E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

Turry, Alan: Performance and Product ....
therapist. The therapist may have internalized the message from his
supervisor to focus on the musical product rather than on the client's
process-that success was measured on how the performance was perceived
rather than on its effect on the clients overall progress.
In the early days of the profession, when many therapists did perform
and produce products with their clients willingly, they were unaware of
these potential hazards, and unaware of their own personal motivations that
might have impeded on the therapy process in a destructive way. 50 Under
the guise of helping the client or promoting the field, therapists may have
been acting on their own hidden agendas such as self-promotion, the need
to feel self-important, and the need for recognition and acknowledgement.
Some saw themselves as the only person trying to help the clients do
something positive rather than reduce them to a diagnosis, and placed
themselves unconsciously in the position of savior. They may have felt that
music was the way to save the client, since music might have functioned for
themselves in this way. They may have wanted their own music to be heard,
and utilized the patients participation in order to achieve this. Perhaps the
therapist was also a musical performer and assumed that since he enjoyed
doing it, the patients would also. Perhaps the therapist chose to be a
therapist in order to avoid the performance anxiety that comes with being a
musician. Perhaps the performance was a way for the therapist to work on
his own issues. Perhaps the therapist had always wanted to have his own
band. These unconscious dynamics were potentially damaging for the client.
The basic problem was this: if the therapist was acting on his own unmet
desire to be a performer or professional musician, who was watching out
for the clients? Unconscious motivations were impeding on the therapy
process and preventing the therapist from working on a deeper level with
his clients, whether the therapist acknowledged the importance of
unconscious motivations or not.
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