Are we trauma informed? A guide for singing teachers

In this 12th extract from her AOTOS Keynote speech, Dr Gillyanne Kayes explores the different levels of trauma awareness, and the necessity of boundaries in a singing lesson.

“Are we trauma informed? Full disclosure. I’m not very keen on our using the word ‘trauma’, not in our advertising. Not unless we’ve had significant training in this area.

TRAUMA!!

What does that do to your sympathetic nervous system? Yes, it might get eyeballs, but what it does is it signifies danger. And I’m not sure it’s a good thing in our self-promotion.

These four categories you can see up here, these come from Petra Borzynski of Singing Sense, and I really like the way that she’s unpacked the journey from Awareness, Sensitivity (plenty of courses you can do on this), being Trauma Responsive (you’ve done a lot of study and you can actually start making interventions – you have supervision), to being Trauma Informed (which means almost certainly that you are a psychotherapist with an interest in that area).  So I think when you’re choosing to do a course that’s going to give you some kind of label, that might be some you want to check out.

I want to talk a little bit further on this topic. Oh, by the way there’s an excellent book out now published by the NATS organisation, it’s called Trauma and the Voice: A Guide for Singers, Teachers, and Other Practitioners

Your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems

Well, Mental health awareness – you know, that’s another matter. We know that mental health issues are on the increase, especially in the younger population. And knowing a little about your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems is frankly an essential life-skill these days. And I particularly like the way these are unpacked by Franka van Essen, one of our Registered Teachers who has trained in Polyvagal Theory the Science of Safety. I apologise this isn’t on the slide, but remember you can see these post-hoc. She has set up a traffic-light system so we can have awareness of regulated and dysregulated states. You’ve probably heard these words.

So the green zone, you feel safe and connected to the people around you. And hopefully you’re all feeling like that.

Orange zone, stressed and overwhelmed.

Red zone, you are depleted and have asked too much of your system. Maybe you’ve shut down physically or mentally. It’s honestly normal for every one of us to move between these zones as we go through the day.

The issue becomes when we stay in either the orange or red zones, and then problems can occur.

Simple techniques for singing teachers

So some simple techniques. And these techniques I’m going to be giving to you as teachers. As a matter of fact I think anyone who’s client-led is probably quite good at getting their client or their choir into the room and making that safe space. But you know we leave ourselves out of the equation. What about us, what are we bringing into the room.

Check into yourself. Learn ways to self-regulate. Maybe a bit of meditation, maybe a bit of mindfulness. Maybe some breath work. Take a moment between sessions. Because the thing is if you’re self-regulated it’s going to be easier for you to help your student if they’re not. The first thing you should do is match their energy before you attempt to bring them down. So if someone’s stressed and they’re coming in and telling you all about their day and their stuff and this is going on and I haven’t learned my pieces and everything’s all over – match their energy just for a minute or two. Again, use regulation strategies to bring them down. We have breathing exercises, there are physical things you can do, and it’s a “do” rather than “tell”. Because what you don’t want to do is engage in all of that stress to make them feel better – avoid it!

Boundaries in a singing lesson

Let me move now to boundaries. It’s still on the same slide, because boundaries is another solution

You’ve probably heard people talking about boundaries in a lesson. And as a matter of fact that’s something else I got from Petra Borzynski. And anyone who’s a parent or teacher has had to learn about boundaries. Boundaries make your teaching exchange safe, not only in the obvious physical sense, but also psychologically. And remember that boundaries protect YOUR well-being.

One of our teachers recently found herself in the unusual situation of working with a minor towards an audition. The parent was in the room verbalising consistently negative messaging about the student’s skills. And our teacher was very upset about the negative messaging because they are all about inclusion, access.

So we devised a way of setting a clear boundary and protocol for the next lesson. They explained that performance preparation for auditions needs clear messaging and the teacher is in charge of this. Any ‘critique’ or advice is framed within a positive instruction. The lesson went very differently – the parent sat back and zipped up.

So in this case, the boundary made the parent feel safe, and the teacher, and allowed the teacher to get on with her job.”

Gillyanne’s further reflections

This is a nuanced area, with differing opinions on what is meant by ‘trauma informed’. Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that even in my speech I somewhat conflated the ‘levels’ of the different categories, which might have confused those who were there, or anyone reading the transcript above.

So to clarify the different levels of expertise:

Awareness – knowing ABOUT trauma – what it is and how it might affect people

Sensitivity – how to look for the SIGNS of trauma in your clients, understand your boundaries, and signals to refer on

Responsive – integrating TOOLS in lessons to assist with dysregulated states and support resilience whilst staying within your boundaries

Informed – you have taken some type of CERTIFIED COURSE in the application of all the above and have access to supervision. You do not ‘treat’.

I am grateful to Petra Borzynski for her input on these points of clarification and refer you to her more detailed thoughts as a practising psychotherapist
https://singingsense.com/2023/04/21/trauma-informed-practice-in-voice-pedagogy/

 

Here at Vocal Process we feel it’s important to understand the implications of inviting trauma into our practice – unless we’re well prepared for it. In our own teacher-training course (the Teacher Accreditation), we have a certified life coach in Anne Leatherland to assist when our course participants need help with their own self-regulation or have concerns about boundaries with their own students. Our Registered Teachers also have access to supervision from a registered psychotherapist if they need it. Similarly if they need advice from a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist.

Thinking about all of this takes me once again to thinking about professional regulation. One of my closest friends dating right back to secondary school is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist specialised in trauma. She works with a range of different modalities including polyvagal theory, dance therapy and sensorimotor processing. Recently I asked her about professional validation, commenting that I was surprised psychotherapists were not a ‘protected title’ [read about protected titles in the UK here https://www.hcpc-uk.org/about-us/who-we-regulate/the-professions/]

She then explained how each year a practising psychotherapist needs to demonstrate that they are keeping up with supervision, addressing competencies and any updating, and that every five years, the re-evaluation requirements were more extensive. Different organisations have different requirements but there will be a regular process of ongoing evaluation. And it does seem to me that since our own profession is unregulated, we need to tread very carefully around the issue of trauma.

Moving forward into what we can do as singing teachers it seems to me that what courses can offer us as non-psychotherapists is to equip ourselves with awareness and strategies to be ‘trauma-sensitive’ and perhaps ‘trauma-responsive’. But first, having awareness of our own regulated to non-regulated states is essential if we are going to hold the space for others.

If you’re eager to understand more about what we CAN do to assist our students when they’re dysregulated, click here for our new online 2-hour Pop-up course with Franka Van Essen  Creating a safe space: insights from polyvagal theory for vocal professionals

 

What are your thoughts on the phrase “trauma informed” and who should use it in advertising?

What self-regulation techniques do you use?

Are you able to prioritise self-care and establish clear boundaries in your lessons? How does this manifest?

 

Click here for part 11 of Gillyanne’s AOTOS Keynote – Mind The Gap – Vocal Health Care in Singing Education

Click here for part 13 of Gillyanne’s AOTOS Keynote – The Impact of Social Censorship on Singing Education and Song Choices

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