NAMI Elm City - Adam Christoferson | Musical Intervention Talk

[Music] you're scared to move forward [Music] let's go so get up off your face time is running out loud [Music] [Music] hanging out am I [Music] down [Music] hanging out [Music] you know [Music] would you rather do it's time to move [Music] those are some featured songs at musical intervention oh hello everyone I'm Mark degukorio the president of Nami young City currently and welcome you to this event this is the first event we've had in person in four years and it's going to be a special event with Adam Christopherson presenting a uh a new medical musical intervention with Yale University so thank you for coming and uh take it away we're taking it away here we go thank you so much I'm sitting uh namian City get this show on the road got some slides I really wish I could be there with everybody today uh I yesterday I felt myself getting sick and today was no better um and one reason why I really wanted to be there is because just across the street is where I really got my start working with Sue Feldman I don't know if any of you know Sue Feldman amazing social worker uh she had a great program called The Village of power and it was run through um uh Cornell it was the Hill Health Center back then and it was right across the street from the queue house and I got a chance to write music with the ladies there who are struggling with dual diagnosis and all kinds of challenges and um I just remember cutting me a check and and and making that like impact and helping them with their website and getting involved and seeing that there's some way I could use my creativity so uh really key location you got over there yes shows and I really wish that I was there with you in person so um let's do our best to get through this we have a special guest with us in in the audience that'll share some testimony and um let's get going a land of QR codes here's a quick video this is a very exciting time for musical intervention we are celebrating seven years from the day that I got the keys to open up our doors to New Haven a joy ride you could say it's almost like coming to a meeting that you got an instrument in your hand you know never put the guitar down never put the music down keep it in your heart keep it in your spirit because a lot of times when I'm feeling down I pick up the guitar and I feel better darn you could stop down with 23 Temple Street and you know what somebody's walking in the door somebody's standing on the other side with a smile on their face with the same problem what I can do is good to mention I feel that I'm a part of the family feeling it's a pleasurable feeling for a mutual sense you're feeling family sense creativity worshiping feeling getting my these interest is out to create music and to really enjoy myself poorly into another good time doing it I struggled with a lot of mental illness like I I had a lot of trauma in my past I've had numerous hospitalizations for psychiatric reasons that have tried committing suicide numerous times a lot of times when I'm in hospitals or you know in places like residential places I don't feel much like a person because I feel like people are just there to do whatever and I'm just kind of going through the day-to-day things but when I listen to music and I play music and when I come to musical intervention I feel like I'm a person again [Music] and we do have dom dom here online Tom you want to say hello to everybody hello every time I watch it I get a little more moved um so thank you for all of the um the kind words and um you know for giving so much of your talents and skills to so many people that come in the doors that musical intervention so it's been an honor to do so music is a place this is something I discovered when I started playing drums as a child I could go to a safe place uh in music and um you know one thing that I desperately needed was Community Connection purpose and at that point music it seemed to Harbor all of those things and the reason why I struggled so much is because of certain circumstances that I was raised in like so many of us have challenges mine were a little little unique uh both of my parents uh have schizophrenia um my mother had custody of me and we were living in Section 8 housing in New Haven Connecticut a very violent place eventually my mother wanted to get a gun to protect herself the state found out and uh put me into a foster care for some time before I met my maternal grandmother and she raised me on Swedish pancakes it was the greatest thing in the world because there was some stability there um although at that point my father really was struggling with alcoholism and it was um just a very difficult balance to hold you know being surrounded by addiction and mental health crises um people living in our house after you know my grandmother passed um it was always a very unique Adventure I just I knew I wasn't safe anywhere and it was a very uh very challenging time for sure I was placed in special education because of some behavioral challenges I presented as a little bit of anger maybe some things like that but it wasn't long after that uh I I really wanted to create a place it was called Cafe cave a Performing Arts place that was going to be creativity and music and art and all kinds of things a land where I could belong and I was working with some politicians at that time and uh one of them lost and uh I don't know they it was seasonal I think politicians can be seasonal at times so that didn't pan out so I went to um Southern Connecticut I was encouraged actually to go to college I didn't want to go because I hated education at that point it was