Friday, December 26, 2008

Walking the Walk with Sound Therapy

Sound therapy can be pretty complex stuff. A 1 or 2 day class is a good start in learning the regimen, but it doesn't teach a therapist how to veer from the prescribed path and provide a more customized program for clients.

I make an effort to try all the therapies that I provide for my clients so that I can gain a deeper knowledge of what's happening. In doing so, I've gotten any number of personal benefits. Practices such as improving the ergonomics of my computer station give me a fast return for my effort. Some of the deeper therapies, such as sound therapy, have longer healing cycles, and one has to be patient to reap the rewards. I find that it is necessary to listen slowly and steadily to each CD, noting the feelings that come up and the changes that seem to occur. There are small miracles that can occur from the listening.

I have been told that adults (and some children) can be highly sensitive to sound therapy. And for 3 of the 5 adults I've worked with, including myself, this was true (until we altered the regimen). What we noticed was feelings of heavy emotions including depression that arose a few hours after therapy and lasted for the better part of a day. And worse, it happened after each listening session. What I noticed was that after having endured that, I felt as if some difficult thing(s) in my past had been purged and that social interactions with difficult people were easier.

Now, small changes like that are nice, but no one is going to put up with going through days of depression for some small social gains. However, it turns out that being sensitive has an up-side. One can decrease the listening time to very small increments and still get large gains. I decreased the time to 1 minute per day to start with and then added 30 seconds each day. I did this for both Samonas and Therapeutic Listening. It worked for me and for two clients. In addition to decreasing time, right after the therapy, I listened to emotionally evocative music such as blues, rock, or passionate classical as a way of releasing the emotions from the listening.

So how is it going now? Great! I've gone through a few CDs - in the order prescribed by Samonas and Therapeutic Listening, and am able to feel each CD's therapeutic effects on my brain, senses and body. I've noticed lots of small changes and a few big ones, too, including auditory processing, handwriting and modulation. I was surprised by changes in motor areas such as improved handwriting (even though I'd seen it in my kids at the clinic) and my increased ability to handle spicy foods. It is also true that I have slowed down and am attending to things with greater diligence. (I guess I have listed about half of the areas in which we hope for change for our kiddos from a sound therapy program.) I just notice little improvements every few days, and they keep adding up.

I still have a number of CDs to listen to. I'll report on any increased tolerance for the music as evidenced by being able to listen for longer periods of time without ill effect.

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