JAZZ, GROWTH AND MENTAL HEALTH

I once came across an interesting fictional story about the great jazz player, Charlie ‘Bird” Parker “, that takes place late in his life where he is dealing with paranoia and aggressive fantasies, possibly due to his substance use. This story reminded me of many other Jazz musicians that also succumbed to addictions and experienced mental health issues. Over the years I have found other important aspects that tie jazz music to human growth and experience.

The history of Jazz has its roots in African spirituals, blues and gospel music. This evolved to other types of jazz music in the 20^th Century. Jazz music is embedded in the history of 250 years of slavery and many decades of a cruel and immoral institutional apartheid system that ended in the 1960’s. These circumstances were lived and deeply felt by these musicians.

Jazz has its origins in New Orleans and it quickly spread north to other major cities, such as Chicago and New York City where it blossomed and developed to become basically the American classical music. There seems to be a preference for wind instruments in this musical expression, as opposed to strings that characterize European classical music. I have often wondered if blowing a horn, can also be a form of releasing stress and painful experiences.

Improvisation is a very unique quality of jazz, this is a spontaneous act of something new to the process of composition and performance, a way of making it up as you go. I actually prefer saxophonist Steve Lacy’s description of improvisation as “having a quality of freshness that comes from being prepared, so that it can take you to the edge, always being on the brink of the unknown, being prepared to leap”

As a child psychiatrist and someone interested in human development, growth and mental health, I think that jazz and especially its method of improvisation has strong parallels with many aspects of human experience and interactions, including some forms of psychotherapies, mentorships and parent-child bonding.

During my child psychiatry training, I realized that the focus of this type of training was mainly on children 3 years of age and older. Early on, I became fascinated with “infant psychiatry” which focuses on infants 0 to 3 years of age and this exciting period of development. I joined a research study, which required viewing parent-infant video interactions and scoring frozen microseconds sections of these interactions. This led to developing a strong interest in early child development, especially in the area of language and socialization.

Stanley Greenspan MD a leader in this field, whom I had the opportunity to speak one night on the phone and discuss some of his research at length, greatly impacted my interest in this area. Dr Greenspan describes human development of language and social relatedness, which occur within the context of a strong parent-infant bond as they improvise a new form of communication. This “back and forth” interaction between them, or as Dr Greenspan coined this process, “opening and closing circles of communication” which eventually develops into language and more mature social behavior.

This process of child development can be compared with a jazz ensemble, where just as the players have a background in music, infants are born prewired to be able to develop these skills. Although infants require the engagement with a caring adult. The perception and attunement to each other’s body movements, vocal expressions and gestures leads to improvising, accommodating and creating a new form of communication. In a similar way, jazz musicians develop a musical piece as they practice their craft.

There is growing research evidence that the brain has greater plasticity during the first three years of life. This means that it is more responsive and adaptive. This plasticity creates more risks and opportunities during this crucial period of development. Examples of risks include excessive stress, unpredictability, threats and deprivation, which can lead to adverse consequences. Protective factors including stable supportive caregiving and buffering stress can be beneficial. Fortunately, life provides another opportunity of brain plasticity in puberty which can be used to repair and recalibrate previous traumas and allow for resilience.

Certain psychotherapies resemble the approached used between jazz musicians during their performances. Many of the short term evidenced based therapies are useful in reducing unwanted symptoms of various disorders like, depression, anxiety and posttraumatic stress. These are very beneficial approaches, much like medications which are used to provide relief of painful states.  Although I would venture that intensive types of psychotherapies can be more conducive to building a therapeutic bond, where the therapist becomes more attuned, listens attentively and provides an empathic approach. These more intensive therapies support the patient’s initiative to figure out important aspects of themselves, which can lead to personal growth and discover their creative potential. This improvisational approach where the therapist does not start with a preset notion, but instead discovers it together through this process, akin to the method used in Jazz.

The concept of Improvisation is relevant and applicable in mentorship relationships between two individuals at different levels of expertise and experience. This can be crucial for personal or professional growth. Mentorship is beneficial to both parties and can persist while it is useful to either person, interjecting new ideas as they work together in sync. Just like two musicians with different degrees of experience and talent will influence each other while they are playing together. This is likely to lead to growth over time in their abilities as they discover together areas of interest and creativity.

In summary, the link between jazz and its unique method of improvisation can assist us in understanding human behavior and interactions. The creators of this musical genre seemed to intuitively understand human development and creativity. Despite the asphyxiating conditions of the times for those involved in this creative expression, it allowed an outlet to their stressful conditions resulting in resiliency in many of these musicians and in others leading to posttraumatic growth in their professional and creative lives.

I believe that we can all benefit from understanding and using this method of improvisation to enrich our lives and become more creative individuals. Our participation in Shrink Box, is an example of this impact, where the sum is greater than our individual capacities, along with the greater participation of our public which can lead to a collective growth.

Shrink Box Podcast is a social and mental health initiative carried by Dr. German Corso (Child Psychiatrist), Dr. Daniel Gutierrez (Child Psychiatrist) and Dr. Ricardo Irizarry (Brain Injury Medicine). We are a group of mental health experts proudly serving our community at South Texas Behavioral Health and Tropical Texas Behavioral Health.