| What is Voice Movement
Therapy?
FIRST A PERSONAL NOTE: When I started
Songwriting a few years ago, I knew that I also NEEDED TO SING! So
I was thrilled to discover and train as a Voice Movement Therapist.
If I tell you that I have experienced and witnessed miracles of deep healing
in this work, I am not exaggerating. I can't wait to share it with you!
VMT is an Expressive Arts
Therapy that uses the voice as a link to personal growth and mind-body
healing. Utilizing
very specific vocal components VMT accesses the deeper layers of mind
and body memory, and can provide relief from emotional pain, depleted energy,
and creative blocks. As a result
the mind-body-spirit experiences the FREEDOM to SING, SPEAK, WRITE,
and MOVE AUTHENTICALLY.
Along with movement and other creative
and expressive arts processes such as writing, drama, songwriting,
drawing, painting, and dancing,
VMT uses
the voice, and vocal sounds in particular, to quickly take
you into a deep state of remembering, and then releasing anything that may
be stopping you from being authentic.
Singing Your HeART Out!
VMT and the Singing Your HeART
Out! Program grounds the voice in the body, and channels the emotions
into creative process. The songs of your life become the focus of the
voicework, and expressing them can be profoundly healing. The Singing
Your HeART Out! Program and VMT can help you:
-
Uncover your 'natural' singing and speaking
voice
-
Extend your vocal range
-
Experiment with different singing styles
-
Increase your confidence and presence
-
Release fear, anger, sadness, shame,
guilt
-
Improve interpersonal communications
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Reduce stress, depressive feelings,
anxiety
-
Enhance the quality of all your
relationships
-
Write authentic songs, and sing your
truth
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Feel more energetic and vital
-
Enhance your creativity and performance
What People have
Experienced:
| "Chris, thank you so much for
a wonderfully healing workshop." |
- Shauna M. |
| "I hope you continue spreading
joy!" |
- Barbara S. |
"My grief was unbearable, but when
I started singing with you my energy changed completely. I can't believe
how different I feel now." |
- Sally R. |
"Thank you again for giving such
an enjoyable workshop. Everyone in the group seemed to enjoy it, and it brought
the Library to life." |
- Elin Jones, Librarian
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham |
"I was so angry, but as soon as we
created a little song about it and I sang it, my anger lifted. It was pretty
amazing!" |
- John G. |
"Dear Chris Thank you for the time
you gave us. You were an excellent guide. The energy came from you. From
me, at first bewilderment, shyness, and then a 'Hey, I'm a boy again!'
feeling." |
- Raficq A. |
"Chris I just wanted to tell you
I heard such wonderful feedback about your event from people who attended.
They seemed to get a tremendous amount out of it." |
- Colette Hiller, Actress
Founder/Executive Director
Sing London/Sing the Nation |
Who Can Benefit from
VMT and
The Singing Your HeART Out! Program?
-
Anyone who would like to feel more
confident, and become a better communicator in personal and professional
relationships.
-
Those who would like to develop and
express their creativity and have found it difficult to do so due to emotional
and/or physical challenges.
-
Singers and Songwriters of all genres
and levels of expertise, from beginners to the more experienced professional.
-
Actors who want to expand their range
of vocal characteristics and their relationship to their own body.
-
Teachers and Public Speakers who want
to sound more dynamic and hold the attention of their audiences.
The Origins of VMT
While VMT is a unique approach
to enhancing wellbeing, it is also grounded in ancient methods of communication,
and traditional healing practices. As Paul Newham explains:
"In the absence of words, the body
and the voice had to assume a thousand different shapes in the course of
describing a single day's events. The people of pre-verbal cultures therefore
had to be great performers, sculpturing and orchestrating their bodies and
their voices like singing acrobats…. It is from these essential and
primal vocal utterances that the act of singing originates." |
Babies cry when they are born, and they
continue expressing their needs and feelings by making all sorts of vocal
sounds. These variances in pitch and melodic structure are based on what
the infant is trying to communicate. We are all born with this musical
phenomenon, which is called prosody.
In cultures around the world Shamans
and Medicine Men and Women use vocal toning, chanting, and dancing to heal
imbalances in the mind-body-spirit.
The ancient Greeks believed that the
right kinds of musical sounds and rhythms could bring order and integration
into the soul. In their masked performances they used the voice and bodily
movement to communicate passions and arouse cathartic emotions.
Pioneers of Therapeutic
Voicework
We communicate our ideas, thoughts,
and feelings primarily through our voice. When we express ourselves via singing
and making non-verbal sounds the effects can be very therapeutic.
Alfred Wolfsohn returned from
having served as a medic in World War I, in a state of 'shell shock,' (now
known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD). His emotional symptoms
were compounded by guilt because he had failed to rescue a fellow soldier.
He also suffered with auditory hallucinations of the screams and groans from
dying and wounded soldiers he'd encountered in the trenches. No amount of
psychiatric treatment erased those sounds from his mind; and Wolfsohn
finally realized that he had to search for a cure within himself. He began
by extending the range of his own voice while singing the sounds of those
soldiers; and discovered that his voice was able to span several octaves.
He was also able to sing in a wide variety of moods and emotions, from that
of suffering and pain, to joy and pleasure. He soon began teaching his method
to others, and his approach was very different because he explored the shadow
side of the psyche. Paul Newham explains:
"Wolfsohn's intention was
not to nurture the diligence and technical proficiency of the 'voice beautiful,'
but to utilise the potential range of the human voice as a probe and a mirror,
investigating and reflecting the many aspects of the human psyche."
|
Otolaryngologist Paul Moses was
a supporter of Wolfsohn's work, and believed that oral communication
is composed of speech, which is what we say, and the voice, which is the
way we say it. Influenced by the work of both Freud and Jung, Moses searched
for underlying psychological causes that could be a factor in the vocal
characteristics of his patients. He also acknowledged that individual vocal
expression is linked to the sounds in the collective unconscious of mankind.
Paul Newham came to Therapeutic
Voicework from a background that includes theater, dance, psychiatric
nursing, and drama and movement with the mentally and physically challenged.
Once he discovered Wolfsohn's work (as well as that of Roy Hart, a long time
student of Wolfsohn's,) Newham started developing Voice Movement
Therapy.
While VMT is
a synthesis of several disciplines, it is the only Expressive Arts Therapy
that is grounded in the voice, and the songs of one's life.
I encourage you to start
MAKING SOUNDS AND SINGING about anything that comes into your mind.
And try moving as you vocalize. It will make a huge difference to how you
feel.
Contact me to learn
more about how VMT can help you nurture your Authentic Self.
 chrisplatel@consciousconnections.com
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