Citation

Hearns MC. Anthropol. Conscious. 2009; 20(2): 111-129.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1556-3537.2009.01014.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This is the story of Lisa1—a woman like so many others who has been abused—and of her healing journey using music and creative arts experiences. It is also a story about how music, song, poetry, art, and dance awakened her to a new consciousness and provided the necessary empowerment she needed in order to reclaim the woman she had been before experiencing the trauma of abuse. While the question of how utilization of music and the creative arts encourages personal transformation and healing is also deserving of a theoretical exploration, in this article I have chosen to foreground Lisa's story as narrative, in order to also engage the reader with the transformative potential of empowerment that comes through listening. I have chosen an approach that foregrounds Lisa's experience over theory explicitly, for, it is with the process of “finding voice” and of engaging the listener in that process, that transformation of consciousness and empowerment occurs.