A new book explores the impacts of trauma on the voice and how teachers can provide trauma-informed care while staying within their scope of practice.
According to the American Psychological Association, trauma is defined as an emotional response to a terrible event. Shock and denial are typical responses in the immediate aftermath of such an event, but longer-term reactions can also occur. Emily Jaworski Koriath explores how these reactions may impact singers in a new book titled Trauma and the Voice: A Guide for Singers, Teachers, and Other Practitioners (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023).
In the following interview with the author, Koriath explores how singing teachers may encounter trauma in the voice studio and how they may respond appropriately.
You state in the preface that the primary comment you hear from singing teachers when you discuss trauma is “I’m not a therapist.” You then dedicate an entire chapter to what is and what is not within the voice teacher’s scope of practice when it comes to trauma and the voice. What are the most crucial points voice teachers should know in this area?
I think the biggest thing to stress is that, while I hope every teacher can gain some understanding of trauma and how it affects minds and bodies, I am in no way saying that voice teachers should position themselves as trauma healers. This can be slightly confusing coming from me because I have undergone the multiyear training program to become a Somatic Experiencing® practitioner, and I do see private clients of all kinds to specifically address the integration of traumatic experiences. However, when I was teaching in an academic institution, I did not engage in trauma resolution with any student, because that wasn’t our shared agreement.
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What I hope for voice teachers is that, collectively, we begin to understand and accept that trauma is real and happens to a lot of people. It has lingering effects on the way we see ourselves, the ways we relate to others, our ability to tolerate the heightened nervous system states that performers experience onstage, and even our ability to process information and learn new things. I want teachers to know this because I want us to end the practice of blaming singers for what teachers may perceive as their “shortcomings” or even as character flaws. I want to transform the culture of voice instruction so that it is collaborative, constructive, and affirming.
This doesn’t mean that we give everyone a medal or a trophy, because that is professionally irresponsible. We can teach singers about the reality of the profession without also participating in abuse. The research on Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in schools shows that resilience emerges after people feel safe and seen. This holds especially true in the voice world, where we are so hungry for artists to communicate with great and sincere emotional depth. Sharing the voice and sharing one’s artistic perspective are incredibly vulnerable acts.
When people bemoan the lack of artistry in certain singers or entire generations of singers, it makes me curious about what has been missing in the system of training. For so long, the Western classical model has been that of master-apprentice, where the teacher holds all wisdom and the student becomes almost anonymous in their pursuit of perfection and the teacher’s approval.
And then we wonder why performances leave us feeling cold or unmoved. This model of training erases people and deemphasizes their uniqueness—the very perspective that would give their singing the life and vitality that listeners crave so deeply. I know that, as a field, we are capable of excellent instruction, based on our scientific understanding of how voices work, our impassioned commitment to the vocal art form, and a deep respect and appreciation for the people who come to this work hungry to make meaning.
In one of Megan Durham’s guest chapters, she outlines practices of “trauma-informed voice care,” such as cultivating mindfulness, present-moment orientation, self-inquiry, and an emphasis on observation rather than correction. Would you say that trauma-informed practices are just as necessary for modern voice teachers as practices related to building technique and artistry?
I absolutely believe this. I think we are living through an astounding scientific awakening as it relates to singing, and this has been so empowering and freeing to so many of us. And I think this is only one of the crucial parts of the equation.
We need to know our science. We need to know how things work and be able to answer singers’ questions (or at least know where to look) when things aren’t working. We still need to love music and care that people want to sing.
And, in all of this, we should never, never forget that we are teaching people. I absorbed this lesson very early in my teaching career, when I was teaching music at a public high school. There are so many things we want to address and concepts we want to present—and at the end of the day, none of that is more important than the human being in front of you. This also includes honoring your students when they are clearly going through something and just don’t want to get into it.
