Application of VOICING© in other fields
VOICING© and VOICE DISTURBANCES
VOICING© produces beneficial effects in cases of voice disturbances due to an over use of the voice, to vocal chords nodules or thyroid dysfunctions.
What I have observed is a slowdown or even a stop of the growth of the nodules, a substantial improvement of the voice quality, and generally a noticeable relaxation of the breathing and the vocal apparatus. In a few cases of total aphonia (for more than 3 months) the voice came back after few sessions.
With VOICING© one recovers the capacity to perceive any inner experience as sound vibration and is able to give it voice through the spontaneous singing.
Generally in its journey toward the vocal chords the voice gets loaded of emotions, thoughts, denied inner events, beliefs, fears, distortions, shadow elements. The voice reveals that there is a burden. If the load is too difficult, heavy, with conflictual elements in it to be able to express them freely, the voice will be tired, altered, chocked and sometimes totally absent.
What happens when an inner experience is unspeakable because it clashes with one’s own image or beliefs we choose to lie, to say something different, sometimes even the opposite of what we really feel inside. This mechanism can be harmful especially when it happens unconsciously which is most of the times.
With VOICING© we help the person to recover, include and express the removed experiences, using a non-verbal, non-mental language which is the spontaneous singing. This produces a relaxation in the whole body including the vocal chords that allows to sing out those emotions that have created heaviness, tensions and energetic blockages. Singing includes acceptance and is therefore the closest to the heart, to love, which is the capital ingredient for healing: no need to try to change but surrender to what is.
Sometimes when the voice is choked, the desire to free oneself produces a scream. This is also used in many therapeutic approaches. But in VOICING© screaming, even if it might be a passage, is not encouraged since screaming implies still a NO. Whereas when one sings how he/she feels imprisoned, in pain, angry or the desire for freedom, then he/she is saying YES to what is happening, in this way harmonizes his system through flowing with what is.
Shankara Roberta Piccinno, Parma (Italy)
Music therapist
licensed VOICING© practitioner
VOICING© and MUSIC THERAPY
As a licensed music therapist myself I consider VOICING© a tool of absolute necessity and enrichment for any music therapy setting as well as for the personal education as a music therapist.
In music therapy (especially in a more active and psychodynamic approach) the relating is mostly non-verbal, especially in those cases when the language is absent or altered. I refer here to infantile autism, to various forms of physical handicaps, Alzheimer or senile dementia. Even in contests where the language is present, the music therapist should have the capacity to catch the pre-verbal sound element in the verbal communication.
I have found that VOICING© is the unique and perfect approach to go deep in this field. It is not limited to a technical teaching but teaches rather the capacity to listen and to develop a sensitivity that open doors to a relationship with the other beyond the verbal dimension.
I have been able to validate this effectiveness in a work with adolescent girls who suffered from strong eating disorders. It is certainly also valid with retarded or autistic children: VOICING© with its spontaneous singing, seems to be able to break, or better to melt those barriers that often make any contact and relating impossible.
VOICING© gives to the music therapist the possibility to include the singing as one of the most important musical instruments of his setting. The voice makes you more exposed and vulnerable; its use implies therefore an approach of self-awareness not always easy but certainly rewarding.
Shankara Roberta Piccinno, Parma (Italy)
music therapist
licensed VOICING© Practitioner
VOICING© and SINGING TEACHING
I am a singer of classical music for concerts and opera, and for many years I teach singing in a higher pedagogical school, in a high school and as a private teacher.
I deal with many young people from different backgrounds and great diversity of vocal performance and singing ability: from beginners to those who want to set the song as a profession.
The experience of VOICING© PRACTITIONER TRAINING I followed sustains me personally and increase research and development of my own voice. also influences the style of my lectures, and has opened new horizons in the practice of my vocal pedagogy. VOICING© has become more and more an indispensable tool.
Painful childhood experiences influence and weigh on the structure of personality manifesting itself in the corporeal level, of breathing and verbal communication skills, including singing.
Sometimes it lacks confidence for advancing in low tones or belly to try to bring the voice beyond its known stamps or simply daring to let express themselves heard, impose itself by voice. Or you get stuck in expectations too pretentious: she wants to sing always "right" compresses voice, crushes. Sometimes it reaches a state of muteness arising from the idea of not being able to sing.
