Saxophonist and clarinet player Ella Polczyk-Przybyla is a strong believer in the healing power of music and she's put that belief into practice through her work as a music therapist.
Photo: Ella Polczyk-Przybyla
Hawke's Bay-based Polczyk-Przybyla spoke to Standing Room Only ahead of next week's Music Therapy Week, which seeks to raise awareness of the services music therapists provide.
Different aspects of music therapy will work for different people, but Polczyk-Przybyla, who's a regional manager for the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre, said that flexibility was part of the practice's strength.
Photo: Ella Polczyk-Przybyla
This conversation contains reference to sexual abuse and trauma which may be triggering for some people.
"I think that's really the key ... giving people a voice through music - whether that's through playing music or listening to music or just experiencing that music together ... and to put them in hopefully a better place than when they started the session."
Music therapy is an established psychological clinical intervention, Polczyk-Przybyla said, delivered by registered musical therapists to help those whose lives had been affected by injury, illness or disability.
One of the aims of next week's campaign was to help demystify the profession through the publication of "bite-size videos" explaining more about what music therapists did, how people could enter the profession and how interaction with music therapists had helped people with trauma.
"Music therapy can sometimes seem a bit of an elusive subject ... there's lots of different reasons for that, one being that it's not quite as much in the mainstream as we would like it ... but also, that music therapy is really varied."
Polczyk-Przybyla said she was particularly excited to be able to share a client's personal story detailing how songwriting had helped them.
"This is a Wellington music therapist and her client, who have kindly recorded the song for us and then have done a sort of interview about the song and how it's helped and what it's about."
Before heading to Aotearoa, Polczyk-Przybyla helped to set up a music therapy programme in Uganda at a centre for people affected by HIV/AIDS. She also helped children with special educational needs and adults with mental health difficulties in the UK.
She said one of the most rewarding about being a music therapist was helping clients to express things they might not have been able to address previously, through the medium of music.
Giving hope to families who had previously only heard negative things from specialists about their loved ones was another positive.
"I really do feel for a lot of parents that come (to see a music therapist); they're so used to being sat down by a specialist ... and quite often the story is being told what is wrong with your child, or what is wrong with your loved one ...
"What the parents have to offer and what those loved ones have to offer is so valuable to us as music therapists and they ultimately are the expert of their child."
Polczyk-Przybyla said music therapy offered a very "can do" approach, which took into account the strengths of a client - what they could do and were good at, and what was going to bring out the best in them.
"I think sometimes having that approach, rather than, 'OK, let's just look at what's wrong and just work on these goals to fix this diagnosis or this issue that you've got', I think actually can be quite refreshing for parents sometimes."
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