I tell a story in the book about an undergrad who lost her grandmother right at the end of a semester; she went home for the funeral but returned immediately to classes because she felt like she couldn’t take time off during that academic crunch. She told me this at the beginning of the lesson, and I asked her what she wanted to do; she really just wanted to press on and feel like she was making progress. We worked hard on a French art song, and at one point she became really overwhelmed and started to cry. It would have been inhumane of me to see this and ignore it, so I told her that it would be okay to stop, but she just wanted to keep going and cry a little while she perfected her vowels, and so that’s what we did.
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As teachers begin learning about trauma (which is a vast field) and how trauma impacts the voice (which is not yet widely known among singing teachers), what is some important initial information they should have to bring a more trauma-informed approach to the voice studio?
Rates of trauma are incredibly high. Recent studies suggest about one in five people have experienced trauma—but we also know that trauma is often underreported, so the actual statistics could be much higher.
Not everyone who experiences trauma has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) used by the psychological community has PTSD listed as its own entry, and there’s another entry for trauma- and stressor-related disorders. Some researchers have also started to distinguish what they call “Big T trauma” (like car accidents, surgeries, abuse, or assault) from “Little T trauma” (like bullying, shaming, and harsh criticism) which, while less severe in intensity, can still fundamentally alter our sense of self and/or behavior around others.
Some of the biggest hallmarks can easily present themselves in the studio:
- hypervigilance (which might present as tension in the body or an inability to relax)
- inability to synthesize new information
- a fundamental belief that one is flawed or damaged
- chronic helplessness
Previously, teachers might have witnessed any/all of these behaviors and written a singer off as difficult, stubborn, needy, or hopeless. I’d like us to shift that narrative. When we watch someone struggle with these issues, what if we automatically assumed that there were probably significant reasons for what we see in the studio? How would we celebrate the courage required to overcome difficult circumstances and still show up to sing? What might these resilient artists have to offer all of us?
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Emily Jaworski Koriath, editor of Trauma and the Voice, offers her working definition of trauma in the preface of the book. Paraphrasing author Resmaa Menakem, she states that trauma is what occurs in the body when the nervous system encounters more than it can process in real time. That “more,” she says, could be light, noise, violence, shame, or any number of other things. As a self-protective measure, the mind fights to forget trauma. But, she points out, the body remembers.
Koriath cites psychologist Peter Levine, who indicates that trauma is not located in an event itself, but in the nervous system’s response to the event. Each of us has a different threshold for which events are tolerable and which may result in trauma. It is not, therefore, up to outside observers to decide if someone has been “legitimately traumatized,” since we all process events differently. As Koriath states, “If there is stuck energy in the nervous system, it’s real trauma to that person.”
Koriath believes voice teachers will inevitably encounter trauma in their students. Crucially, however, teachers are not tasked with finding trauma, pointing it out, or attempting to help students work through it. Instead, Koriath states, “Our responsibility is to be aware of the prevalence of trauma, and to adopt practices that contribute to nervous system care.”
Specifically, singers are constantly moving in and out of states of “fight, flight, and freeze.” Bodies react differently to these feelings of overwhelm, and their systems find ways to keep them safe that are “innately brilliant and unique.” As teachers, we can remind students that what they are experiencing in those moments is the natural response of a healthy and adaptive nervous system.
We can do this without any knowledge of the origins of students’ traumatic history. Koriath writes, “Without even discussing trauma, it’s important for teachers to normalize the body’s response to the heightened state of performance, because a student can learn to recognize this process as healthy and necessary and choose to cooperate with it for more freedom onstage.” She further highlights that continuing to ask questions of students, requiring them to talk about their trauma, runs the risk of retraumatization. The more useful path is to simply offer safety and support.
Koriath explains that the book is intended for “the widest possible readership.” This may include obvious groups—like singers, singing teachers, and speech-language pathologists—but also psychologists and other mental health professionals who work with singers. She admits that trauma is not a new phenomenon, though it is currently having “a cultural moment.” As this moment and current interest in the topic extends to voice pedagogy, Trauma and the Voice is both a pioneering and essential resource.
