BENGALURU : Arya G, a 16-year-old was enrolled in an IB school and began feeling extreme stress and pressure. “From a very young age, I was never confident with my body or myself. As I reached my teenage years, I got into self-harming and binge-eating as a way of coping with the disappointment I felt about my body image,” she says. To add to this, her brother, who she was very close to, moved to the USA for college which triggered a severe sense of loneliness. “I knew I needed help after months of trying to deal with my severe emotions.”
After a few sessions of Cognitive Behavioral therapy (CBT), she was also introduced to music as part of a self-guided neuroscience-based therapeutic technique called CAPE (Creative Arts for Processing Emotions). Developed by a psychiatrist-cum-musician from the city, Dr Ramya Mohan, in collaboration with the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Centre, UK and musicians from India and UK, CAPE has been administered to 50 patients like Arya in Bengaluru and others in places such as London (where she is partly-based) and Australia.
Dr Ramya says, while this has formally not been made available in India yet, a full-fledged launch is being planned within a year in the city. “CAPE uses a blend of eastern and western music for emotional processing, equilibrium and supports recovery from illness and restores emotional and physical well-being,” she adds. She has also conducted sessions in various schools and colleges in the state such as RV College of Engineering, Mangalore University and St Joseph’s Educational Institutions.
About the therapy Arya further says, “With the therapy I once again started to feel the love I had for music which helped me reach my biggest dream. I got a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in the US,” she says.Chandni Ramesh (name changed) , another 16-year-old who was enroled into CAPE, realised she had depression and anxiety when she was just 13 years old. She also found out that she was queer.
“I come from a musical family and it had always been my way of expressing emotion. The use of music to stabilise my emotions helped me,” says Chandini, who is also a public speaker. She has participated in a number of debates and says music as part of the therapy made her more confident. “Apart from music, public speaking is also my way of expression and a platform to be myself with all the imperfections and perfections,” she adds.
Talking about the difference between common music therapies and CAPE, Dr Ramya points out, “CAPE is not just music therapy. It is music-based, also integrating well-evidenced multi-modal therapy principles. It has also been standardised for the very first time to make it applicable to populations,” she says, adding that music therapy worked on a more individual level. “With dynamic changes in environment, using a single modality technique may not help the brain as much as a multi-modal therapy,” says this alumni of Bangalore Medical College. Dr Ramya has also presented her research at various international workshops and conferences such as The Mental Wealth Festival in London, UK’s House of Lords, Liverpool HOPE University and Milapfest, to name a few.