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Marcos Vidret is an Argentinian music therapist with extensive experience working with seniors. He’s also president of ASAM (Argentinian Music Therapy Association). In the past years, he specialized in community work in day centers. In this brief interview, Mr. Vidret shares his background, his views and his work in these day centers.
Can you tell us more about your training in Music therapy, including any congress or seminar that may have contributed to the professional you are today?My music therapy professional training started at the University of El Salvador, where I studied music therapy and obtained a liceantiateship in music therapy. I also completed a postgraduate course on Plurimodal Approach at the University of Buenos Aires. For one year, I did a student exchange in North Carolina. I’ve also been to several World Congresses. The Congress in Washington in the year 1999 was an important one for me as I learned about exchanging and accessing information from different professionals in the field. The subject, Community Music Therapy, of the Oxford World Congress in the year 2002 was very interesting as well. Currently, I have completed a master’s in community social psychology at the University of Buenos Aires. I believe that this is strengthening my work with seniors.How did you first started working with seniors? Did it interest you from the start, or did it happen gradually? I started working with seniors at inpatient geriatric institutions. The residents usually had severe problems. My work there was to improve the daily lives of people living in these institutions. Restoring the health of the patients was not the focus of my work. In fact, I was working specifically on helping people feel better about where they live, despite the fact that it isn’t their home and that they are surrounded by people with whom they don’t have any social historical bond. In other words, I work on improving the everyday life of older adults living in a geriatric institution.In Argentina, most seniors (about 90%) do not live in geriatric institutions. I asked myself where I could work with seniors in my community. That’s when I started working in day centers for seniors, initially as a volunteer, and as part of the interdisciplinary team in these community programs where seniors participate in activities of their choice and where they are engaging with others.What is the work like in these community centers? How did it affect your music therapy approach?There’s a professional team integrated by a psychologist and a social worker. Sometimes we work specific cases, some specific situation with someone; it’s not a completely systematic work. There’s a lot about constructing meaning and relational ties. Most important is the focus on health by the participants themselves, which wasn’t previously thought of from a music therapy perspective with them.It has to do with participation and flexibility from the music therapist’s work and with developing expressive possibilities. Also, participants participate in revising their own history, from the present day to the past, and reviewing significance of this history. This is mainly achieved with songs. The known song, where you can experiment with its meaning in your personal history but also the new song. And it may happen with seniors and new music, new artists, and how, from the way these songs are sung and shared, they live the songs and socialize with another person. This is very interesting.Sometimes we work on a certain project or presentation. Currently we’re working with one, “The Neighborhood Through the Eyes of Seniors,” so we’re making songs about all the different neighborhoods (since these day centers are all around the city). We talk about all the distinctive features of their neighborhoods from their standpoint. Every project is very special. For example, in one of them, a tango comes up, but in another one a rock, blues, or tropical kind of song may be significant.Do students or graduates participate as a Practicum?Yes, the center I’m coordinating is incorporated in the professional practicum of the students at the University of Buenos Aires.What skills are necessary to develop in this type of settings? Natalia Alvarez (MT from ASAM) and I, we speak about experiences of appropriation, as many music therapists call it “Musicking,” or Charles Keil’s Groovology. One works with people who are moved by the musical experience, they make it their own, and beyond that point they project themselves, and who they are. I think as music therapists we need to think of the term healthy musical experience as the primordial object of our work and how it boosts health in people. Furthermore, I think we need to be clear to non-music therapists, either fellow health workers or society in general, about what music therapy brings in and what it doesn’t. Music therapy doesn’t do everything.I believe I have mentioned this already but enabling self-expression is very important. It is important to offer opportunities for self-expression to help clients find a way to process their new experiences. On the other hand, we work with the work dynamic, the relations among a group and toward others. Also, the social aspect of what I said about seniors being relevant and sharing their views on society, on their neighborhoods, is important. It’s about empowering seniors, strengthening their roles as participants of their community, and making a change in whatever view society has of them.Information provided by Paula Gómez Carrillo, ArgentinaWFMT Student Delegate for Latin America
