Beyond the Spotlight:
Embracing Emotional Expression Everywhere and Distinguishing Coaching from Therapy
It is not uncommon that a client will say, sheepishly at the end of a session, “well, thanks for the therapy session today.”
I will always affirm that I’m glad our session was helpful, make the disclaimer that I am not a therapist, and offer that if talking with an actual therapist would be helpful, I’d be happy to give them some referrals.
Singing, and other specific voice work, often opens up a lot of unexpected emotion, as the throat may release something and the nervous system gets a release or a trigger. We are also coaching people to be expressive with their feelings. Outside of therapy, the arts may be the only place we get this encouragement. Being able to be emotionally expressive with our voices and bodies is necessary in singing and acting.
Our culture has minimized the value of expressing our emotions for so long, so when someone presents as ‘overly’ expressive, we are labeled as dramatic. When feelings are suppressed, they still have to come out in some ways; often explosive Some of us sought the performance stage to literally have a safe space to be and to express freely.
It’s not uncommon for big feelings to come up while singing an exercise or during a song. Sometimes it is the actual physical release of a sound that triggers the system into laughing or crying, and often there is a story there. Sometimes it is what they’re singing; it speaks to them, moves them; makes them think of a similar situation in their life. And, sometimes they come into a session with the invisible weight of the world on them and having a moment to sit quietly with another person who sees them and listens to them is the “holding” their nervous system needs to feel safe enough to relax into a release. This is what we call holding space.
I happen to be really good at holding this container (another word we hear in this realm) of a space where someone can be heard, not judged, not preached at… just receiving whatever needs to spill out. This can happen at the beginning of a session, and releases enough energy to start with singing. Or, it happens in the middle of singing, when the act itself creates a hidden or unknown release to their emotional well.
Holding this space is what compassion is - being together with suffering.
Therapy v. Therapeutic
We often describe singing or dancing, or painting, running, building, or even talking to a friend as therapeutic. This is not therapy, which is wide and varied with different modalities of expertise to fit different needs and approaches.
I have received the benefits of a few different kinds of therapy, general talk therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Somatic practices, Jungian perspective, Dream work, and Hypnotherapy.
Working with a coach can be therapeutic, just as singing lessons can be. Here are some thoughts from Kaylee Friedman, LPC, a Sex Therapist I follow. From her @kayleerosetherapy IG account (1/17/23 post): “Art is not therapy. Dance is not therapy. Sobbing on the kitchen floor is not therapy. Therapy is therapy…
These practices are abso-fuckin-lutely *THERAPEUTIC, but they are not therapy.
What makes therapy effective in your healing process is not necessarily that the therapist is an expert in healing or that their degree bestows upon them some super power, it’s simply in the skills of them being a safe person in combination with the intentional and boundaried space provided for you (and unfortunately in our culture people usually need to be trained in these skills because they aren’t prioritized in our systems). (Not all therapists are safe people BTW).
That means that the therapist (hopefully) has done enough inner work and understands the purpose of what they are doing enough to communicate with you in a healthy way, be fully present, and can hold space for you to experience your difficult emotions while co-regulating with you.
Other professionals and healers can do this too!
…it takes training to learn how to do that safely.
I actually believe that there are plenty of coaches and lay people who are not trained therapists who hold space more effectively than some trained therapists.”
If you are seeking help to handle the circumstances and relationships in your life that feel untenable or even just not as fulfilling as you hoped, I recommend seeking all kinds of guidance. My quest for fulfillment and transformation has taken me to two different therapists, trained and certified in different modalities and to three different coaches (life/small business/creative arts business/grief and life transition), an energy worker, a massage therapist, and to friends who were also doing the work of transformation. And, all the books, workshops and certifications for myself (Trauma Support Specialist, etc) for the in between work. It takes a village!
At almost every voice teacher conference/workshop I’ve been to over the years, whenever the questions lead to how to handle big emotions in the studio, the moderator/host/leader makes some statement about us not being therapists and finishes with the commonly heard phrase: “when in doubt, refer out.”
Some of the voice teachers I’ve known have a real fear around kids, especially, being confused with singing lessons being therapy. They work with kids, teens, college aged young adults, often theater kids. Are those kids dramatic because of their chosen field, or did they choose the field because they needed a safe place to release unwanted expressions?
The unknown, unseen turmoil that can be behind any student’s facade will inevitably break through if there is no one else in their life they feel safe opening up to. For many kids, their voice teacher is that one person, or that first person.
Most artists I know, and that includes voice teachers who are often artists themselves, identify as empathetic. It’s what makes us feel more and gives us the ability to be expressive even when we aren’t feeling those feelings. Obviously, actors and dancers have this too.
I’ve had to learn the difference between empathy (feeling another’s emotions) and compassion (seeing another pain and desiring to help). And, I’ve had to find the difference between helping and fixing too.
THIS is what voice teachers really need to identify: How to be compassionate and not be overwhelmed by the student’s big emotions. And, how to offer help without trying to FIX the situation. When so many of us also never learned boundaries, or how to separate listening to understand versus to fix, we can easily fall into spending a whole lesson accidentally trying to counsel our student. This is what many teachers fear falling into. And, if they work at a school and they aren’t fulfilling standard requirements because a kid is having such a hard time elsewhere, they worry they aren’t doing their job if they can’t get to the singing.
Now that our society is open to the fact that there is a vast mental health crisis and more open to intervention, I hope schools will adjust to the emotional needs of students more. I just recently made the link to singing being a subconscious escape from my real life. A decent scare woke me up to wanting something different for my life, and that has changed my relationship with singing and music too. LINK?
