Session one and two

5.2.1 Session one

The first session was conducted with Summer and me observing and I made notes during this first session.

Sera interviewed Jade for the first part of the session. She was attentive and supportive while Jade expressed her difficulties with her husband (See above under “Jade”). Sera helped Jade to find her supportive resource, a nun who understood Jade’s problem and made her feel “calm and contained”. After explaining the overall process of an SMI session briefly, Sera moved on to the induction, helping Jade to relax and be calm, but without focusing on the supportive imagery, the support from the nun. Listening to the

‘beautiful cello music with piano’ (my note), Jade produced a drawing of her family

“being playful in a field” (Figure 5.1). However, Jade soon became upset and cried as her drawing depicted her second son Hun's isolation: Hun was outside of the mandala circle, separated from his family.

Figure 5.1 Drawing one from session one. Title: My family enjoying and being playful in a field.

After listening to Jade describe her pain for Hun, Sera played another piece of piano music and asked Jade to pay attention to the music. Jade drew a big tree and four saplings (Figure 5.2). (Unfortunately, I do not have information about either piece of music because I did not take a note of them when I observed the session.) Jade said she felt as if the music was saying “wake up, wake up… saplings are coming out…”

Figure 5.2 Drawing two from session one. Title: Saplings are coming out.

In the supervision right after the session, Sera was advised to contain Jade's anxiety from external stress and help her focus on herself. Summer showed Sera how to be empathetic with Jade's difficulty before guiding Jade to focus on herself: “It must be difficult for you, (or you must be tired). This is time for you. You need to find something for yourself.” In the following session, Sera was advised to find Jade's supportive resources and her relationship with music.

a. Analysis

I find that this was a diagnostic session, foreseeing potential difficulties not only for the client, Jade, but also for Sera. This session indicated that Sera’s well rounded

experience as a music therapist might be both beneficial as well as an obstacle: Sera was poised in relating to Jade (relationship) but she did not seem to be particularly attentive to the fact that this was an SMI session. Sera’s therapeutic intervention did not adhere to the SMI procedure. There was no clear focus on the supportive resource, other than instructing Jade to relax. The only supportive resource (supportive imagery) found in the session, the support from the nun, was neither utilized nor integrated.

Jade seemed to be too preoccupied with her family problems (difficulty) and became too overwhelmed (affect) by them. The boundary between her and her family seemed to be too fused to separate herself from her family (relationship). Jade was too upset (affect) to be able to focus on her resource (supportive imagery). Music and drawing (expressive media) in the second attempt seemed to function as a supportive resource (supportive imagery) and there was a small hint of a positive change but I feel this was somehow manufactured, thus the experience was not integrated solidly.

5.2.2 Session two

Sera reported that Jade came to the second session “depressed and very exhausted psychologically” by the constant conflict with her husband. Jade said that she had felt better after the first session but since her husband had recently picked on their second son Hun, leaving Hun very emotionally injured, Jade had been feeling bad. In this session, Sera worked with Jade on the music and imagery process four times.

At first, for the supportive imagery, Sera decided “to use the image of 'saplings' from the first session because Jade was too deflated”. While listening to calm new-age piano music with an electronic orchestral background, “Through the Arbor” by Kevin Kern (2002), Jade drew “a face with big eyes and a grey star” (Figure 5.3), which felt “eerie”

to Sera. Jade became “tearful'' saying: “At first there was a dead body lying there repressed, by darkness ... it couldn't move ... as the music continued, there was a small dim light as if it said “wake up, follow me”. .... I felt like following, I should move, should get out of it.” Sera listened sympathetically to Jade and, as Jade fought her tears,

encouraged her by saying “allow yourself to cry”.

Then Sera moved on to a second music and imagery session, playing “Through the Arbor” again. Sera reported: “Because Jade looked gloomy yet expressed the positive image of 'a light', I asked Jade to focus on the light of the star and the message 'wake up, follow me'.” Jade added a bird to her drawing, explaining that the light turned into the bird. Jade felt that the bird was “escaping ... struggling to escape from the

darkness ... the endless, endless grey sky”.

