sometimes that's a really nice way in, right Like, just a way to to pique their curiosity of like, oh, how, what is the instrument that connects to this feeling? I'll invite them to get up and walk around and try some things, if they feel really. You know there's a lot of instruments in my office, so if they feel a little overwhelmed I'll say like okay, do you think this might be like percussive or more melodic? And I might like show them a couple of things I'm going to play, oh, like, oh, no, the drum is a little too loud. I want something that has like a little bit of grittiness, and so then I'll, I'll use my knowledge and experience to like give them some options so it doesn't feel super overwhelming, and then some, for some people that's, that's enough, at least for the moment, right.
Speaker 4:I'm like wow, I've never done that before, I've never. It also externalizes the feeling Right, like, so, and I think that's part of why the creative arts therapies are so valuable that when we feel particularly anxiety, anger, all of that it's inside right and it's really overwhelming and it gets really loud. So to have this externalized experience of like, oh, now my anxiety is over there, at least some part of it is over there, right, and being able to sometimes like to move the instruments around, that's a whole other thing. But but like, just to be able to say like I, I played it, it's outside of me, right, and with music and with movement, right, like, and now it's gone, as opposed to you know, and I, I will have people like create images sometimes if that makes sense.
Speaker 4:But with music it's just we played it okay, like we allowed it to just be released into the air and and it it helps with the like. This is not about doing it perfectly or right. There's no sheet music, you know, and for people, a lot of people who've had, like, piano lessons or things like that, there's that undoing of like. There's no right or wrong, like, oh shit. And the metaphor of that right Like, improvisation, the, the big metaphor is that we really are improvising all the time in our lives. We have to right. You run out of a spice when you're cooking. There's a detour on the way home all the way to, you get pulled into a conversation you weren't expecting.
Speaker 4:It's all improvisation right and so when I think about it or when I introduce it to clients, like that, it sort of broadens it into. You already know how to do this, maybe not musically, but you've done it. And sometimes, when especially anxiety, when anxiety is heightened, it's because we get locked in right. We sort of lose that connection to flexibility, fluidity. You know, changing on a dime like changing on a dime, that's improvisation, right? When you like yeah, and so improvising is that that reconnection to I can be creative and flexible and open and and take in what I'm hearing and sort of integrate that and right.
Speaker 4:There's so much metaphor and just being able to improvise in our lives, in our conversations, in our relationships.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:You know it's, it's so. It's such a lovely metaphor really and a process of.
Speaker 3:I don't want to say learning how to improvise, but a process of remembering remembering.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know I think comfort in or yeah, comfort in it can be uncomfortable.
Speaker 4:I mean, lord knows for me for a long time it was pretty uncomfortable. I spent the Lord knows for me for a long time it was pretty uncomfortable. I spent the first six months of my master's program like a deer in headlights, I often say, because it was a very improvisation based program and my undergraduate degree in music therapy was not so. I was, like you know, doing that for six months at least, if not more, but for in my work, like it's about. It's about learning, but it's about remembering, about reclaiming. I think, ideally we've all had those experiences of play as children. Some people didn't, but and that's that's, and so having them now as adults is really reparative, right.
Speaker 4:Being able to play and being able to experiment. But for people who had those experiences like I was a kid who played in the woods and like made up stories and tried to build a fort, and like you know all this stuff and like being able to remember that I know how to play is really helpful in those moments where it's like oh shit, I'm so overwhelmed or I'm anxious, like play is so vital for humans, right Like just in how we interact and how we and how we survive.
Speaker 4:It's, it's flexibility, it's adaptability. I got a little off track. I like this, but I think I got a little off track.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's a great track. There's so many tracks to take, but you know, it reminds me of what you were saying earlier about how music therapy dance. It's not all for children, right?
Speaker 4:right reclaiming that yeah, that play um reclaiming that part of ourselves right like it's.
