E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

D'ulisse, M. E.. et al.: Music Therapy Conducted On A Child ...
exist; giving him orders as though he were incapable of any rational
decision, etc.).
An attempt was made to help the parents understand their son's situation
and an appropriate course of action was adopted on the rare occasions
whenever the two therapy groups – the parents and the son – came into
contact at the center. In fact, every time R left the setting ahead of time or
at the end of the session, to go to the room where the parents were being
interviewed by the psychologist, she welcomed him, explaining what was
going on and getting him to take part; she would ask him, for example, why
he thought they were so worried about his behavior and would then bring
the interview to an end with a suitably phrased word of thanks. On these
occasions, R never showed any type of aggressive behavior and managed to
handle the situation and his interaction with the group in a reasonable
manner; he was able to express himself in a way that was understood by
everyone, and sometimes even managed to communicate with metaphoric
language.
Then and there, the parents seemed to accept this approach and even
seemed to begin to take more interest in their son's problems. What was not
immediately obvious (even to those who should have expected it) was the
gradual distancing of R from the sessions.
For bureaucratic reasons relating to national health system regulations,
when the sessions began again after the summer pause, we were forced to
change the music therapy setting.
We had to move to a smaller room in another "Anni Verdi" Center which did
not have the wooden platform we had been using with R up until then.
In spite of this, the main features of the new treatment sessions were as
follows:
1) During the first five or six minutes of each session, R would vent his
aggression on the surroundings (breaking musical instruments, hitting the
walls, doors and windows), all of which could be called a cathartic reaction.
Although this linked back to a constant feature in his behavior, it was a
different type of aggression in that it was not directed at the therapists.
68