Davi the Cat - Adventures in Starting a Relationship

My sister is sitting here, and I decided to pick her brain about my blog post for this morning (sorry it's late, Janice, my friend!). It's not going to be a Supplemental Sunday post as I haven't made anything this week, but it is music therapy post.

This is Davi. She's a scaredy-cat in all sense of the word. She's skittish, frightened, jumpy, difficult to lure, and somewhat distrustful. We usually talk on the phone, Miss Davi and I, but this the only the second time that we've ever met each other in person. The first time, she allowed me to stroke her while her person was holding her tightly. This time, I am making progress on building our relationship.

Meeting Davi and trying to get her to know me is very similar to building a relationship with clients at times.

Often, my clients arrive at my facility after being shuttled from place to place for a time. They've been in different schools, treatment programs, foster homes, and detention situations. They often arrive to our place with many of the same "scaredy-cat" traits that Davi has right now. They are difficult to get to know. Sometimes they run away from new people, sometimes they try the "I'm tough" attitude. They don't initiate interaction with others because they have had interactions in the past that have not encouraged feelings of safety or security. (Davi was found in a dumpster when she was barely new - she was taken from that environment and went to a shelter where my sister found her and fell in love.)

It is important to find a way into relationship with clients (and kitties) in a manner that allows the client to make the primary decisions and moves.

With Davi, I am finding a slow, quiet approach is working best. I go into a room and sit still when she approaches. I talk to her with a low, slow voice, and I wait for her to approach me. It's working. She's not running to hide under the pillows in the farthest corner of my sister's room anymore. She is starting to approach me for sniffing and let me stroke her FOUR TIMES THIS MORNING! She even ate a treat out of my hand! (My mom is going to be SOOO annoyed with me! Davi won't approach her at all yet!)

My relationship process with my clients is often similar. I do what I do and offer opportunities to clients, but I never push someone into a situation where they may feel trapped. I have met clients who are extremely skittish whenever the word music is mentioned. (My heart breaks when that happens because it probably means an interaction with a music educator who simply doesn't know how to approach someone with markedly different needs and learning processes.) Those clients do everything possible to avoid music therapy, but I can usually get them to understand that music therapy is not the same as anything they've ever experienced at school before. Once I can find their "in," music therapy is something that they look forward to and one place that they fully engage.

The difficulty often comes in finding the "in."

With Davi, slow, quiet, and still is starting to work. With some of my clients that is the strategy that they respond to as well. With others, not so much.

Sometimes the "in" is asking about a favorite song. Sometimes it's cultivating your own knowledge about German Death Metal (my current homework assignment). Sometimes it is standing up to bullying behavior and not backing down. Sometimes it's putting the music therapy process aside and just spending time with a client in other places in order to generate some familiarity. Each person has a relationship entry point (sometimes it's for a negative relationship, but that's an entirely different blog post all together), and it is important for the therapist to find that entry point and build around it. 

I am going to spend some more time with Davi. She and I are building that relationship and will continue (mainly because I want to snuggle with her - she's SO fluffy), but at her pace and timing.

She has the control.

I will wait.

Happy Sunday!!