Speaker 4:It's so important and, like I said before, a lot of the people that I work with have a really they usually have a really good grasp on the fact that they are anxious or sometimes that they are highly sensitive or that they've you know, experienced childhood trauma that when sometimes yes, sometimes no, but they could talk about it, right, like, they're so intelligent, articulate, really, really you know, on top of that, but talking about it at a certain point like doesn't help you move through to something else, right, like, and I've, I can go into those loops myself, like I can talk about why I'm anxious, probably, you know, till the cows come home, as they say. It doesn't really move anything, it just you know and I've been doing this work long enough that if I notice that I'm in that space, I can do a little bit of my own creative processing. But to be able to, you know, to work with a creative arts therapist, a lot of people find it so liberating I can't think of another word like, certainly I talk with my clients.
Speaker 4:It's not like we're sitting there the entire time, you know, improvising or listening to music, but we can weave in and out of words and creative expression of some kind. And then words and creative expression, it's a way to go deep that actually bypasses to some extent our cognitive brain, which is always on, always wants to do things for us and fix things, because the arts are how people have healed and connected for thousands and thousands of years. Right, and this is reminding me of a book by Daniel Levitin the World in Six Songs. Yeah, daniel Levitin, he works out of, I believe, mcgill in Montreal and he's a neuroscientist and a jazz musician. So he wrote this great book this Is your Brain on Music. So, listeners who are into that kind of stuff, it's super in-depth and technical and really for the nerds and all of us, right, I love that book. And the World in Six Songs is essentially about the six types of songs that have shaped human culture and behavior. It's a great book yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's really. It's one that I recommend to clients, that I keep rereading myself. I've read it like a dozen times at this point. I do a lot of presenting to other therapy professionals about the trauma-informed use of songs, and so that book is like part of that professional development training. It's just yeah, it just really speaks to like music means something to us. If I can loop it back around, music means something to us, and pretty much every client yes, every adult client has come to me over the past 10 years I've been in private practice yeah, about 10 years. Music means something to them sure you know, like it.
Speaker 4:It is a way that they relax, it's a point of connection. It helps them when they're feeling sad, like whatever it is. Whether or not they play an instrument or not, music means something to them and so we that's, that's the end to this kind of work. Like you don't have to be able to play an instrument. I have clients who never touch an instrument and clients who I work with virtually unless they have instruments at home or are open to doing like vocal work. We don't really play instruments. We do music and imagery.
Speaker 4:We might do like a little bit of humming, things like that we're working with metaphor and images, but music like means something to all of my clients in one way or another, and so it's a way to. It's a way that they have found already to connect to themselves, and so the path, if you will, is like already there, and then the work that we do is just about kind of clearing out the brush and making it like a wider path, if you will, and just using that. In A lot of times my clients have been in talk therapy before, have found it helpful to some extent or to a large extent and they're ready for something new.
Speaker 4:They're ready to to deepen their healing or to explore something or talk. Therapy hasn't been helpful for any number of reasons, and that's a whole other conversation, for sure, but it really. It's such a joy to to work with clients who who come in saying like I'm curious about this. I'm not, you know, I'm a little nervous, which is normal, but I'm curious and I'm excited and to you know, I do, generally speaking, long-term work and you know, a couple of months or a couple of years down the road for them to to have this like wider capacity for expression that music offers, because music holds so much and Daniel Levitan's book goes really in depth into this music just holds everything right, it's it really?
Speaker 4:does how we are as humans, how we connect, how how we connect to ourselves, and so it's such a. It just makes so much. Obviously it makes sense to me I wouldn't be doing this work. Oh yeah, yeah, that's good, it makes sense after all these years, it finally makes sense yeah, but it's just a rich area for exploration yeah, and all the creative arts too.
Speaker 3:I mean, I feel like we're so lucky to live in a world where the arts exist, um, and it it for those of us who are lucky enough to have the arts in our lives in some sort of capacity. You know it's so human, music, art, movement, you know it's, and so I love that it's becoming. People are becoming more aware of the creative arts and expressive arts and the use of it and curious about it and more willing to play with it and the idea of it, because it really, I think it can it.
