RAP-Therapy-A-Group-Work-Intervention-Method-for-Urban-Adolescents

RAP Therapy: A Group Work Intervention Method for Urban AdolescentsArticle in Social Work With Groups · January 2003 DOI: 10.1300/J009v26n03_06 CITATIONS 66 READS 3,520 2 authors, includ

RAP Therapy: A Group Work Intervention Method for Urban Adolescents

Article  in   Social Work With Groups · January 2003

DOI: 10.1300/J009v26n03_06

CITATIONS

66

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3,520

2 authors, including:

Alonzo Decarlo

Benedictine University

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© The Author(s), 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Vol 0(0): 1 –14; DOI: 10.1177/0533316413483086

The Rise and Call of Group Rap Therapy: A Critical Analysis from its Creator

Alonzo DeCarlo

Since its inception nearly a decade ago, Group Rap Therapy (GRT)

as an intervention practice continues to be viewed in the United States with wariness due to its controversial alliance with a music genre that is unpalatable to some practitioners Yet, its burgeoning global appeal as a creative mental health treatment protocol to researchers and practitioners suggests that this group therapeutic technique is likely to continue to grow In this article, a historical account of GRT’s beginning and its purpose are highlighted Critical reflections and analysis about the impact that GRT can have on prospective clients and practitioners are examined Finally, considerations about refining and advancing the course of GRT are underscored to preserve the veracity of this innovative intervention practice for youth.

Key words: culture, psychological, ethnic minority youth, music therapy, forensic, clinicians

Introduction

Although the scope of music therapy intervention and research cov-ers three principal areas of medical framework, psychotherapeutic models, and musical education approaches (Darrow, 2008), there is great methodological diversity within each area The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) places an emphasis on the clini-cal and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish Article

individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship (2007) The AMTA does not delimit the genre of music that must be used to achieve those goals This critique focuses on the use of rap music as

a creative, mental health, evidence-based intervention with urban adolescents While rap music has been one of the most controversial forms of music, research regarding its relationship to maladaptive aggressive dispositions has not been substantiated (Gardstorm, 1999; Scheel and Westefeld, 1999)

In a study by Gardstrom (1999) examining the relationship between exposure to music and criminal behaviour, she found that lyrics of rap music have some influence on an individual’s feelings, but did not provoke problematic behaviours In their groundbreaking text on the therapeutic uses of Rap and Hip-Hop, Hadley and Yancy argued that:

Rap music functioned as an important vehicle through which a sense of sanity was maintained Rap became a medium through which these youth described and interpreted the existential density of lived urban spaces and thereby were able to achieve an important level of transcendence, though without denial (Hadley and Yancy, 2011: 25)

In this article, the status of Group Rap Therapy (GRT) is assessed

as a group psychotherapy technique a decade after its inception This analysis includes: (a) the impetus for this novel approach as a group psychotherapeutic technique for African American male adolescents who have committed homicide; (b) how other clinicians could use this technique; (c) the forward trajectory and direction of the work; (d) threats to the integrity of GRT; and (e) the benefits of GRT as a form of musical psychotherapy with youth

Impetus for GRT

GRT originally grew out of a need for a way to negotiate a growing problem in adolescent psychotherapy with urban youth residing in at-risk environments In the 1990s, American cities experienced an unprecedented rise in violence, particularly among African American youth 60% of deaths for 15-year-old African American adolescents were due to homicides Moreover, the largest growth in state inmates between 1990 and 1998 was among violent offenders (DeCarlo, 2012) African American youth, especially boys, were killing each other in record numbers Additionally, more than one in four juvenile homicide offenders resided in eight of 3,139 counties in the United

States, including the nation’s largest urban areas of Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Dallas (Sickmund et al., 1996)

During this same time period, a new genre of music emerged— gangsta rap Created predominantly by African American youth, this music deified various forms of sexual exploitation of females and the use of violence as a method of settling disputes (Fernando, 1994) Simultaneously, like other urban youth detention facilities, the Wayne County Juvenile Court (WCJC) detention facilities was inundated with children exhibiting unparalleled exposure to and experiential undercurrents of violence It was brought to my attention by the med-ical administration of WCJC, that the mental health professionals within these detention facilities urgently needed interventions that were sensitive to the new dynamics of violence among adolescents, particularly African American boys, who were unresponsive to con-ventional group or individual psychotherapy techniques

