In Toulouse, Camille Maratuech uses music therapy to treat her patients
When words can no longer cure ailments, music becomes a vector of therapy. This is how could take over the music therapy in one sentence. This job, Camille Maratuech practice for eight years. Today, she has been working in Toulouse since 2020. And to treat her patients, she uses sound and its instruments. Whether in liberal, in hospital or in associations, she often intervenes in an environment of care and with a variety of audiences.
Currently, she even exercises at the Amidonniers nursery and the one at Saint-Cyprien. Here, she takes care of children who have integration difficulties in particular. But before arriving in Haute-Garonne, this 33-year-old young woman first worked in Hérault from 2015 to 2019. the nursing home Yves Couzy, in Saint-André-de-Sangonis, while working at the hospital and in a private practice in the oncology department. And each of his experiences reinforced his passion for a profession that became a vocation from his teenage years.
>> READ ALSO : In Toulouse, Florence Bonicel uses prenatal singing to accompany expectant mothers
The dream of a child born in music
For Camille Maratuech, these are two episodes of his life who pushed him in this direction. First of all the music. “When I was little, I played the violin, and my sister the piano. When she stopped, she took the time to teach me the basics very carefully. And I was able to join the conservatory” , she explains to The Independent Opinion. The “therapist” aspect came a few years later, following an exchange with his mother, a specialized educator at the time.
She told me the fascinating story of a young person with autism. She was gone in a spectacular crisis, “she recalls.” No one knew what to do. But an educator arrived with his guitar. He settled on the frantic pace of the girl. Then little by little, he reduced this rhythm, and she gradually calmed down, “she describes with emotion.
From a situation that seemed unmanageable, this educator knew how to take the backing of this young girl, “as if he had taken her by the hand”, adds Camille. “And this incredible story made me dream”.
A profession that is still too little developed in France
To bring her project to life, she decides to learn more about the subject. “I first went through a musicology license and one master’s degree in ethnomusicology after the baccalaureate “, she specifies. Then after a one-year gap in Italy to mature her project, she moved to Montpellier. She then began the DU in music therapist in three years. And that’s where the adventure begins for her. Today, she would like the profession to develop and be recognized as a health profession.
Since the 90s, we have started to see, thanks to brain imaging, that music has a much greater impact than just distraction. It would restructure the brain. So we must continue observations in this area, “she explains.
In the United States, for example, the music therapist is part of the care team. But in France, hospitals often do not no funding for hires. “We then work in close collaboration with associations”, specifies Camille Maratuech. Sign of this lack of recognition: the renewal of status each year from the National Directory of Professional Certifications (RNCP). “It makes the situation precarious at that level.”
>> READ ALSO : At the Toulouse University Hospital, Valérie is a hospital biographer for patients at the end of their life
Getting to know your patient
Camille Maratuech also insists on the way of practicing music therapy. While she was only a trainee, she recounts an episode that became a trainer for her.
I had used an ‘ocean drum’ which reproduced the sound of waves. But due to a lack of experience and information, a patient reacted very badly to this sound. I learned later that her son had drowned at sea. I had awakened a trauma in her, “she laments.
A session then follows a very specific protocol. To begin with, a “psychomusical” assessment in three stages is realised. “We first perform a interview, with a standard questionnaire. ”The latter can be adapted according to the patients, whether or not they can verbalize. attempts.
The first is receptive. “We listen to various musical works. It allows us to know what type of music the patient is sensitive to,” says Camille. Then come the tests active, namely the use and grip of instruments.
We can thus have a better understanding of the patient’s difficulties. It is also a help in establishing the future care plan “.
>> READ ALSO : PORTRAIT – Maurice Chan, this stuntman who shoots with big names in cinema
Adapt and personalize monitoring
The tests then make it possible to orient either towards a active music therapy, receptive u neuromusicotherapeutic. In the first case, the instruments are multiple and adapt to the patients. “The ocean drum and the sanzas (small thumb pianos, editor’s note) are often used for newborns. Then there is the guitar, the ukulele, the piano, the small percussions or the djembe”, explains Camille.
Above, all the instruments used by Camille during her music therapy sessions. © / CM
In receptive music therapy, the work is done on listening to music, for sessions of relaxation and of relaxation. To do this, she uses headphones and a sound montage called a “U-shaped soundtrack”, created for the patient.
Neuromusicotherapy is more specific, since we mainly work on the specific neurological and rehabilitation aspect, ”she says.
This tool will, for example, benefit the Parkinson disease with the use of RAS (auditory and rhythmic stimulation). “With the help of a physiotherapist, the goal is to achieve energize walking deteriorated by disease. With guitar and percussion for example. “Here, we support the patient’s approach, a bit like a crutch, to reassure walking and gait”, image the young woman.
Music, a real therapeutic tool
But for her, this profession cannot be improvised.
You have to be a musician before being a music therapist, because it is our working tool. I met many music therapists who were not sufficiently trained, either in musical practice, or in fields such as psychiatry, the neurophysiology of music and psychology. Music is our tool, but above all we are a therapist. The objective is to help, support and accompany people with difficulties of integration, communication or well-being “, declares the practitioner.
Like the surgeon who must learn to use his intervention tools, the music therapist must get to know music. “It has a very strong power. It can be as harmful as it is beneficial depending on its use”, warns Camille. She remembers with emotion one of her patients whom she followed for two years in nursing home.
She was in the final stage of Alzheimer’s. She no longer spoke and did not move. And one day his daughter took him to a choir. I played there a song she loved, ‘L’Amour de Saint-Jean’. And there, while her eyes were on the ground, they got up to me, and she started humming along with us. Her daughter had tears in her eyes. It was unbelievable. The music had managed to come and get her. And she allowed this person to express himself through memory, “admits Camille.
If for the moment her profession is just starting to gain momentum, she hopes to help make it more visible. She is working in particular on a future musical marauding project with the association Outstretched hand. Here, the objective is to create a “musicobus” to offer music therapy interventions to people on the street. “All we have to do now is find the funding”, Camille Maratuech concludes with hope.