Sound Healing with Voice is a form of vibrational healing that I have developed over the last 24 years, to heal a variety of chronic and painful problems, and provide valuable insights into to their root causes. It is entirely voice-based, client-centered and often shamanic.

On the most concrete, physical level, Sound Healing with Voice can quickly relieve muscle tension and pain, and provide surprisingly powerful support for physical therapy and related bodywork. For example, a client who had just had surgery for a chronically dislocating shoulder, reinjured that shoulder on the way to a session with me. We immediately used sound healing to relieve the worst of his pain. Then I showed him how to introduce sound healing techniques to his daily practice of post-op physical therapy exercises. We tailored these techniques to his particular needs: to provide support for the stability of the joint, free up range of motion during recovery, and help build muscle strength. When he came back the following week, he couldn’t wait to tell me the good news: his doctor had never seen such swift recovery from that kind of surgery in all the years of his practice!

Sound Healing with Voice can be a precise diagnostic tool on many levels. While it is often said that the eyes are the mirror of the soul, it could as easily be said that the voice is the mirror of the whole person. To a trained ear, it is a direct reflection not only of one’s emotional state at any point in time, but also a clear indicator of physical misalignment, chronic muscle tension, and energetic imbalances. It is also a mirror of one’s personal history of shame and trauma, and it can demonstrate precisely where those wounds are held in the body.

Because of this, Sound Healing with Voice can reveal profound insights on the root cause of ailments, whether those roots are physical or emotional. For example, many of my clients have used sound healing for chronic problems that can be traced to childhood sexual abuse, often at the physical location of the original trauma. In the course of a session, the client sends sound into that area of the body, asking it questions as directed. These sessions often bring immediate tangible results, profound new insights and practical guidance on further treatment.

It is also a powerful tool for emotional discharge -- the voice being the most natural medium for that purpose. Memories deeply buried in the body are often inaccessible if approached only through verbal, cognitive means. Sound Healing with Voice safely opens up floodgates of old anger, old grief, so the client can reclaim their sense of freedom, boundaries and personal power. Since it is client-centered, this work proceeds only as quickly and as deeply as the client is prepared to go. Once those gates are open, the toxins can be cleared and released, and lessons are integrated.

Entirely Voice-based
There is no instrument as flexible and versatile as the human voice, none as expressive or articulate. So it is a uniquely precise tool for healing that can be applied in ways that are absolutely unique to the client’s needs. Every individual voice has its own unique and extensive vocabulary in shadings of timbre, breath, rhythm and inflection. Even beyond the differences from one voice to another, the sound of the voice can change dramatically based on the emotional content of what is expressed. This extends that vocabulary even further, which can bring a surgical precision to healing work tailored to the individual client, much more so than non-vocal means such as tuning forks or Tibetan bowls.

Intention is the key. Every session is absolutely unique to that client; unique to their voice, their system and their capacity for growth and transformation at any point in time.

Since emotional wounds frequently affect one’s capacity for free and full vocal expression, many people carry a history of shame and self-criticism specifically about their voices. For that reason, it has always been important to me to use the very simplest vocal means, a simple hum or “ah” on a single tone, to remove all embarassment for the client. The client is never required to sing a tune in this work. In fact the focus is placed entirely on the physical sensation of making the sound --bringing their whole awareness to the vibration in their body as they direct sound to the afflicted area. Then we can proceed to use the information that is revealed in the process, without the distractions that would otherwise appear from conventional aesthetic considerations. Because the individual voice is already so profoundly expressive --even in the simplest toning-- there is still plenty of rich content, fully and precisely expressed.

There is a lovely paradox in using the voice for healing. Not only is it the active tool used in the healing, it is its beneficiary. As the client progresses toward greater health, toward strength and clarity, the stronger and clearer the voice becomes, and the more easily they can express themselves with full authenticity and presence. The voice frees up the whole person, and thus the voice is freed (see Voice Healing).

Client-centered sound healing
Many sound healers have developed abstract systems for their work, linking up specific pitches and overtones with chakras, colors, body parts, etc. --and applying those systems to all of their clients’ needs. I have chosen to go a very different way. While these systems do offer much of value, I have found that the most reliable guide is always the client’s own unique system on the day of a session. I’ve found it much more productive to start with a totally blank slate and listen entirely to the individual who is in my office, here and now. The client is invariably wiser about what they truly need than I could ever be.