While I’m expanding my coaching to work with anyone, not just singers and other artists, I do have a passion to share this kind of training with voice teachers. I was so grateful and encouraged to be invited to give a lecture at Shenandoah University’s summer Contemporary Commercial Vocal Pedagogy Institute on creating a trauma-informed studio this year.
Afterall, we are trained listeners. We are trained to hear specific pitch, if the soft palate needs to be lifted, or if the tongue is pulling back. We are also attuned to the sound of voice for tone and expression. Maybe the only other professional listener in a student’s life is a therapist. Or maybe we are the only one on one listening experience they get, or have ever had.
You know, people need people. We crave connection and we heal through healthy relationships.
I ran across a reel by Marriage and Family Therapist, Dr. Zach Trevino, who said
“Therapists, YOU are therapy. It’s not about the theories, the manuals, the techniques, the interventions… those things are important, but it’s YOU. Therapy does not happen without you. It’s the way you show up, the way you hold the space, it’s the way you are present, it’s your humanity and your willingness to witness other’s pain that makes YOU therapy. Therapy doesn’t happen without you.”
If someone opens up to you, I think that’s special. Someone feels safe with you; it’s a compliment. If you aren’t equipped to know how to handle it, and want to be able to, it’s a good idea to set some compassionate boundaries and learn some skills. You don’t have to be a therapist to be helpful. I’m happy to tell you about the course work and certifications that have helped me.
Music Therapy
AND, Music Therapy is an actual field too. It is typically a four and a half year degree program which includes a minor in Psychology.
The American Music Therapy Association defines Music Therapy as the clinical & evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program. Music therapy interventions can address a variety of healthcare & educational goals:
Promote Wellness
Manage Stress
Alleviate Pain
Express Feelings
Enhance Memory
Improve Communication
Promote Physical Rehabilitation
and more
https://www.musictherapy.org/about/musictherapy/
I went to school and worked at Queens University of Charlotte, which has a large thriving Music Therapy program. There was an on-campus practicum where our majors worked in a clinic with clients from their first year. Often, the clients were special needs kids and young adults, working on cognitive, emotional and physical skills, using music as the vehicle to work on some specific coordination.
Outside of this specific licensed and certified field, I’ve heard lots of musicians refer to their playing of music as their own music therapy.
My sweetheart, and musical partner, Keith, needs his music therapy. Playing, working on a song, listening and figuring out a riff, is therapeutic for him. It regulates his anxious energy, especially if he’s got big projects awaiting him in the day. When he stays over at my place, he gets up early to go home to make coffee and play before he begins his day. If we’re having a slower sleepier morning and we decide to go to breakfast/brunch, he’ll noodle on my guitar in the living room until I’m ready.
Obviously, not actual therapy, but very therapeutic for him, and a good way to regulate his nervous system for a more functional day.
Therapy v. Coaching
I have also benefited greatly from coaching. I’ve worked with a coach twice as much as a therapist. The difference? Once I was told that therapy was for looking to the past and coaching to the future.
Working with a coach to map out a desired future was a good way for me to start my self-inquiry, and therapy was for when I got stuck in my forward making plans. What was I holding onto? How had my upbringing shaped (family, school, church, culture at large) me, and what did I need to reframe? Off to the therapist I’d go to find the pain point, unwrap the grief and try to create new pathways of thinking, feeling and believing.
And, that last sentence is reflective of a slow 10 year process. That’s not to say there weren’t quick releases, a-ha moments and transformations early on;
the long haul lets us see how those wounds are being tended over time. Each month or year, a new layer is shed, a new level of awareness and healing come.
Coaching is the path that I’ve taken recently, getting certified in Mind-Body Coaching. This particular modality felt like the best fit for transitioning into more general life coaching for clients, and using it for my singing clients when larger emotions or blocks get them stuck in the art.
People close to me have asked if I just want to be a therapist, since I talk about emotions and helping people a lot. I pondered it for a minute. When I first took the quiz in the back of “Jobs for Dummies” 20 years ago, it came up with “you should be a music teacher or therapist.”
Telling, huh?
I got clear in this Mind-Body coaching training this year. I don’t want to be a therapist. I want to be a coach. I like the idea of looking forward; I don’t want a career of diagnosis. Twenty years ago, we didn’t know all we do about trauma and the nervous system, and mental health, and all the innumerable ways there are to seek help and healing.
It’s taken a decade for me to understand (and still learning) how emotions work; how I work. I have loved learning how our nervous system works and seeing the difference as it fights with itself misunderstanding actual danger for perceived danger that we somatically hold. For those of us that have a complex long history with trauma it’s like stepping into the light.
Perhaps the learning and practicing over the last decade is finally clicking into a more secure place for me, or I’ve just been so inspired by and enamored with the Inside Out movies; I love this work. I love it for what understanding and fulfillment it has brought to my life and what it can do for the clients I’m lucky enough to work with.
We ALL have big feelings. Those of us that got labeled as too sensitive, or too emotional, are usually told that from people that are having their own emotions that they may be ignoring. Those of us not allowed to express, usually learn to tamp them down.
But, the BODY remembers. The Voice remembers.
Coaching people on how to identify the SENSATIONS (feelings) of EMOTIONS (feelings) and find more comfortable ways to EXPRESS and PROCESS is the most rewarding part of my new coaching direction.
If I can help an artist find more freedom of expression in their song, or an artist to better communicate their needs and emotions to someone in their life off the stage, or show the way to this contentment to anyone, singer or not, I'll love the work.