In 1998, I was approached by juvenile justice officials in Detroit Michigan to develop an innovative technique that would clinically and intellectually reach many of the urban ethnic minority adoles-cents who were detained for murder, but who were unmoved by the available interventions Rap music gives a developmental texture to

an otherwise undifferentiated though related mass of experiences, thoughts, attitudes and activities of young black men Thus, the con-ceptual licences of GRT were constructed on grounded clinical prac-tice (GCP), which has two fundamental conditions: (a) its basic ontological genesis is steeped in understanding the future clients phenomenology of everydayness, (Heidegger, 1962 ), which suggest that an individual embraces the essence of real-time, day-to-day chal-lenges, often exhibited through Rap music; and (b) the emergent practice protocols emanate from the inside out and in a bottom-up fashion directly from the aforementioned, thus authenticating the integrity of the prospective intervention (i.e., GRT) measure for the population it serves

I was asked by the mental health administration at the Wayne County Juvenile Detention facility to assist with these conditions because I was a product of the same environment from where the youth came I was also a former juvenile probation officer at the Wayne County Juvenile Court and later became a federal agent As

an African American male reared in a fatherless, single-parent home

in a poverty-stricken environment that was ravished by a culture of violence on the lower east side of Detroit, I was expected to have

insight into the developmental vulnerability of those from similar backgrounds My law enforcement experience, coupled with expert psychotherapy and developmental psychology training, was expected

to have given me ample tools to deal with the clinical and psychoso-cial upheavals that the juvenile court was encountering with their youth At the time, I did not have a proven, evidenced-based, action-able response to their request No theory or model, academic or oth-erwise, existed that could provide me with guidance on the issues that these young African American children were combating

Pursuant to introspection, I realized that when facing adversity,

my anxiety was eased while listening to jazz and rap music After perusing the professional literature on music and emotion, I learned that that there was robust evidence of a strong connection between music and emotion Neurobiological research has shown that music can effectively stimulate highly gratifying emotional responses (Menon and Levitin, 2005; Mitterschiffthaler et al., 2007; Sloboda and Juslin, 2001) While listening to jazz and rap music, I noticed the emotional potency of the melodies helped me recalibrate my energies and gain perspective on the personal challenges I was con-fronting at the moment I considered the potential affects of using music in a similar fashion with the young men in the Wayne County Detention facility Rap music was part of the zeitgeist and had a greater likelihood of appealing to the sensibilities of the youth in the detention facility Thus, I began developing a technique by which I could incorporate rap music into a group psychotherapeutic medium (DeCarlo, 2000; 2001; DeCarlo and Hockman, 2003) These efforts culminated in a psychotherapeutic group technique called Group Rap Therapy (GRT) that used music as a cultural con-duit to develop prosocial behaviours

This premise builds on the psychoanalytic notion that art forms, including music, reflect the triumph of the ego over the superego Rap music expresses coping mechanisms used by African American ado-lescents, to come to terms with the overwhelming stresses of their worlds first, and to consider the virtue of those mechanisms thereafter Indeed, music is one of the most effective readily available palliatives used to dull the pain enforced by a living environment that is ruthlessly demanding such as those experienced by African American Adolescents

in urban ghettos The central purpose of GRT was to employ music as

a psychologically transformative instrument by taking advantage of its anxiolytic and tensiolytic potentials; that is, releasing oneself from fear and mental pain respectively (Aluede and Ekewenu, 2009)

Clinical Use

The clinical use of GRT was designed on the same foundation as other major treatment modalities—to benefit the client, the treatment team, and the psychotherapy profession overall I designed the origi-nal GRT as a supplemental treatment for use in a prison setting for lethally violent offenders All potential clients of GRT are expected

to have comprehensive assessment and diagnostic evaluations before participating in sessions This step is required to provide a thorough analytical understanding of the clients There are two critical skills required for those using GRT: (a) the group therapist should recog-nize how the variables of race, ethnicity, language, attitudes, beliefs, behaviours, and related power status might operate in his or her own life as well as in the lives of the urban ethnic minority adolescent group members; and (b) the group therapist must sustain a level of interaction that is responsive to the needs of the adolescents To this end, GRT places a premium on cultural competence Prospective practitioners of GRT who have not been trained on issues of cultural competence urban ethnic minority populations, should engage in cul-tural competence clinical training