So I listen to both their words and the sound of the voice in their body, which always speaks eloquently and in great detail. I listen to who they are --today-- as opposed to what I may have heard from them in a previous session. I even do my best to listen, with full respect, for any fine shades of hesitation as I ask a question or make a suggestion.

No matter how many years I do this work, it brings me back to beginner’s mind again and again. My clients constantly surprise me, taking our work in directions I could not possibly have predicted. There is a whole world of information that is available when I keep that fully blank slate, when I let go of my own expectations based on previous experiences. Every Sound Healing technique I’ve ever developed has appeared intuively while in session, because a unique client needed relief for their unique pain. I fully expect to continue to be surprised by the delightful uniqueness of every client. It calls me to a fresh new dance every day.

To send sound into a part of the body, into pain and trauma, is to invite the body to speak. When we do so, we are taking the chance that the body may tell us surprising, provocative things. This is an exciting adventure of discovery and it can only be accurately --and safely-- directed when client genuinely holds the reins.

While I do sometimes offer options and choices, my role is primarily that of a witness. Someone who is there to ask questions with no attachment to answers, fully available and willing to be surprised. I am here to provide a safe container so my clients are free to perform their own miracles. The client most definitely holds the answers, the wisdom, and the life-force to heal themselves and can be entirely trusted to do so. This role of the witness reminds me how very privileged I am to behold those miracles as they occur. I celebrate the courage, the ingenuity, and the deep heart that these people bring to their healing journey.
Because of my strong opinions in favor of client-centered work, I generally seek ways to encourage the client in using their own voice in a sound healing session, rather than making the sound myself. When the client makes the sound, they can direct it safely and pace their own progress. Thus I am freed up to help them process insights as they appear, and provide support for whatever emotional discharge may follow.

While this has been my practice for most of these 24 years, I also occasionally use my voice in this work as well. Sometimes, a client benefits from joining in with my voice, in order to overcome shyness. As soon as they are ready to continue on their own, I leave it to them to make the sound. Shamanic Song (described below) is another technique that includes the sound of my voice and I use it sparingly, only after I have considered other options.

There is another technique that I’ve been developing recently, where my voice is an important component. In this kind of session, I send the sound from my body, through crystals specifically chosen for the individual session, then into the afflicted area of the body. This technique is still very much in development.

While this and other techniques can bring results that are quite valuable, I continue to believe very strongly that the most powerful and enduring work occurs when sound healing is vocalized and directed primarily by the client themselves. It may not always be the most dramatic or cathartic, but it is generally the most genuine and lasting in its results. The vast majority of Sound Healing with Voice continues to involve the client making their own sound.

Sound Healing as Shamanic work
Whatever our tools and training as holistic practitioners, there is always a measure of the mysterious in our work. I believe that the true source of healing is the rich tapestry of myth, the dreamtime, the "back of the head", which defies all our logical forebrain efforts to define it. This is a land of Coyote-song, and it is too slippery to be entirely contained or predicted. This work has its own language, its own geography, its own timetable, with a cast of characters that can play a rich and surprising role in the healing. They often speak most clearly and expressively in paradox and riddles.

For example, we may find liberation from stubborn, chronic pain, only once we are open to acknowledge how it has been useful to us --as an ally and a valued teacher. We may discover that we are only to truly heal if we are willing to draw up new contracts with that pain from a place of respect, and even gratitude. Sound Healing with Voice provides tools for talking directly with these allies, asking them to teach us whatever lesson they have been holding for us, in that pain. Once we have learned those lessons and given thanks to the teachers, then we are finally free to let the pain go, to cleanse and release the toxins.
Sound Healing with Voice can also support shamanic journey work in profound and effective ways. It brings the client very swiftly to a trance state and illuminates every stage of the journey, while allowing them to be conscious and present enough to discuss their discoveries along the way. Ancient, archetypal images appear very naturally as guides in this work, speaking from a set of symbols that carry meaning for us all. The tools of dream interpretation are then brought immediately to the conscious level, in a vital and active fashion.