full of um labels and uh in you know I mean I'm really summing things up but I got in a lot of trouble in school and it was really only because I I didn't have much respect for authority but at the same time I I wanted to help I wanted to make things better like I wanted to see my parents better and so this stuck with me going to school I got my degree in recreation therapy at Southern Connecticut and I started working at Yale child psychiatric inpatient Hospital really started this kind of this Mantra promote empathy transform lives Inspire the world one song at a time the birth of musical intervention happened when I started Contracting with agencies to write and record original music I worked at the West Haven community house with people with intellectual disabilities and it was the most rewarding experience because they were so passionately engaged in the songwriting and recording process and we came across came up came up with a three song EP and I got paid really well to do it and I was like wow I could maybe do this and and kind of make a career being able to write songs with people um in these settings I kind of glazed over the experience that I had over at uh winning one child psych inpatient I was there for five and a half years working there um and it was still to this day I think five of the better years that I've had being there for kids that were you know deemed unsafe to themselves or their surroundings but kids that had so much life inside of them that had tried to be like snuffed out by their experiences their home experiences or biological experiences and um you know writing songs with them seeing their eyes glaze over once they started writing their own music and hearing themselves in a high quality microphone I knew this is what I wanted to do with my life so much talented and creativity over medicated and laying dormant in so many of these places that I've gotten to work at I've worked at CVH I worked at the APT Foundation uh so many so many agencies that I've worked for um and often times in these inpatient settings trying to find the right uh balance for the patient it could become over medicated and not be able to really participate in the music and that was some sad times to watch these kind of things and be exposed to some of these things um but nonetheless like a lot of people that I've met in these inpatient settings um have come to visit me um at the studio that we have now so I started kind of venturing outside of uh Yale I I after five and a half years I felt like I had enough time inpatient I wanted to do more Community stuff in 2011 about that time um started writing songs with people um uh on the green and this was uh the New Haven Independent I would park my car this is my Volvo my chairs and all the um I parked my car on the green and see who'd want to write and this was a great song you are a king it was a really really good one with Walter and he was homeless and you know going back to the shelter um this is before I got the space but it took some time uh to try to Soul search a little bit and I went back to live with my parents and I was I got the idea to run for mayor in my hometown and um thank God I lost um and I was able to kind of refocus on musical intervention and so I started doing open mics in New Haven at a friend's restaurant um and then I got a small Grant through the Arts Council of Greater New Haven to do specifically uh open mics at the soup kitchen and some work at the um the homeless shelter with at a Liberty Community Services I found so much amazing talent kind of wasting away on the green and I say wasting away because like although there is community and fun to be had um it's it's riddled with drugs and violence and very dangerous behaviors and often the people on the green have no place to go that's welcoming and so this dream that I had back in you know at 17 years old to open up a space it wasn't as clinical it was just supposed to be a Performing Arts thing became a reality in 2016. excuse me take it in look at it it's it's the most it's the coolest thing you've ever seen in New Haven no doubt I mean Yale has some really great stuff too but this is this is really raw and and real um amen raw had done most of the artwork on here somebody I met at Starbucks he was homeless and uh he was my overnight security here doing art late night I commissioned all of these pieces and he was really my sidekick because he was so encouraging this was really run on passion and uh no money whatsoever a project storefront gave me the keys or six months rent free and uh utilities free and then I uh Bob Cole at cmhc uh saw an article and brought me in for a few contracts with cmhc to record music there and so I just started taking that money and the money that I was making at um the APT foundation and putting it into this overhead that started taking off and it was really expensive and uh we weren't charging anything maybe there was like donations and stuff like that but uh so about three years uh into it uh Demas I had some meetings with Demas and they contributed fifty thousand dollars a year uh well they still do and uh cmhc kicked in 18 000 and that really covers a lot of the overhead uh cost of the facility as far as um really okay okay move everything upstairs we're talking um sorry can people mute their mic or um all right so anyways um so yeah I want to go back really quick this is um so open to the public 25 hours per week um Tuesday through uh used to be Tuesday through Saturday now or Tuesday through Friday 11 to 4 and an open mic night that goes till about 10 o'clock on Thursday night we've been running now for over seven years and uh some of