Speaker 4:All of it, whatever modality people decide to use and play with it, just humanizes us play is just play and creativity are just so healing right, and I think that that goes across any of the you know the creative arts modalities.
Speaker 4:They're so healing, they, they are reparative, they fill in, you know, what we didn't get and they also offer, you know, opportunities to to repair right and which is really, you know, I guess, if I had to like winnow down therapy to like a couple of concepts and I don't even know why I'm trying to do this it's about repairing what happened right, like processing and repairing and healing what happened and or filling in what didn't happen right, like a lot of and again, this is a lot of the work that I do with childhood trauma and intergenerational trauma, which usually go hand in hand. A lot of times there was a lack of warmth or attunement, or presence or acceptance. And, yes, you can get all of that with words, you can get that with gestures, you get it on such a deeper, implicit level with the creative arts. You feel it right. You could feel the vibration of someone singing with you or someone mirroring your movements or anything like of ease people's minds.
Speaker 4:I feel like this is a whole other topic. Let me yeah.
Speaker 3:Do you have another two hours? To sit down.
Speaker 4:I think we really. You know we busted the one about like kids pretty early on. You know, therapists like all creative arts therapists work, I mean music.
Speaker 4:Therapists do like prenatal work like working with moms, like before they give birth, and then work like NICU all the way to hospice, um, and another myth, I mean I guess another myth, um, that we've also sort of been talking around is that you have to be a musician. Right, that you have to be a musician, you have to be like, have musical skills, and that is absolutely not true. In fact it, yeah, it's just really not true. Like I'd say at this, in this moment, most of my clients are not. They're not musicians yeah yeah and it's not, it's really not necessary.
Speaker 4:I think you know. Yes, can a music therapist work with someone who's a musician Absolutely Like? A dance therapist can work with someone who's a dancer, Like, but we all have um. Sounds really corny to say we all have music Um.
Speaker 1:I caught myself.
Speaker 4:We are um, we are rhythmic beings, Like we are made up of rhythm everything how we move, how we relate, all the internal processes of our body are all rhythm, really, and so this work, the way that I can conceive of my work, is about reclaiming that, about figuring out what is it that you want to go back to, or be in touch with, or strengthen from a rhythmic standpoint often, which is such an elemental piece of how we are, and so you don't need to be able to play. You know a Bach sonata? I don't think I can play a Bach sonata at this moment in my life Like that's not what matters right.
Speaker 4:That's really. That's not what heals, right. I mean, for some people it does. Sure, yes, yeah, role like something else is going on, right. So being able to just sort of put that aside and unpack what that means right that can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people. So the two myths that we broke, because I went on such a tangent good lord is that music therapy is not just for kids.
Speaker 4:My practice is completely made up of adults. They're 20 at this moment. To like their 20s to their 60s yeah, yeah and. Yeah, and what was the other one? Oh, and that you do not need to be musical, you do not need to have any musical skills, and this is about just connecting to your own yeah, your own sense of play and creativity, which everyone has.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, absolutely. I love that. Thank you Well, Maya. Where can people?
Speaker 4:find you. Yes, people can find me on my website, which is just mayabenatarcom, not related to Pat Benatar, unfortunately. I wish that would. That would just be like the best music therapist. Origin story yeah, right, right yeah, it's, she's got one t in her last name. I have two. So my website, which is mayabenatarcom, and I'm also. I spend most of my time on social media, on Instagram, which is just mayabenatar.
Speaker 3:Great, and we will put both links on the show notes and everything like that. Thank you so very, very much. It's been wonderful talking with you. We could keep talking for hours and maybe we'll have to do that sometime, thank you. Thank you everybody for listening and or watching. Steve will be back for the next episode and yeah, once again, I'm Courtney Romanowski.
Speaker 1:Have a good one, thank you please like, subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful and, as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States and Canada.