music, therapy, and me

If you have never seen the movie, What About Bob?,  starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss, I recommend that you find it and watch it. It is a silly take on the therapeutic relationship (which goes pretty wrong during the movie). While I am thankful that none of my clients have had that sort of focus on me, there are parts of the movie that have enriched my understanding of being in the role of therapist. One of the things that has stuck is the terminology of the therapist who recommends that the client focus on the smallest of steps to get through what appears to be unsurmountable issues. The term is "babystepping," as in "Don't focus on what you have to do to go to a meeting. Focus on the smallest step. Stand up. Walk to the closet. Select clothing." Each one of those steps is a babystep, and this is a concept that helps me navigate my world as well as helping me interact with my clients in music therapy sessions. My clients and I share a need for technique...

I am in a "hurry up and wait" stage. I have to wait to find out when my sliding glass door will be fixed. I am waiting for people to send presentation proposals for consideration for the music therapy conference focusing on clinical innovations for working with adolescents ( here is the link for more information ). I am waiting for the pollen to stop taking over my life. I am waiting for major life changes. There is lots of waiting happening right now, and I am just trying my best to be patient. It is not easy to be patient these days. I am exhausted and uninterested in much of anything. I will be traveling to my stuffy, humid, and hot room to do something with clients who will not be comfortable and will act out because of their comfort level. I cannot seem to please anyone these days. I also have very little motivation to create things for my clients. I have no idea what we are going to do this week. Now, I know that this is because it is April, and we are all tired, but I ...

It is time to start my next project - the Rhythm to Results: Clinical Innovations in Music Therapy with Adolescents virtual conference!! This is another labor of love and something that I have wanted to do for a long, LONG time. It is now time, and I am starting the process. To begin with, we have a call for presentations open right now. We are seeking clinical music therapists to share techniques, interventions, therapeutic music experiences, and session ideas in our online format. If you work with adolescents, please consider submitting a presentation proposal by June 5, 2026 at 11:59 CDT! We intend to offer 9 CMTEs for this conference (pending CBMT approval, of course), and we also intend to make this available for $90.00 USD. Those who do not want to earn CMTEs will be able to purchase conference access for $20.00 USD. Presenters will get free registration and 8 free CMTEs in addition to CMTEs for their presentation. Are you interested in presenting? Check out this page on the web...

A Disney movie that I love is Meet the Robinsons . If you are not familiar with it, it is about science and experimentation and finding a family. It is a movie that is creative and not just a remake of something that Disney has already done (I am VERY anti-live action remakes of cartoon classics!). Throughout the movie, the theme of Keep Moving Forward comes up again and again, and is finally echoed in a quotation from Walt Disney (no date to attribution) -  “Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” Curiosity is something that comes and goes for me. At the moment, I am curious about the world of music therapy beyond my role, but I am not feeling able to engage outside the four walls where I do music therapy. I have dreams for what I want to do, but limited knowledge of how to get there. I am still curious about it all. What do...

My apologies for not writing more this week. The urge was there, but the rants were just ongoing, and I felt that I did not need to express my angst and challenges in this forum. Blech. In the past five days, we have had tornadoes close to work, large hail that damaged work vehicles, lots of rain leading to flooding, branches down, kids in safety shelter past their bedtimes twice, crabbiness from everyone when asked to do basic tasks like sitting in a chair. Personally, I am still not feeling well - I feel better, but not well. I have not been able to get myself going or find any motivation to get anything finished. To top it all off, my gardeners broke my sliding glass door last night, so now I have to figure out how to navigate repairs. They will be paying to replace the door since they broke it. I feel bad that it will cost them so much money, but at the same time, I don't have money for something someone else broke. The best thing is that it just broke the outside panel so my h...

Yesterday, I returned to my office and email after a week of sick time. Buried in my emails was a request from the district office for information about what I will be doing after I retire from my school based music therapy job at the end of June. I am not entirely sure how to respond because I really do not know what I will be doing from July 1 on. To be honest, these types of questions cause me so much angst that I just shut down when asked. I don't know what I am going to do. All I know is that I am going to spend some time just resting and getting my house in order before I go outside of my house to find some employment. I find it a bit funny that the district office (which has completely ignored me for 25 years) now wants to know a bit about me as I am skipping out the door. For now, though, I am starting to get nervous about not having a plan. My financial advisor says that I can take a couple of years without needing outside employment, but I have no idea how that is possibl...