the Demons money what that goes to is I hire uh two amazing music facilitators to um record music on site that's Kevin O'Brien and uh Sahara tasakoon also known as Jerry Gates but really what's going on is is this it's much more intricate and much more um uh complicated because uh there's there's so many needs that come through our door being open to the public a lot of times we get referrals and um you know we have some volunteers throughout the years and some paid volunteers that get paid through Young Adult Services Dom being one of them and Max being another so really we're offering program engagement so we have groups that are run throughout the week and um you know getting people engaged in the actual program keeping track of uh appointments greeting people that walk in that are curious about it whether they're actively in addiction or they're just a retiree looking at some records [Music] um we we keep trying we try to do our best to keep track of where people are at as far as assessing their needs if we can help uh connect them to services um and really getting involved with our artists you know we we call it artist manager as opposed to a case manager we like the uh the different framing of that as opposed to you know getting yourself a case manager most of the time you have to acknowledge the fact that you're schizophrenic or you're homeless or addicted or something like that here it's like are you showing a passion to create music well there's that's your that's your card in and so we allow people um recording free recording time uh we put People's music out there we promote their music and all kinds of things and as you can see you know with all of these positions that are going on actively uh we're valued somewhere around the you know two and a four easy four hundred thousand dollars a year at the amount of people that are engaging with uh the public at our at our facility and you know Fielding a lot of the referrals that come in from other agencies we've done this in other locations the pop-up in Greenwich Village New York City that was amazing uh somebody who I helped out um had a storefront and just wanted us to come down and and it was immediate immediate Community we have people from New Haven coming up and staying in The Brownstone that's me and amen Rob my my resident artist uh right there next to me Bonnaroo Music Festival I'm gonna play a little clip of uh people jamming in our tent all throughout and this is a you know this is a music uh 200 000 person music festival in in Manchester Tennessee people never wanted to leave a jam [Music] by providing the platform [Music] and Emma in the corner there she was amazing she was our intern from UNH um and we brought four people there and it was a really really great experience um so through my relationship with perch program for recovery and Community Health I met Frank Reilly uh in Scotland and he went on a voyage to find other people that are doing similar things and we built this group called Musical music beyond all borders and um this is the European conference in Belfast uh pre-covet [Music] oh [Music] I love that that's bringing me back actually you might have saw somebody familiar there Jeremiah Brown who I've known since working inpatient at Winnie won when he graduated high school he called me and reached out and we've been doing life ever since and as a matter of fact he and I were the keynote speakers last year at Lisbon Belfast uh sorry this is Belfast uh Lisbon Portugal um and this is a quote that they they it was amazing uh hearing Jeremiah's um uh testimony he had never shared it publicly before and it was very very moving um and he continues to inspire me and amaze me um showing me that you know what I'm doing actually matters of course we took our selfie in Portugal as you're supposed to when you visit countries on these beautiful symposiums um with speaking of purge program for recovering Community Health we did a research project that was funded through demos and cmhc uh looking at musical intervention and uh the impact this was I think about a year after we opened about a year a year and a half after we actually opened and results were coming in positive that people like this non-clinical yet therapeutic and sober environment other uh their identity they attribute their identity development and reinventions their time at Mi I mean as opposed to like I said going into cmhc saying uh you know my life is falling apart or you know I got really serious thoughts death um that's your green card to get Services here it's like you know do you want to play a guitar like would you are you interested in being part of the community so you could really develop your musical identity and the person that you are in in a deep way again through my uh partnership with perch um uh they had found a research opportunity uh Grant looking for musical interventions and I think I got a call from Michael Rowe and he said hey what do you think about this I said that sounds great let's get Bob Cole on the line and shirelle was very much involved in that and the shirelle Bellamy and um Bob set up a meeting we met Phil corlett Dr Phil corlett here who is just a rock star in the Neuroscience world and we got a chance to be funded we were under generously through the NIH to study my program and how it impacts people uh with auditory hallucinations and find them distressing this is very very important to me because it's full circle uh for me because that's me and my mom there we're singing together on the street and these are the times that Mom is with me I get to really see my mom away from you know her distractive voices and um you know challenge