“This book is a true gift to global culture and has the potential to inspire a renaissance of interest and practice in the creative use of expressive voice and movement for therapy, coaching, cultural change and transformative learning.”
Aftab Omer, PhD
President, Meridian University (USA)
This book is about the use of vocal sound, melody and rhythm to increase one’s sense of self and presence with others, and how to facilitate this process.
We discover how the ten vocal principles and four non-vocal principles of Voice Movement Therapy work together, uniting in a single purpose: to facilitate a more embodied and flexible, durable, and versatile voice.
Singing the Psyche: Uniting Thought and Feeling Through the Voice provides an understanding of Voice Movement Therapy and how it uses both spontaneous vocalization and the creation and performance of song, integrated with active body movement, and imagery to increase expressive and communicative skills.
The voice, our original and primary instrument for expression and communication, is the only instrument in which the player and the played upon are contained within the same organic form. The voice box, that tiny structure which houses the vocal cords through which air passes to produce the sounds we utter when we speak or sing is––by its location in the throat––perfectly positioned and––by its ability to express thoughts and feelings at the same time––ably equipped to join head and heart, mind and body, psyche and soma.
However, the words we say and the way we say them often do not match. The message and the messenger may be at cross purposes, the meaning conveyed by the words undercut by the feeling tones in which they are uttered. This can cause misunderstandings both within the self and between the people with whom we wish to communicate. Often it is necessary to go beyond words to achieve a congruence between thought and feeling that will enable us to find the full expression of our wants, needs, and ideas in order to communicate them more effectively to others. One way to do this is to use our actively sounding physical voice and the sensations it produces to literally vibrate into being a bridge between what we are aware of and what we are not, between the conscious and the unconscious mind.
—Anne Brownell
ANNE BROWNELL, MA, RSA. VMT-R, is Executive Director of the Norma G. Canner Foundation for VMT, a not-for-profit school conducting full trainings, short courses and projects in the USA and abroad. After working with pioneer dance therapist Norma Canner and noted clinician and author Penny Lewis, Anne’s search for the vocal component for a movement-oriented therapy led her to be the first American to train in London with founder Paul Newham, teach and supervise with him in England and America, and in 2001 establish her own training program in the United States and then in South Africa. Anne has been a consultant for schools with children experiencing developmental and language delays, and taught the first for-credit graduate course in VMT in the USA. She loves exploring and performing different genres and kinds of sounds, as demonstrated in her album A Journey through Song, and maintains a practice in Wareham, MA. for people with issues around giving voice.
DEIRDRE BROWNELL, Ph.D., MA, VMT-R, is a singer as well as a scholar and believes that music has a language all its own that everyone can understand somatically and spiritually, if not cognitively. She has a BA in Reconditioning and Fitness, and a Masters and PhD in Psychology from Meridian University in California where she received a strong grounding in Imaginal Psychology. After training in South Africa, she interned there at a school for children with cognitive and physical delays. Her dissertation is about healing the loss of the embodied voice in people with hidden learning differences. Deirdre is dedicated to working with anyone struggling with a difference from the norm which sets them apart and causes them to feel misunderstood and “voiceless.” She loves to sing and has recorded one album, Evolution. She is starting a practice in Wareham, MA, especially including work with children and adults with hidden learning disabilities.
GINA HOLLOWAY MULDER, MA, BADA, PGDA, MAP, VMT-R, lives in Durban, South Africa and has been facilitating personal and corporate communication, self-cultivation, creativity and performance development through voice and movement work since 1999, incorporating Voice Movement Therapy into her practice since 2007. Gina practices at her private studio in the Springside Nature Reserve located in Kwa Zulu Natal, offering individual, couples, and group sessions and workshops, and 5-7 day private retreats to local and international clients. Through Voice 360, she develops VMT-informed training programs and interventions for individuals and teams at different organizational levels. With a background in physical theatre and a passion for choreography, she focuses her creative work on integrating voice, body, and psyche for devised interactive theatre. She is committed to growing the practice of VMT in South Africa and globally.
