"ON A JOURNEY TO SOMATIC MEMORY" Theoretical and Clinical Approaches for the Treatment of Traumatic Memories in Music Therapy Based Drug Rehabilitation Marko Punkanen University of Jyväskylä, Finland marko@nyanssi.net Abstract This article is about using the traumapsychotherapy approaches in music therapy based drug rehabilitation. Clients with drug addiction have quite often traumatic experiences in their past (neglect, physical and sexual abuse, failure of the attachment bond, all kind of violence, bad trips etc.) and they will get in touch with those memories during therapy process. As a music therapist I feel that it is good to be familiar with some theoretical and clinical traumapsychotherapy approaches which will make the treatment of traumatic memories safer. The concepts of somatic memory, the modulation model, body awareness and the use of anchors will be presented among some others (Ogden, 2003; Rothschild, 2003). Introduction Drug addiction is a complex phenomenon. In my previous research and in my clinical music therapy work I have seen that clients will get in touch with their traumatic history during therapy process (Punkanen, 2004). Therefore it is very important to know how to work with those memories so that clients do not get retraumatized by them. What does it mean when we say that our client has a traumatic history. To put it simply it means that a person has experienced one or more traumatic events in her life. What can be considered as a traumatic event then? The official definition of trauma is that it is caused by a stressful occurrence "that is outside the range of usual human experience, and that would be markedly distressing to almost anyone". This definition encompasses the following unusual experiences: "serious threat to one´s life or physical integrity; serious threat or harm to one´s children, spouse, or other close relatives or friends; sudden destruction of one´s home or community; seeing another person who is or has recently been seriously injured or killed as the result of an accident or physical violence" (Levine 1997, 24). This definition is a good starting point but we have to remember that every human being is unique in her reactions to stressful events and there are of course lots of other events that can be traumatic for us. According to Herman (1997) traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life (Herman 1997, 33). Accidents, illnesses, divorces and bullying are not outside the range of usual human experiences but can be very traumatic. Especially when the stressful events happen in childhood they can have a powerful effect on a person´s life later on. Neglect, physical and sexual abuse, failure of the attachment bond, and individual traumatic incidents like hospitalization, death of a parent, parents´ divorce and being bullied at school are common trauma experiences with the drug addict clients I have worked with. We also have to remember that the client´s traumatic history can be short or long. Lenore Terr (1994) has distinguished two types of trauma victims, Type 1 and Type 2. Her distinction was originally made with regard to children. Type 1 refers to those who have experienced only a single traumatic event in their history and Type 2 refers to those who have been repeatedly traumatized (Terr 1994). If our client has only one traumatic event in her history it is often much easier to work with the trauma compared to a client who has multiple traumatic incidents in her history. Case example: Sari was a 23 year old woman when she came to music therapy. She had been using drugs since she was 14 years old. When I did the history taking with her and asked about the traumatic events in her life, she told me that there were some traumatic events in her childhood. Her parents were divorced when she was in primary school. That was a big shock for her. At the same time she was bullied at school and this continued for some years. Seite 1 von 7