with schizophrenia uh we've been through it all together my mother is a survivor of multiple suicide attempts uh breast cancer uh which we just found another lump so now we are in another phase of going uh going at this thing and she's a warrior my mother is is no doubt um an inspiration and she remains incredibly positive um and loves Jesus so good stuff uh there so full circle to study uh the impacts of music and people who have auditory hallucinations uh there must be a God because this is this is wild I want to invite somebody to uh to speak on behalf of their experience at musical intervention please welcome Ashwin switch the camera for you and we'll get some light I guess that's my cue huh um all right so how are you guys doing uh my name is Ashwin Mather um I'm currently um the executive assistant to the CEO the one and only Adam Christopherson um so I want to start out I met Adam at cmhc um and when I first met Adam I I came into this large Auditorium and where there's about five or ten of us from Continuum of Care and other agencies and we're sitting there and I'm thinking to myself what is this guy possibly going to tell me where teach me in the music world that I don't already know right and little did I know I know absolutely nothing right so I I was I was flabbergasted because when I first came to musical intervention I said wow this place really is the truth and what I what I mean by the truth is I mean this place transforms people me having um schizoaffecto disorder and altered personality disorder um it really it really opened my eyes to who I was right so I didn't know you know who I was for a majority of my life and musical intervention really gave me that chance to express myself find myself and really gave me the chance to figure out who I was as a person and Adam gave me that opportunity you know Adam said you know what you want to do the your your strength or business your strengths are back office and your strengths are music let's combine all those things and let's really figure out who you are and let's let's make a holistic Ash one and nobody has ever really done that for me you know I've gone to several treatment agencies I've been to several inpatients several outpatients and you know everybody has said well I you know I don't know what's wrong you have this this and this but you know as they say and as I took an RSS course recently and as they used to say you know you're putting a Band-Aid over the problem you're not actually solving the problem and getting to the root cause what Adam does is Adam makes me realize who I am and he makes me flourish in that very moment and you know I'm I'm greatly indebted to Adam and I and I couldn't I couldn't you know repay him even if it took me my whole life but you know so thank you Adam for that but I mean I what I also wanted to say is when I go to music intervention today I see it happening every day with different people you know um there's people that come in there with psychotic that with with have a psychotic episode or people that come in there who just you know um as me and Adam would say are just totally off in left field sometimes you know and so what me and Adam do is and really Adam is you know he he he focuses on the person and he says well what do you like to play you are not your diagnosis that's something I've learned from Adam you were you know and I've heard it a thousand times but he's really ingrained That Into Me Is You are not your diagnosis so what he does is he takes the person and says do you like to play music so there's like some drums over there I think so Adam would say all right well why don't you play the drums then let's talk you know talk to me what's going on how are you today you know what's going on in your life as a person and he gets to the root cause of things and you know my goal and my aspirations and my hope for musical intervention as I work collaboratively with Adam hand in hand is to hopefully see this program flourish and Thrive into you know the program that I know it can be which is transforming the lives one like one song at a time you know it's really true to its mission statement and um you know like I said I I am greatly indebted to you and you know I I I couldn't I couldn't be happier to be a part of this movement in this program so thank you thank you Ashwin yeah I was going to say I was thinking about what I'd say after you were said after you talk earlier today um in between my rest because I'm so sick but um you've made my my life am I easier uh you've gained the respect and um uh Trust of so many people at Mi uh they look up to everything you say um you have incredible insight uh into the various aspects of the things that we try to do on a daily basis and um I don't know I really I look forward to continued um partnership there yeah no doubt about it thank you so here's some photos of the past it was like little photos this is uh this is the New York City this was an original beat poet actually is he would come in and recite these like poems while you know people from Google were like playing drums and uh buskers were playing keys and it was just really really cool experience to be in the city doing it uh there's there's the governor the governor made it to the Mi just kind of randomly showed up one day and started playing piano with our band I tried to follow up but uh they never got back to us um there's a George Clinton uh we supplied all of the music equipment to hand in when um George Clinton's equipment was stuck in New Jersey they called us up they brought all of our equipment out and they invited us to spend some time with the funk man himself and that's all of Mi people