I am also a music therapist-Diane

It may not look like it to you watching this video, but it takes deep training to do this method effectively. Dr. Austin makes it look easy. It's not and you must be very careful and clear with your boundaries as a therapist.

Can you rephrase that question? I'm not sure I understand your query.

She is trauma informed. That makes a big difference

Vocal psychotherapy is the first voice-based music psychotherapy model. The training incorporates important aspects from psychodrama and trauma theory. The therapist is the clients alter ego (double). And sings in the first person unless a change is needed. The therapist also offers interventions and the client knows if they are accurate to take them and if they aren't to change them. This is very important because in Freud and Jung's free association, when the client came to a complex they couldn't free associate anymore. But in this model, and this method of free associative singing you can bypass this resistance by going back to earlier statements or making interventions to resource the client. There is a lot going on here. The therapist must play the two chords the client requests, be available for eye contact, watch body language and facial expressions, be aware, and use their counter transference and make vocal interventions. It's all in the book. " The Theory and Practice of Vocal Psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy in general is like putting together a puzzle with a client. When the puzzle begins to fill you have to try many different pieces in different ways to see how they fit. The therapist can't lay the pieces themselves, but they can perhaps suggest where they think a piece might fit in. The way that puzzle piece fits represents an insight regarding the nature of the client's problems. Clients need space and control to disagree with the therapist's interpretation of where and how the puzzle piece should be added, so I feel like this intervention needs a way for the client to signal to the therapist that where they're taking the lyrics and music isn't where their hurt lies, or that they're not ready to process that pain. Perhaps a rule that the client can only sing when they resonate with the therapist's interpretation and want to sing. This way if they choose not to sing for one of these reasons, they will still feel successful because they will have successfully followed the rule and maintained agency in the session.