Proceedings, Oxford, UK (2002) - World Federation of Music Therapy

about this kind of work was available. Also at first I had little idea about
the musical and cultural worlds of my clients. My gradual discovery of
the extremely insecure circumstances of their lives in exile only added
questions as to how music therapy could benefit them. What does music
therapy offer these clients, first tortured in their countries, then uprooted
by emigration with years of waiting for asylum with fears of deportation
and no chance to work or settle properly in their new country?
Lets start unravelling this question by looking more precisely at the
clients.
The clients that I see range greatly: in age, culture, nationality, education
and degree of traumatisation. Perhaps surprising as it may seem torture
and traumatic experiences are often not their most urgent concern.
Instead their insecure residential status and unhappy life in exile without
money, freedom of movement or employment, and fear of threat of East
German neo-nazis – these are the most vital issues that are shared by
every client that comes through the door of the centre. Because of their
refugee status there is very little help available for them in the German
health service, so they flood in into our privately run centre for every
help that they can get, mostly for social help and support in the asylum
seeking process.
It is underneath these issues that lie the suffering caused by the trauma
and, resulting from it, the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. The
life of most of our clients is dominated by such symptoms as acute
insomnia, nightmares, extreme psychosomatic pains, phobias and panic
attacks, suicidal thoughts and communication problems. Despite these
2050