um hanging out with with the OG incredibly diverse I mean you just the diversity is is I don't think it's it's happening anywhere else that I know of uh in such a creative way there's so many different types of people doing really really great stuff together um yeah it's just there's nothing like it however uh you know meeting so many people especially on The Fringe um we lose a few there's Dom there with the album we lose a few so I have a video of people I like to pay respects to be [Music] oh my God never cared for me [Music] you never said [Music] please [Music] I'm just your fool I must confess [Music] yeah so it's hard process um the last uh the last performer that was my uncle uh Oren who recently passed away uh here in the circle on the black and white picture in the middle is Michael Goodwin he was my mentor he taught me how to write songs he showed me the guitar basically built on everything here and I have deep relationships with all these people and they will be missed but they live on in the spirit at the musical intervention for sure here's an update on uh Michael Rodriguez you might have saw a video of him earlier uh we miss him a lot he's uh he'll tell you what's going on hi Mike Rodriguez here I got a call earlier I just want to let people know I decided to move to Florida it doesn't get any better than this because I decided to make a change in my life I'm going to be 60 years old in November along the lines in life I ran into a place called musical intervention my life changed you know drastically in the seven years that I was there what I want to do is you know let everybody know life does get better I couldn't be happier now you know I gave myself a second chance and I prayed to God I said you know not for nothing but it's either that or below sea level and I didn't want that I made a choice to move and to move on working down here it's a lot easier you know I mean of course you got to deal with the heat and stuff like that but mentally physically and emotionally I got somewhere you know what I mean I got somewhere and I got a very good support system it doesn't get any better than that yeah you're in Florida he's got a nice thing going we miss him very much he was our resident guitar player uh and and I've just known him in so many different settings and to see him fall in love and uh having a good thing good opportunity open up for all of that work that he had done for sobriety um open up and now he's got a beautiful thing going for himself in Florida really rewarding um so let's imagine uh more locations let's imagine what it's like to actually be funded uh have this thing have sustainability Way Beyond my own reach um that's really what I want to see for a musical intervention to take on a life of its own to carry on because it means so much and just like I can't be there today because I'm sick it shouldn't depend on one person and the team that we've assembled on such a shoestring budget is is remarkable it's it's it's Grace and it's amazing to see uh people wanting to do these things especially our two music facilitators who have really um well really good almost three facilitators now the two facilitators taking on this dream that I started and seeing that it can go on to another generation and it's it's really powerful so uh we'll end in song because there's no better way this is uh from a TED Talk where I invited Jeremiah Jeremiah why don't we take a moment and welcome my man Jeremiah Brown [Music] musical intervention is a place where I can be mentally myself musically myself and emotionally myself being surrounded by the talents and Gifts of the people that musical intervention have helped me create a creative environment for others around me I am proud to say that I am musical intervention he is he's a father give him a round of applause you can give him a round of applause he's a father he's a first responder and he's got one of the best voices you'll ever hear and we couldn't think of any possible better way than to and in songs so this is a song that we've been able to do all over the world [Music] give it time to get around the world Don't Stop Believing in this view cause the world needs you yeah [Music] give it time to find yourself be nice to each other and respect your help love each other and the lonely turns cause the world needs you yeah the world is [Music] thank you no matter what happens try to hold on it's time in the darkest of times [Music] [Music] [Music] cause the world needs you [Music] so that was as brief as I can make it even though I know I covered a lot of ground um uh but you know now it goes so creative mind sometimes needs a manager um the takeaways I would hope that some of you gained that we're offering um an incredible opportunity to New Haven we look forward to bringing it to other places but it needs funding to get there to the next stages and um that that's really important so the only way that I'm able to survive right now because I'm volunteering downtown is thanks to um this incredible opportunity with the sing group with the Singh Grant and uh Purge program for recovery and Community Health and Dr Phil corlett's uh belief memory and learning lab release learning and memory lab so uh without further Ado I would like to invite Deanna to the to the stage um to talk a little bit about um okay uh uh ion these slides that we're going to put up right now you have them Adam yeah just download them that's where I cut the other thing off be okay fine coming up here we go thank you very uh yes so my name is Deanna I'm part of Dr Phil carlette's belief lab you've I'm pretty sure you saw this picture earlier in Adam's presentation as he