Sera immediately asked Jade to focus on the bird and played another very similar piece of music by Kern, 'Sundial Dreams' (2002), intending “to support the bird in the bright sunlight” [this was the third piece of music and imagery].

Figure 5.3 Drawing from session two. Title: Bird struggling to escape from the darkness, trying to fly upwards.

Jade reported that she felt very sorry for the “exhausted, suffering” bird but she did not know how to help it.

On hearing that, Sera suggested Jade imagine “bringing strength (to encourage)” the bird. Sera played a gentle, lyric, solo cello piece with piano accompaniment, “Hamabe no Uta” (Narita, 1996) (For information, see chapter 4, session one, music) [this was the fourth music and imagery]. Jade added thicker lines to the bird’s shape and mountain ranges under the drawing. Jade felt “the bird gained some strength flying upwards ... it got out (of the grey sky) and felt free ... less burdened, more

comfortable. ... but felt like leaving something behind”. Jade identified with the bird and she reported that she felt more energized and calmer.

Sera recommended that Jade make the most of her alone time by focusing on herself.

Sera suggested Jade listen to the cello piece from the session, “Hamabe no Uta”, whenever she could. Jade took her drawings with her as she wished to.

Throughout the session, Sera was supportive and empathetic. Despite this, she was very direct in leading the session. She determined the supportive imageries for Jade, instead of letting her choose herself. Regardless of Sera's attempt to lead Jade to focus on the positive feeling by focusing on “light” and “strength” in the drawing, Jade struggled with her feeling of helplessness by expressing her difficult situation in her drawing.

Sera handed in her report six weeks after this second session was conducted. In her email, Sera sounded depressed saying she felt “too lethargic to do anything... I realize that I have not been honest with myself... How can I treat anyone, I wonder?” Reading this, I became concerned.

In the supervision, because Sera identified strongly with Jade, we worked on separating their issues. Sera had two sons of a similar age to Jade's but they were doing well and Sera had a supportive husband. However, like Jade, Sera had a tendency to repress her needs in front of her husband. Because Sera felt lethargic and depressed like Jade she always pushed things back until the last minute, a habit compounded by her

perfectionism. Sera said that she did not want to review the session because she was afraid of seeing herself in Jade.

I explained to Sera that I felt the session, having four music and imagery processes, had too many activities, neither Sera nor Jade felt the moment enough. Thus for the

following session, I advised Sera to let Jade feel any distress, rather than talk about it in detail. Only after that could Sera guide Jade to find support. I instructed Sera to find a clear supportive resource and focus on the positive feeling it brought, before moving to induction.

a. Analysis

As I review this now as a researcher, I feel that Sera tried overly hard (intervention) “to move” Jade to a place where she thought Jade should be, going through four music and imagery processes (expressive media). Sera’s therapeutic intervention was most likely not based on a true supportive imagery but was probably based on manufactured, premature, hopeful imageries or messages, which Jade did not own. Thus regardless of

Sera’s attempt to lift Jade’s spirit, Jade seemed to feel more desperate with each additional MI attempt (affect, difficulty).

Even though Jade seemed to feel somewhat better towards the end of the session (change), she was still doubtful, as she expressed in her comment “I felt like leaving something behind” at the end of the session.

The internal conflict/dilemma (difficulty, affect) was reflected in the contrasting messages from the expressive media: drawing and music. The drawing seemed to reflect and bring out Jade’s vivid feelings of helplessness and despair (affect): the dead body that could not move “struggling to escape from the darkness ... the endless, endless grey sky [being] exhausted, suffering”. The music seemed to match her conscious will to mobilize some energy which was not yet owned by Jade: “wake up, follow me”.

In desperation, Sera forced four music and imagery processes on Jade (therapeutic intervention), perhaps because she was afraid of herself also being stuck in a similar dark, grey place like Jade (affect, difficulty).

Sera was emotionally too merged with Jade, it hampered the way she intervened in Jade’s processing of her supportive resource (supportive imagery). The supervision was focused on Sera learning to separate herself from Jade and understand her

countertransference (relationship).