Abstract
There is extensive literature documenting that music can enable recovery and healing through various means such as performance and memory-work. However, an understanding of ‘how’ music achieves this is less clear. A combination of academic enquiry and reflective writing from a survivor who uses music to recover offers a compelling perspective on music’s functions and abilities. This article explores how music affords recovery following the chronological timeline of an abuse survivor’s own recovery, and this chronology is presented through four main phases. As a communication device, music can initiate disclosures and expression of trauma. Music can also ground a survivor into the present and thus allow recovery to be manageable. Music can create a safe space through its various qualities; crucially – the musical use of boundaries and in this space recovery can occur. Finally, music can afford the development and maintenance of safe attachments and an understanding of worth, fostering healing from the damage inflicted from abuse. These themes together provide a unique perspective and understanding of how music can afford recovery.
Highlights
Let me hear the songs of the silence that you captured...Let your secrets sing out. (‘Songs from the Ashes’, Appendix 1, see supplemental files)Music can afford healing from traumatic events through means such as song-writing (Day, Baker, & Darlington, 2009; Rolvsjord, 2010), rhythm (Koen, Lloyd, Barz, & Brummel-Smith, 2008), and enabling memory work (Wigram, Pedersen, & Bonde, 2002)
This article does not follow the traditional conventions of academic enquiry in that it is not aiming to be a piece of empirical research, but rather a uniquely grounded insight into the role music can play in recovery
Music can facilitate recovery following traumatic life events (Koen et al, 2008; Rogers, 1993; Rolvsjord, 2010; ) and this essay has attempted to reflect on how music affords recovery, using an entwined mixture of auto-ethnography supported by relevant literature
Summary
Let me hear the songs of the silence that you captured...Let your secrets sing out. (‘Songs from the Ashes’, Appendix 1, see supplemental files). Music can afford healing from traumatic events through means such as song-writing (Day, Baker, & Darlington, 2009; Rolvsjord, 2010), rhythm (Koen, Lloyd, Barz, & Brummel-Smith, 2008), and enabling memory work (Wigram, Pedersen, & Bonde, 2002). Memory work in this context may be the process of exploring and reconciling with memories, and developing methods of managing invasive memories in present life (Roy, 1998). Whilst I may have my own biases and subjectivity that may not support experiences of other survivors, this personal exploration adds a unique depth to the research in this area
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