mentioned uh We've partnered with him in this study that's exploring how music benefits people who experience distressing auditory hallucinations so um you know I I really it's hard to follow Adam um because he's just so incredible and I I've heard his story many times now and every time I hear it I get quite emotional myself just because he's he's touched so many lives and he's he's certainly touched mine too and it's it's really a blessing to work on this project with him and our entire team and I'm really excited to tell you today a bit more about our study and some of our preliminary findings and also uh give you more information about the study in case you know anyone who might be interested in participating uh so Adam if you wouldn't mind cool um so yeah I mean uh really what what we're going for is uh as as is pretty evident from what Adam said song making in a group creates a safe space for people to express themselves and to connect with others and it's really by giving people this opportunity to create with their community that they are able to uh build more trust in themselves and other people also get more of a sense of agency and it's by doing all of these things that people are less distressed experience less negative voice hearing and are less paranoid um so that that's wonderful but you might wonder you know how do you even go about studying that I mean we get people together and make music but where is the Neuroscience in this uh and that that's a great question um so what we do is we bring people in for four music sessions so people meet a group of five Voice hearers meet with Adam a total of four times and each time they write and record original songs and before and after this musical intervention the where we get the scientific data for the study is these visits that come before and after where we have people play some computer games that help us measure uh how people learn and adapt to their environment and then we also conduct some interviews pre and post intervention where we talk to the participants about the role of music and their life what their mental health experience has been if they've been in group therapies before and how they differ from from this experience and really it's meant to be an opportunity for the participants to tell their story in their own words but what's also really awesome about this type of qualitative research is that from these interviews we're able to take out linguistic data about people's pronouns use that that's also sheds light on how these interventions are helping people so before Adam goes to the next slide uh because I think that the audio from it starts playing right away I I thought the best place to start would be with a song or at least part of the song from one of our groups uh they name themselves the loopholes and the songs called get up uh you might recognize it Adam played a little bit of it at the beginning So Adam feel free to switch to that slide and play as much of it as you want but switch over when you're ready yeah um okay I don't know if it's because I sent you the slides that it won't play uh but it's fine if you can't get it to play um but really I mean the the song in itself is is quite uplifting it has a a good beat to it it is kind of you know the titles get up but you also get the feeling of like get up let's move it's time to go uh embrace the day and I and I think that what's what's really incredible about um this is that you know that might be the song lyrics but not only is that the song lyrics but people really seem to come away from this experience carrying those positive feelings and that positive energy with them beyond the completion of the study uh so if if you want to go to the next slide that that would that would be good uh so you know as as I said it it seems that people are carrying these positive experiences or this positive energy Beyond just being in the groups themselves and uh one of the best ways I think to exemplify this is by sharing with you some of the quotes from some of our participants so these are different participants post intervention and they've shared a lot of different things with us these are some of the ones that have stuck the most with me and are what really encouraged me to to keep pushing along myself um one person said you know music sues the soul uh when you're feeling down it can help you feel better when you're lonely it can comfort you someone else said that while they were in the music groups uh they the voices were less loud and less there probably because they were having so much fun and and yet another person said that uh it seemed you know kind of stupid but uh their voice hearing seemed to be less after the musical intervention and that's just amazing amazing to hear and it it's um it's inspirational as to why we do this research and I would say that these changes that people are sharing with us uh we also see this reflected in their linguistic data which is what I mentioned earlier um so Adam if if you wouldn't mind going the next one thanks uh so so what you're seeing here is a graph that's showing people's use of the pronoun I pre and post musical intervention and as you'll see uh post-musical intervention or post sing song making people's use of the pronoun I is less and you might wonder why why does this matter what does this even mean and the relevance or the reason why is seen on the next slide um if thank you uh where what you're seeing here is there was a previous study that was published that showed in in both interviews and blog posts uh people's use of the word I was higher when they were more distressed so people experiencing psychosis people with chronic