Welcome Back and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I am a school therapist, so my life is very much dependent upon the ebb and flow of the school year. August always seems much more like a new beginning to me than January. So, every year about this time, I start to think about my goals for the new year. I make resolutions about my professional life and then try to obtain those resolutions. This year is no different.


This year, I will strive to do the following:
  • FINISH my schooling
  • Make long-term decisions about my future as a music therapist - here in Kansas or somewhere else completely
  • Become a pre-approved CMTE provider through CBMT
  • Develop new interventions for children and adolescents with developmental and psychiatric concerns - use them in sessions, and then give them to others
  • Avoid toxic people in my environment
  • Find interesting people to interact with outside of work time
  • Act as an appropriate music therapy internship supervisor
  • Maintain appropriate communication with other music therapy internship supervisors out there in the world
  • Sing new songs
  • Listen
  • Breathe
  • Learn
Lots to do.

As a therapist, I strongly believe in balance. My resolutions often reflect my hope for balance in my own life - professional obligations balanced with personal needs. That balance is often elusive, but very important to me.

I often feel that my clients do not have the opportunity to find balance in their lives. They are children in the eyes of the law, have been taken away from their homes, and do not get much choice in matters that concern them. I try to offer them some choice in how they participate in music therapy sessions. It always distresses me when a classroom paraeducator insists that a student participates in music therapy sessions. I do not allow that to continue because I feel that participation should be a choice. Now, having said that, I generally wait for the child to refuse, and then I get out his favorite instrument and insist that he follow directions to get the instrument, but that opportunity to choose is a method of balancing his needs to be a child/teenager and my need to provide the therapy I am paid to provide. I find that a bit of defiance is healthy for me as well as for my client as it forces me to remain client-directed and aware of the things that my client communicates to me through the music therapy session.


Balance.

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your year is filled with happy thoughts and challenges that make you become a better therapist!

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