The Power of Music in Groups and Individually

I was able to restart my individual treatment routine this past week. It's been like pulling teeth to get my co-workers on the same page and schedule sessions at times when their students are not busy with other things happening. For the past couple of years, I've scheduled sessions, arrived at classrooms, and found that my students were on Community Based Instruction or in their scheduled play therapy groups. I actually found people where I expected them to be during this past week. Of course, one was eating breakfast because he was late, but that's okay with me.

I got to start some individual treatment routines this week, and I have more that will start. It's been a long time since I've been able to work with kids individually, and I am so excited about this forward step.

I am also moving from the role of primary therapist to that of observer for about half of my large group sessions. This allows me to actually sit back and watch the power of music as it transforms people and situations. I am looking forward to many more moments of watching and making connections and thinking foreign thoughts over the next several months.

I am a visual person, so I understand best when I can see things. This is true for things like movement patterns, developmental processes, and many other things. If I can see it, it is in my memory pretty much forever. So, having the luxury of watching another music therapist do music therapy is something that really helps me to process what is happening within the music therapy intervention process. 

For example, I spent a couple of hours this week watching my intern interact with my clients. I still consider them "my" clients and will for quite a time - they are always "mine," but I share them with interns. [Sarcasm here.] The intern is where interns often are at almost the end of month two - fully into what is happening in the session and starting to figure out the power that music can have in establishing and maintaining client skills. Things are still very much on the surface of interaction and all that, but that is also to be expected in an intern with this level of experience. We have four more months to increase the depth of thought and interaction. The nice thing is that the music often makes the experience more than just something on the surface, despite the therapist - not because of the therapist.

I had a student this week who was very confused about why the rest of the clients left the room...until I started singing the client's favorite song. At that point, attention shifted completely to me, and we were able to work on our therapeutic connection and interactions. I improvised an accompaniment to the client's vocalizations, and we interacted musically for 20 minutes. This is the first step in our music therapy journey.

I am getting ready to do a presentation titled, From Many to One: Individualizing Music Therapy Treatment in Group Settings. I've presented on this topic before, and I am enjoying the process of revisiting the concepts and ideas in this presentation. Through it all, I am noticing that my perspective is helped out significantly by watching another therapist do music therapy things with my clients. My ability to see what happens is enriching my understanding of what music actually does to and with humans.

I'm going to spend some time today moving things around my house (new mattress being delivered today) and thinking about this topic.