illness uh both those populations use the word I more frequently than say healthy controls and um so that like I said it's really pointing to people use that word I more frequently when they're distressed so then if you come back to our data uh our data is showing that you know people are using I less often after only four music sessions which is incredible so you see this change after only four music sessions and that this change is pointing to a shift in their level of distress so they're they're more they're less distressed after after working with Adam and with one another after four sessions which is truly incredible um if please go to the next one uh We've also seen some other changes in people's language use for example people are using more affiliative language which includes words such as we our us friend so after musical intervention they're feeling more connected with other people and and that's also expressed in their language use and we also see that uh people's level of paranoia uh post-intervention people who are less paranoid post-intervention if you please pull up the other graph uh thank you um people who are less paranoid post-intervention are the same people that are using the word they less frequently in their post-intervention interviews so really all of these data taken together point to people are experiencing less negative voices after the musical intervention they're less paranoid and they also are feeling more connected with their community and it seems that this this connection with people in their community and the ability to express themselves goes a long way in their in their healing journey and it's really exciting findings findings such as these that have uh gave it uh us the go-ahead from the National Institute of Mental Health into our second phase of this study so now what we're trying to look at is really figure out what parts of the song making experience are most beneficial to people so to kind of pull apart what the most helpful part of this experience is we have four different types of music groups now so we we have a song making group as before but we also have groups where people come in and sing karaoke and then other groups where people listen to music either that the participants select so we go around and the participants select the music or music that's selected ahead of time by the facilitator so still a lot of different types of music but nevertheless selected by the facilitator and the idea here again is that people are what we're trying to get out here is pulling apart which part of this intervention is most helpful for people so is it that they create uh together is it is it the creative that sense of agency that they have from creating with one another or is it just gathering in a group with people who also have voice hearing experiences like what is it that it's really making this experience so positive for people and it it's still early days we're actually in right now running our our fourth group which would round out us running one of each types of these groups um so these are the data from the first three groups uh which people are randomly assigned to so we have the song making group uh the karaoke group and the participant uh playlist group and what we've seen so far is that all of these interventions across all of these interventions people's use of I is lower post intervention and as I mentioned earlier this decreased use of I is seems to be related to people's level of distress so after all of these interventions people are are less distressed which is really lovely to see and and we're really looking forward to having more of these groups run so that we're able to look at not only changes in their use of I but you know their level of paranoia and their voice hearing experiences so the really the meat of this study and and what the purpose of was it uh the per its purpose to begin with and um from there like I said it this is an ongoing study we have about a year and a half to two years left we're actively looking for participants so if anybody knows anyone who might be interested we're really looking for people between the ages of 18 to 65 people who Hear distressing Voices at least one time a week and are you know most importantly uh interested in coming together with other people and and doing something music related so if you know anybody who would be interested even just in learning more talking to us we'd be happy to talk with them and share more information they also get 700 for doing it if they complete the study and that you know that that helps too right and just to to drive home the point if from what I've said so far hasn't already uh shown you in addition to what Adam said that this intervention music making and being with others is really helpful and that people enjoy it uh we just pulled together a few quotes to share at the end that people shared about being in the in the music group so you know some people say that they feel inspired after leaving each week others said it was great to have something to look forward to every week you know it gave them somewhere to go it gave them something to do they enjoyed creating and you know of course uh as um I'm sure everybody can feel just from listening to Adam Adam's a wonderful person to work with and an inspiring to all of us uh so yeah that that's what I've got uh but thank you all for for listening and again Adam uh thank you for for the incredible work that you do you you really touch a lot of lives and that's that's awesome thank you Deanna thank you Singh thank you perch thank you belief lab uh and Nami Elm City thank you so much for having us um and sharing our story