Dirk Cushenberry always felt his future was in music.
Cheryl Farris-Manning was torn between music and an interest in medicine.
Both choose a career in music therapy because it allows them to help people
and maintain their musical pursuits.
Dirk Cushenberry works with profoundly mentally handicapped adults at the
Richmond State School near Houston, Texas. The school has a handbell choir,
a signing choir and a traditional choir.
"The choir sang at someone's wedding," says Cushenberry proudly. "That's
the idea of it -- to have them as active as possible."
Cheryl Farris-Manning works part time as a music therapy consultant. "I
have two private clients. I go see them in their home or day program," she
explains. "It's very interesting. It's a great kind of career to have if you
want to set your own goals and own timetable. Because you can design your
practice the way you want."
Farris-Manning knew she wanted to take music therapy as soon as she read
a brochure about the program. Until that moment, she couldn't decide between
music and medicine.
"Music was very much the center of my life all through growing up, but
I was also very interested in going into medicine. I wasn't thrilled with
going to school 10 years for med school, and I wasn't thrilled about the idea
of performing as a professional musician and the lifestyle that goes with
that either," she remembers.
"So for me, it was a way for me to blend those interests."
Cushenberry remembers his first music therapy session. He and his brother
went to the care home where his great grandmother lived. The residents were
all wheeled into the main hall to listen to the boys play.
They were a hit. "One, it was being a kid," he says, "but it was also the
music."
Cushenberry says he knew he wanted a career in music, but he talked himself
out of it at least twice. "But the sense of calling stayed with me, " he admits.
Layoffs at his company gave Cushenberry the push and opportunity he needed.
"I went back to school and followed my dreams."
It was the right decision. Cushenberry says he's already been able to help
people in ways he never could have imagined. During his internship, he worked
in a psychiatric hospital.
"I was working with adolescents with rotten backgrounds," he explains.
"I was helping them with their feelings. Some were good musicians. They were
pretty sharp."
His group performed the song Hand in My Pocket by Alanis Morissette. "It
was just orchestrating and adaptive work," Cushenberry says. But the kids
loved it -- it gave them a sense of accomplishment some had never experienced
before.
Another memorable experience happened during one of Cushenberry's practicum
assignments at the University of Kansas. He was working with a doctoral student
who liked to sing but couldn't play the piano because she had muscular dystrophy.
Cushenberry borrowed a musical instrument digital interface (MIDI), which
links a synthesizer with a computer. Soon the woman was able to accompany
herself musically.
"We performed for a couple classes -- I think about three," remembers
Cushenberry. "She was excited!" When his practicum ended, the student decided
to buy her own MIDI so she could continue composing.
Farris-Manning was very moved by an experience during a session with a
patient with Alzheimer's. The woman was confused and couldn't speak. But when
Farris-Manning played the hymn Abide With Me, the woman became coherent and
even sang. "I felt it was a very poignant moment of connecting," Farris-Manning
says.
Music therapy's effects aren't always so dramatic. Most patients express
their pleasure in smaller gestures. "The little smiles and the peaceful breathing
they get before a session," Farris-Manning explains.
But sometimes there's nothing -- perhaps for weeks on end -- and the hardest
part of the job is trying to reach someone who isn't visibly responding at
all. She says that can happen in long-term care homes where clients are bedridden
and unresponsive.
"Music therapy can come to them, but it's very hard for the music therapist
to know what's working, because there are few visible rewards and change is
so slow," she explains.
Cushenberry is learning to appreciate small gains. The mentally challenged
residents of his new school respond very differently to therapy than the teenagers
in the psychiatric ward. "They have their successes too, though," he says
hurriedly. "It's just an adjustment."