Shamanic Song is a sound healing technique that I have used for many years, albeit sparingly. Like sound healing work with crystals, it also uses the sound of my voice. Powerfully cathartic, and fundamentally based on witnessing the energy of the client, it is a kind of psychic reading that is expressed through vocal sound rather than language. The vocalizations that emerge sometimes barely sound human, as they can be the “voice” of the pain itself, a voice that has often been held silent and stuck for many years. (To see a testimonial describing this technique, click here and scroll down to the last quote by Char O’Brien.)

At other times, what comes through in Shamanic Song is recognisably musical --for example, a channelled song from a spirit guide or a musical message from a departed loved one. It has been used to bear witness to the energy of an entire group of people, at services in response to 9/11 at Unity in Chicago and the Peace Garden. It has “sung” the paintings of traditional Tibetan Buddhist painter Romio Shrestha, and carried urgent messages from trees at Garfield Park Conservatory. It has also channelled the love and promise of a newlywed couple, into a totally improvised, yet fully-formed song at their wedding reception.

Beyond palliative effects
Sound healing can be profoundly relaxing. Bringing a client to that deep meditative state is a powerful tool for healing indeed. But so much more can be done with these tools, and ultimately relaxation is only a pleasant side-effect. Also, while sound healing can indeed be a powerful trance-inducer for shamanic journey work, I’ve found it to be most genuinely productive as it deepens and clarifies specific insights that may be revealed during that journey itself. It does much more than simply open the door, it is a guide throughout the journey.

As a lifelong student of Shadow work, I've always felt drawn to the deeply transformative possibilities of Sound Healing. While I never seek out intense emotional catharsis for its own sake --indeed this work is often experienced as a gentle, graceful process-- these techniques are explicitly designed to produce concrete and very specific results. One example of the therapeutic applications of this work is a detox workshop I led for peace activists in the spring of '03. This workshop provided tools to help activists discharge feelings of rage, exhaustion and despair, providing practical tools to prevent burnout as they continue with their work.

Sound Healing with Voice has direct applications that anyone can use in maintaining and improving health. It unlocks muscle tension, sending warmth and increasing blood flow in the areas of the body where the sound is directed (a client of mine once used Sound Healing to warm her hands at a football game!). It helps us integrate body parts, and builds our connection to grounding, communicating through plumb lines into the earth. It facilitates dialogue with long-held problems so that we may process the lessons and move on into greater freedom and ease with our lives.

It is the loving, wise song of the soul, as it pulses through the body and illuminates the lessons of our journeys. It calls us to tell our story and celebrate our liberation. Like so many of the simple yet powerful gifts of this world, it can bring us profound blessings on all levels of our lives.

New Developments (for more information, click here)
• monthly Sound Healing circle, starting fall of ’06, where lay and professional practitioners can share ideas and techniques, explore ways to heal each other, and provide mutual support. .
• Sound Healing for hands-on bodywork, voiced by practitioners while still maintaining a strong commitment to client-centered work
• anti-inflammatory techniques that produce a cooling effect, compared to the warming technique used to unlock muscle tension --an icepack instead of a heating pad
• Sound Healing for Tantra
• integrating international traditions of sacred music, such as kirtan, with Sound Healing tools

Other Forms of Sound Healing
Much has already been written about various techniques of sound healing that are very different from the kind of work that I do. For a general overview, especially with respect to non-vocal tools such as Tibetan singing bowls, see Mitchell Gaynor’s Sounds of Healing. A number of books, such as The Healing Forces of Music by Randall McClellan, describe the psychoacoustics of sound healing. Jonathan Goldman speaks of how sound healing can be used for energy balancing at www.healingsounds.com. Robert Gass’ Chanting and The World is Sound by Joachim-Ernst Berendt speak of the historical connection between music, spiritual practice and sound healing. There are many other valuable books on the market, not cited here.

However, the kind of sound healing work that I practice is very different from techniques described in those books. My practice has more in common with expressive arts therapy, shamanic traditions from Central Asia and the curandera, Paul Newham’s Therapeutic Voicework, and the Jungian concept of the shadow and active imagination.