From a cognitive behavioural perspective, GRT assists clients in becoming aware of maladaptive cognitions in an attempt to monitor and interrupt the cognitive-affective-behavioural chains and produce more adaptive coping responses (Meichenbaum, 1995) Through intense lyrical analysis of rap music, and in the context of several therapeutic treatment issues such as female gender abuse, anger man-agement, impulse control, reasoning, morality, responsibility, identity, crime/punishment, and empathy, GRT clients can develop or refine their prosocial skills (DeCarlo and Hockman, 2003) This notion is fundamental to the efficaciousness of GRT, which is used to help urban youth analyse and change irrational thoughts and beliefs that lead to inappropriate behaviours This is achieved in part by the use of clinical dialogue, which helps clients to critically and freely reflect and to feel self-assured in their abilities to reason about particular issues (Saran and Neisser, 2004) Through the use of complex lyrical analysis, a primary objective of GRT is to support the client to under-stand the overwhelming demands of the immediate environment

In the original study, the outcome of a generic group technique was compared with GRT to promote prosocial skills (DeCarlo and Hockman, 2003) The participants of the study were eighth through tenth grade African American males, aged 13 to 15, split into violent offenders incarcerated for homicide, probationers without violent

crimes, and students with no criminal history In GRT sessions, the participants were instructed to list five of their favourite rap artists Selected CDs from those artists’ work were available during the ses-sions Each member had an opportunity to select four songs No restrictions were placed on the selections of the artists Each partici-pant in the group was given a different composition item (e.g., female gender abuse, anger management, impulse control, reasoning, moral-ity, responsibilmoral-ity, identmoral-ity, crime/punishment, and empathy) on an 8

x 11 sheet of paper Prior to each GRT session, the composition items were defined and illustrated Each group member was given an oral quiz to ensure that the concept items (e.g., impulse control) were clearly understood At the beginning of the GRT session, the partici-pants were instructed to listen to a particular song, uninterrupted, with the group leader Afterwards, each member was called on to identify and explain the composition on his particular card in the con-text of the song’s lyrics A synopsis of findings from the original study by DeCarlo and Hockman (2003) that support the relevancy, pragmatics, and efficaciousness of GRT are presented in Table 1 The effects index (see Table 1) displays significant differences among the participants preferring GRT over the generic group tech-nique, in levels of relaxation (χ2 =8.048, P < 005) and enjoyment

(100%) during sessions, as well excitement (χ2 =21.714, P < 001)

about forthcoming meetings In the prosocial skills information index (see Table 2), GRT was vastly favoured by the participants as a

impulse control (χ2 =8.048, P < 005), delinquent behaviour

avoid-ance (χ2 =26,000 P < 001), morality development (χ2 =21.429, P <

.001), female gender abuse (χ2 =3.857, P < 050), social relations

(100%), relation to daily life situations (χ2 =17.190, P < 001), and

Table 1 Effects Index Assessment of GRT (Rap) and Generic Group Therapy

(Group).

Items (Effects) %

Rap

% Group

% Neither

χ 2

Goodness of Fit

Sig (p)

Felt excited about next

sessions

Felt enjoyment during

sessions

decision making (χ2 =26.0, P < 001) Since the model of equal pre-

ference was poor, we concluded that GRT was by far was the most preferred

Case Illustration

The following session is based on a small segment of a recent GRT session with a group of youth convicted of homicide A fictional name is given below for a group member holding the anger manage-ment card along with a summarized excerpt

The following is a verse from the rap album titled Before I Self Destruct (2009) by Curtis Jackson:

You see I’m a psycho, a sicko, I’m crazy

I said I got my knife, boy, I’ll kill you if you make me

They wanna see me shot up, locked up then cage me

I come back bigger, stronger and angry

Group Leader: Mike, you have the anger management card Can you tell us

about your thoughts on how anger management was used, if at all, based on this verse [The verse was replayed.]

Mike: Well, really, he telling you that he angry I mean, he said I got

my knife and I’ll kill you if you make me You got to be already angry to even say something like that To me, when he said ‘I

Table 2 Prosocial Skills Information Index Assessment of GRT (Rap) and

Generic Group Therapy (Group).