In many cases I experienced the VOICING© as an outstanding approach that allows a change, and a liberating development of far-reaching, going beyond any singing technique.
Moreover, the effect is not limited to opening a new voice, but also to an acquisition of inner security and towards a maggiora affirmation capacity of itself, is an achievement of calm and vulnerability without fear; the spontaneous song becomes a resource that always can consult at any time.
Hannah Lucretia Lendi, Zurich (Switzerland)
Classical music and opera singer
Singing teacher in high school
Getting to know Pratibha and following the VOICING© approach after 20 years of activity as a singer and a singing teacher has been very revealing. It opened up to a vision and an experience about singing that is certainly broader, somehow complementary and very different to what I had been used to. Finally I had found a way to experience the voice in a non-discriminating way:
a way to express oneself through the voice totally free from the conditionings about conventional musical and singing learning. I wanted to expand and share these new input also in my profession as a singing teacher. In this field I deal with people of every age, particularly with young people from 12 to 20 years old.
These teen agers have a lot to express, are eager to connect with their nature through music and more so through singing. They are in a very delicate period of their life that is calling for independence, freedom and responsibility. Through VOICING© I could ascertain how they can connect with their inner truth and develop the trust that make it possible to voice out who they are. Thus they realize that they have at hand some tools that help them also in their inner personal world. Through VOICING© they gain more easiness, more assurance and richness in the verbal communication in spite of the fact that in VOICING© there is no use of a known language or words. The free articulation unburdens them from the worrying about making sense in a cognitive way and give space to the free expression of the moment that acquires an immense creative value and involves several layers of experience including the emotional level. More over their singing abilities amazingly develop in various directions to their great satisfaction.
Every voice has an incredible and unique potential and is in constant change and expansion like life is. I have witnessed that VOICING© is a tool valuable also for children and teen agers to help them live more authentically, bringing more acceptance for the present moment.
Nikla Rabamashi Bontadelli / Switzerland
Singer
Singing teacher
VOICING© practitioner
VOICING© in GYNECOLOGY
In my work as a gynecologist I witness many times the therapeutic power of VOICING© with my patients. Very often we look together if underneath a physical disturbance there might be some blocked emotions. These emotions might speak the language of the organ which can be more easily contacted and expressed through the singing than with words. Very often revealing and singing the symptom is enough to resolve it and integrate it.
To women who suffer from pre-menstrual or menstrual difficulties or problems I always invite them to channel the emotions and pains into free body movements and above all into singing spontaneously, listening to the amazing nuances that are springing out.
I could follow the benefits of VOICING© also with a case of severe sadness in a premenstrual woman. With the spontaneous singing she often contacted and expressed a dimension of anger which would give her strength, aliveness and more connection with herself.
I invited many of my patients to deepen the experience with a VOICING© Practitioner of my area obtaining significant better results in cases of menstrual complications, gastro-oesophageal reflux, dysmenorrhea, menopause disturbances.
I cannot forget the songs of women during labor. Those I witness were women who during pregnancy had practiced also Carnatic singing. In these cases the singing is a bit rigid and repetitive but VOICING© and the power and the transformation of the labor would enrich those song of notes so deep, so cosmic and emotionally involving to everybody who were present during the birth, me included of course. Such possibility of celebration would give to the birth all the sacredness that it deserves.
Sahari Maria Flisi, Parma (Italy)
gynecologist
Pregnancy and birth
Pregnancy and birth VOICING© is a technique that has been successfully used to re-establish the psycho-physical balance during pregnancy, to ease the physiological process of the birth, to create an attitude of comprehension and understanding of the birth and of the baby. The woman is invited to experiment with her body through the voice until she reaches a singing level that will be able to balance all the energy that has been diverted by the parapsychological symptoms. In this way a progressive adaptation to the physical changes of the birth is actualized, the body posture is redefined, the perineal tissues show better plasticity and the placenta has more tone. VOICING© is also very affective for birth-preparation because it helps to face and transform the experience of pain through the dynamics of the vocal expression. It facilitates the mechanics of the labour and birth and reduces its length through the learning and application of new patterns of movements in the toracic and pelvic diaphragms which are actualized through the practice of VOICING©.
Dr. med. gynecologist Marilina Liuzzo
Catania (Italy)
President Association ORIGINE