Music hath charm to soothe a savage beast,” a misquoted version of a phrase coined by English playwright William Congreve seems to have clicked with Hyderabad-based mental health professional Dr Kalpana G Sringar and her patients.

“These are my patients who have finished their rehabilitation programme for the day,” she says pointing at the four middle-aged women with notepads, seated in her office. Her patients include those battling depression, phobia, post traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia and autism.

Sringar pulls out a box of quilled earrings and photo-frames to explain the kind of therapy sessions that happen with the help of stationery items. Her box also contain colourful paintings of fish and parrots among others. “During the rehabilitation sessions, we use these paintings as props. Over the years, I have found that writing, sketching and painting work better than making them read newspaper or engaging them in storytelling. Depending on their skills and qualifications, rehabilitation is customised for each patient. But music therapy is for all,” she says.

While for most of us, music is a must during pumping iron, to kill time while driving from home to office, or to nurse a broken heart, for Sringar and her patients, the weekly 90-minute-long music therapy has been a way to overcome their illnesses for the past four years.

But the therapist ensures that instead of just sitting and listening, she engages her patients with drawing mandalas. “Music brings emotions to the surface; you know when those suffering with schizophrenia draw these mandalas, they are all incomplete and disjointed, indicating that their thoughts and feeling are in disarray,” she says.

A learner of carnatic music, Sringar had trained under ghazal master Vithal Rao. Post his demise, she is now a disciple of Ustad Yakoob Ali and Talat Aziz—with whom she sometimes creates music for her therapy sessions. She devotes two hours regularly to her riyaz.

The healer who swears by ghazals and acoustic music, says the idea to incorporate music in her sessions hit her after she read several studies pertaining to it.

“After reading the impacts, I became conscious and I realised it actually helped. If it helped me, wouldn’t it help my patients too? I decided to give it a try,” she recalls.

After four years of trial and error, finding the right music for the right set of patients, today Sringar is one of the few specialised music therapists in Hyderabad.

While reiterating that music is universal and that the universe is based on rhythm with which everyone finds a connection, the doctor adds, “It (music therapy) is not a bandage therapy. It goes hand-in-hand with medication and rehabilitation.”

But the lack of scientific backing for music therapy makes a lot of people shy of it. She says, “It still has a long way to go, but for now I have seen music heal people.”

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> LifeStyle> Health / by Sadaf Aman / July 09th, 2016