Items (Prosocial Skills) %

Rap

% Group

% Neither

χ 2

Goodness of Fit

Sig (p)

Delinquent Behavior

Avoidance

Relation to Daily Life

Situations

come back bigger, stronger, and angry,’ it’s like a challenge, right? What he saying is, it don’t phaze me if you lock me up

So putting him on lockdown is just gonna make him more pissed off.

Group Leader: Okay, Mike; how is he managing his anger?

Mike: He’s not, man But I know how he feels, though It’s like there

is so much stuff going on around you man that you can’t control Even if you want to try to do the right thang, it’s like people do stuff to you or you get put in situations that force you

to hurt somebody, but you really just trying to protect yourself and your family You know what I’m saying? [Other group members nod in affirmation of understanding.]

Group Leader: Alright, Mike; you were saying, ‘You know how he feels.’ How

were you able to manage your anger?

Mike: You just got to slow down, man, before somebody pop you

[meaning to get shot] It’s like I knew I was angry but I didn’t know just how angry I was until I got locked up and I had time

to think about it I know it sounds crazy man, but I was lucky to get locked up in a way, because I probably would end up dead

or killing somebody Seriously, man; this group is helping me a lot because I get to listen to music and chill for a minute When you calm, you can talk about stuff.

Oh, when he said, ‘I’m a psycho, a sicko, I’m crazy,’ what he really was trying to say is that he gave up on himself.

Group Leader: Okay, I would like to hear more about that point a bit later.

This case illustration demonstrates how group members use the social artefacts of their own culture symbolically represented in rap music to facilitate self-disclosure about the composition item on their assigned card The GRT protocol is not only designed to generate self-reflection through lyrical analysis, but also to stimulate genuine, long-term involvement in the prosocial skills development process From a clinical angle, Mike’s Socratic dialogue demonstrates how the verse can be affectingly insightful Mike’s comments about ‘lis-tening to the music and chill for a minute’ suggest that the cognitive processes of absorbing music enable the physiological condition of calmness, which in turn increases receptivity to GRT The previously described condition of calmness echoes Schneck and Berger’s (2006) research which shows that rhythmic sound entrainment through the nervous system enables information from the auditory and cortical systems to interact with autonomic system pathways, thus producing

a relaxed sense of calmness The engagement of the aforementioned

systems have been shown to positively affect heart rate, blood pres-sure, respiration, and oxygen consumption (Bernardi et al., 2006; Chafin et al., 2004; Crowe, 2004; Kemper and Danhauer, 2005), which may explain Mike’s easeful disposition during GRT Mike’s comment, ‘When you calm, you can talk about stuff,’ is a perfect illustration of GRT’s key goal of promoting prosocial skills develop-ment primarily through discussion and feedback loops in a group therapeutic setting A major hurdle in prison treatment programmes is gathering enough focus, confidence, or minimal suspicion about the objectives of group therapy to stay engaged in the process GRT is designed to be an efficient and inexpensive supplemental treatment algorithm for youth that can be easily integrated as a component of a general psychotherapeutic treatment modality

The Integrity of GRT

To maintain the integrity of GRT, it is critical that its aims as a psycho-therapeutic tool are not viewed as a promoter or denouncer of rap music or other cultural entities associated with the music industry The politics of the artist and the music industry itself are not in question The focus is on the manipulation of the lyrical content for the purpose

of inducing critical thinking that will eventually culminate in behav-ioural modification which is supported by the cutting-edge work of Elligan (2000; 2004), and Tyson (2002; 2003) Keen (2004) suggests that adolescents generally relate to the music of their peers, and when used in a therapeutic setting, it produces a non-threatening environ-ment where the therapist–client relationship is significantly enhanced Due to its success, music therapy has become significantly more prominent Accordingly, several versions of GRT have emerged in the last decade This is likely due to the direct appeal to the children and adolescents who listen to rap music and the simplicity with which prac-titioners are able to implement it as a supplement to their intervention GRT is viewed as a pleasurable exercise by youth more often than psy-chotherapeutic techniques However, the goals of GRT as a cathartic outlet also require serious outcome measures There should always be a valid appraisal of the efficaciousness of any version of GRT Evidence-based outcomes are critical to the integrity of the framework Ideally, such an evaluation should provide qualitative and quantitative evidence about the experiences of both the participants and the facilitators Unfortunately, the ease with which GRT can be used as an inter-vention for urban youth makes it vulnerable to exploitation and