Using Gestalt Psychotherapy Techniques With Music Students

Raising awareness of the self can bring greater connection with the music.

Reviewed by Davia Sills

Key points

• It's possible to become more fully aware while making music through Gestalt psychotherapy techniques.
• Awareness comes by concentrating on physical sensations, emotional feelings, desired outcomes, and values.
• Authentic contact with oneself is the basis for authentic contact with fellow musicians and the audience.

A frequently overlooked aspect of making music is cultivating the skill of awareness. Our music practice is often directed toward mastering a technical issue or memorizing a piece of music. It is not uncommon that we become so focused on an outcome, such as playing a passage perfectly, that we lose contact with a more expansive process that is taking place within us. Learning the skill of volitional, detached observing is a fundamental tenet of Gestalt psychotherapy, taken directly from Buddhist psychology by its founder, Fritz Perls.

When working towards some goal in the practice room, we tend to fantasize about the ideal future self who can successfully play a challenging passage or perform a piece from memory. This fictive ideal self serves as a model towards which we strive.

We must also make contact with the emotionally charged beliefs surrounding that ideal self. What do we imagine will be the implications of mastering this goal? What are the emotions attached to achievement and nonachievement of the goal? What emotional tones surround the social expectations of accomplishing or failing at this goal? What are the physical sensations that accompany these emotions? These are all questions one must practice asking to come into full contact with oneself.

The student does not typically ask these questions. They have learned to focus on the practical task, the hard work of repetitively shaping a skill for future use. In psychotherapy, the therapist will ask the patient the questions that the patient should be asking themselves. We can apply this to the music lesson as well.

The music instructor can ask the students questions that the students should be asking themselves. In time, the external voice of the teacher will be incorporated into the student's internal dialogue. The student will learn to come into fuller contact with themselves, the music, and their fellow musicians.

Cultivating awareness begins with developing volitional concentration. This is the learned skill of choosing when, where, and how to focus one's awareness. In Gestalt therapy, we learn to concentrate on awareness of sensations in the body, awareness of feelings, awareness of desires, and awareness of our values. By bringing attention to these aspects of our experience, we can form a fuller awareness of the "gestalt," which we call the self.

Skillful awareness takes daily practice. Mindfulness meditation is a perfect way to cultivate awareness and to make fuller contact with ourselves, the music, and others. A guided meditation routine can be learned through meditation apps, videos, or a teacher. My favorite resource is the Plum Village meditation app by the Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn. Guided mindfulness meditation is the foundation of making authentic contact with music.

Awareness of the physical sensations involves scanning the body while playing and becoming aware of where one holds physical tensions. This can be done by the teacher who has developed a sensitivity to observing physical body language in their students.

Those trained in this area of Gestalt psychotherapy can see the connection between body armoring and character armoring. This idea was developed by Wilhelm Reich, Fritz Perls's teacher. When concentrating on the body, we become more aware of when and where we hold tensions in our musculature.

The trained teacher points this out to the student while they are playing. By bringing this to the student's attention, their awareness of themselves is broadened. In the Gestalt tradition, awareness manifests change.

If one looks inward with sensitivity, one will find that a feeling accompanies the muscular tension or the gesture. When speaking of a loved one, the person who touches their heart feels something in the gesture. The student can learn to identify the tone of feeling accompanying a physical action or sensation from the teacher who asks, "Are you aware that you are touching your heart when you speak of your mother? What are you feeling right now?" In this way, the teacher demonstrates what the student will eventually learn to ask themselves.

One can come into contact with one's values by becoming aware of one's desires. Teaching the student through example, the teacher might ask, "What would you like to get out of learning this piece of music?" and "What do you imagine will be your audience's reaction?" and "Whose face do you see when you feel this feeling?"

Through attentive questions, the teacher can help the student to concentrate on the physical, emotional, intention, and values through which we experience our "self." This concentration leads to a greater awareness of the self when making music.