Summary
In this work, the review and analysis of the favorite songs of the therapy consultant are analyzed from the narrative therapy model, highlighting the characteristics and importance of the relationship between the most listened songs and the dominant story of the patient. The importance of this song analysis in the training of narrative therapy for the creation of new skills in therapists is also highlighted. The process for the use of therapeutic songs is described, how they will be analyzed and how these songs are intertwined with life stories, power narratives, and dominant stories.The acquisition of skills to listen to the contents of each song is a fundamental requirement to be able to generate learning and hold conversations within narrative therapy.
Key words: Therapeutic songs, album, power narrative, stories, stories, narrative therapy, alternative stories.
Introduction
The present work deals with the analysis of the compilation of an album of song lyrics that the patient chooses for each stage of their life cycle, and a journey through some important assumptions made from narrative therapy, and the process of creating new ones. meanings from the client's stories, as another way to expand the opening of meanings that the conversations have in Narrative Therapy. The purpose of creating a therapeutic lyrics album goes in two directions. The first, the therapist makes this intervention in the second or third session to inquire, know and analyze the narrative of the patient, as well as stories from each stage of life as a more natural conversation without looking like an interrogation. That is to say,The foregoing helps the training of the narrative therapist to have more information from the client in the first sessions, a much more complete and substantial information from which tools will be extracted to apply them in fulfilling therapeutic objectives.
The second direction of this work is directed towards the deconstruction and resignification of dominant narratives through the analysis of representative and allusive song lyrics at each important stage in the client's life. In this way, more openness in history and alternative meanings are presented. Thus, it has the effect of presenting the person with an externalized vision of their voice, of the meanings involved in it, of the words that are related to the alternate or subjugated history, of the alternative contents, of longings, principles of life and everything that inspires the person.
We will begin by analyzing some of the central assumptions of the Narrative Therapy model to give an insight into the movement generated in the therapy process. Michael White (2007) proposed different assumptions about Narrative Therapy with which he gave the theoretical perspective in order to understand what is generated in its conversations. Already White (1998) had proposed that "history is constitutive of life". When the lived experience is organized in a story, and is located in sequences of events according to time in a plot, this process of organizing allows us to make sense of those experiences, and meanings are derived from the conclusions we make about life. White (2007) stated that in order to give meaning to the lived experience, it is necessary to organize it, relate it,Thus "The self-narrative of our own life is the primary framework that makes it possible to make new meanings of the lived experience."
Organizing lived experience into stories is a meaning-making skill that provides a basis that helps us understand the experience and that shapes the actions we take and the ideas of who we are when we interact in the relational space in the that we live. White (2007) stated that Narrative Therapy conversations contribute to the re-formulation and redevelopment of the internal language of life, which favors making new connections.
Bateson (1972) proposes there is a mechanism for selecting lived experience, from which it follows that not all experience is organized or related in a story. The experiences that are selected have to do with the history of social interactions, culture, language and beliefs. It can be said that there are many stories stored in memory, but there are some stories to which access is difficult just by asking questions and this is where the importance of using alternative tools lies, precisely in order to find alternative answers. In this way, the conversations in Narrative Therapy create a context in which the meaning creation skills that are generated in the review and analysis of the person's history are activated.
Narrative therapy is also a process in which the ideas contained in the stories are deconstructed to find other different conceptions, which implies on the one hand the revision of ideas and on the other hand to identify new connections in which other explanations are identified and that link the purposes and assignments of value about what is precious so that it can be used in the creation of new meanings for the lived experience and for their preferred identity that allows them to take actions to create an alternative history.
It is important to mention that conversations in Narrative Therapy is the off-center position that the therapist must maintain, that is, to put the person's story in the foreground, prioritizing the consultant as the primary author, in such a way that the center of therapy is in its history and not in "normative truths" extracted from theoretical models. White (1997).
Usually, when people consult a therapist, they are initially immersed in the story saturated by the problem, when the process of recovering the previous story is carried out, identifying extraordinary events, those parts of the story are brought to light. related or the subordinate story, which allows generating new lines of Identity.
