My first love, long before counselling, was music. My life has always been full of playlists, and wherever I am, there is always music playing if I can help it, and my degree was in Popular & World Music. I was therefore thrilled to uncover the role that music can take in the counselling room.
During my own personal counselling, I had a session in which I was struggling with the idea that it was twenty years since my heady days at university where life seemed so carefree and full of fun. My adult life was lacking these things and found myself feeling incredibly nostalgic for that time in my life. To articulate these feelings further, I was invited to play a song that encapsulated this time in my life. I chose ‘We Are Your Friends by Justice, and through listening to that song with my counsellor, I was transported back to a sticky dancefloor in a club in Leeds at 2am, a £2 whisky and coke in hand, surrounded by friends, sweaty, dancing, and singing at the top of my lungs. I was really able to convey what I was feeling, and what I was missing.
My counsellor then asked me if there was a song that represented life today. I wasn’t expecting this question, and didn’t have an answer to hand, so simply found the last song that I had downloaded (Later, later on by Julen Santamaria & Alice Faye). On playing this, I was straight away in the car park in Wales where I had heard it on 6Music. I was sat in the car with my boyfriend, the sun was shining, mountains surrounded us, and I was happily reading my Kindle, enjoying a Tango Ice Blast (his favourite!) as we waited for the next gig and the comedy festival we were enjoying.
Yes, this was a far less hedonistic scene, I was sober, I wasn’t surrounded by friends and life was no longer carefree. But I was so happy at that moment. This experience made me realise that we can mourn times gone by, while being perfectly happy during the time that we’re in.
As well as representing a time in our lives, music can represent people. I’ve lost both of my parents, but there are so many songs that are still very much in my life which bring them back to me. It’s likely a client may be able to access people from their past in the same way. Music can also often convey emotion in a way that words can’t. Perhaps a client who is struggling to articulate their feelings might be able to explain through a song. Through lyrics, or perhaps through the way the music makes them feel.
While not all clients will have this connection to music, for some, it might be the key to unlocking something important.