White and Epston (1990, p. 92) state “the narrative mode of thought gives greater importance to the particularities of lived experience, which is the vital element, being the points of union between the various aspects of lived experience the generators of meaning". The importance of the lyrics of the therapeutic songs, is an ideal way for the discoveries that the person makes during the therapy, they can listen again, read and recreate.
The songs and the lyrics of the same open many ways through which the person sees himself, is seen through the eyes of others, who have been an important part of his life and whose stories emerged in the therapy or also with those, that it is necessary to change the relationship generating new ways to interact.
White and Epston (1990, p. 93) state that:
The narrative mode places the person as the protagonist or as a participant in his own world. It is a world of interpretive acts, a world in which to retell a story is to tell a new story, a world in which people participate with their peers in the "rewriting", and therefore in the modeling, of their lives and relationships.
Methodology for analyzing favorite songs and creating therapeutic albums.
The process for creating therapeutic albums will depend a lot on each person's needs, context, objectives and reason for consultation. As well as the style of each therapist.
It will begin in the second or third session when the therapist has enough information about the client to organize and assign the following task: choose a song with which he can remember each important stage of his life, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, etc.
You are asked to compile the lyrics of those songs, whether those selected songs are descriptive of each stage or when they listen to them, they make them remember experiences, people, situations of the same.
You will also be asked for the lyrics of your favorite song and the lyrics that you think describe your current situation.
In the next session all the letters will be joined and a name will be given to the album, for example "memories", "my life in songs", "The lyrics of my life", etc.
In that same session we will begin by reviewing the lyrics of the song that the patient chose for each stage and a re-meaning will be made through a small codecription of the song.
The same will be done with each letter including the song that is chosen as a favorite as it describes your current situation.
Later, a reflection will be made about the coincidences or discrepancies that exist in the descriptions, reinforcing with questions from the therapist. In this way we will be able to account for the dominant narrative, power and meanings from another level, giving tools to resignify in a positive way.
Finally, as a complementary task, the client will be asked to bring a new album where they choose a different song for each stage based on the analysis done in therapy and their own reflections, thus giving them a meaningful narrative. Finally a general conclusion will be co-created.
In conclusion, it can be said that the use of song lyrics within narrative therapy is a very versatile option to lower the client's barriers, making the therapist's task easier and more creative, while developing therapeutic skills and the patient can rediscover new meanings.
References
- Bateson, Gregory (1972) Steps to and Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.White, Michael. (1994), ―Deconstruction and Therapy‖. Chapter 1 in White, Michael. Guidelines for a systemic Family Therapy. Gedisa, Barcelona, White, M. (1995) ―Therapeutic documents revisited‖ Chapter 8 in Re-authoring Lives Collective documentation. Dulwich Center Publications. Adelaide, Australia.White, Michael, (1997) ―The Ethics of collaboration and De-centered practice‖ in Part III Narratives of Therapist ‟lives. Dulwich Center Publications, Adelaide, Australia. Michael White (1998) ―Notes on Outsourcing Problems‖ in Cheryl White and David Denborough, Introduction to Narrative Therapy, (p. 219) Dulwich Center Publications, Australia.White, M. (2000). Reflections on Narrative Practice: Essays and Interviews. Adelaide:Dulwich Center Publications.White, M. (2003). Narrative practice and community assignments. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 3, 17_/56. White, M. (2002) ―New Considerations on Therapeutic Documents‖, Chapter 8, in Rewriting Life: Interviews and Essays. Editorial Gedisa, Spain. White, M. (2007) ―Trauma and Narrative Therapy‖ video recording. International Trauma Studies Program. http://www.dulwichcentre.com.au/trauma-and-narrativetherapy.htmlInternational Trauma Studies Program. http://www.dulwichcentre.com.au/trauma-and-narrativetherapy.htmlInternational Trauma Studies Program.
