Three More Weeks
There are about three more weeks of summer session (Extended School Year - AKA ESY) left before Fall Break. Three more Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and two more Thursdays to work through. I have plans for most of the upcoming sessions, but not all of them. As always, those plans are not set in stone, but at least I have an idea about what I'm going to do.
Plans are good, but not if you intend to follow them to the letter. I had a practicum supervisor many years ago who expected me to follow my plans exactly as written, down to the breath. She would check off what I would do with my clients, and, if I deviated from my written plan, she would challenge my decisions. I now know that she was preparing me to explain to others what was happening in the music therapy session, but, at the time, it was difficult to explain why I varied my statements to my clients from what I had written on my session plans. She was the supervisor who taught me to think about and talk about the decisions I was making within the session itself.
I learned that all of my thinking and planning is only good if the client is ready to go on my journey with me. Most of the time, they aren't on my journey, but on their own journey. That's the way it should be, right? My client has to be the one who drives the journey and takes me where he or she needs to be, rather than me dictating what has to happen.
This doesn't mean that I completely give up all control over what happens in a session, but it does mean that I take what the client communicates to me, and I turn it into a therapeutic experience that intrigues the client. It's my job to drive the client towards things that will make a therapeutic impact.
One of the better presentations that I attended several years ago presented the idea of using pictures as analogies for music therapy concepts during the clinical supervision of students and interns. I liked the picture of a car. My analogy was that the driver of the car was the client - the person who was deciding where to go. The therapist was the navigator - the person who helped to find the direction and who would help the driver reach the final destination. The goal, of course, was the destination. There were lots of other things that made a part of the car analogy, but that image was the strongest for me.
It's time to start my morning process and go to work. Three more Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and two more Thursdays.
Happy Summer!
Plans are good, but not if you intend to follow them to the letter. I had a practicum supervisor many years ago who expected me to follow my plans exactly as written, down to the breath. She would check off what I would do with my clients, and, if I deviated from my written plan, she would challenge my decisions. I now know that she was preparing me to explain to others what was happening in the music therapy session, but, at the time, it was difficult to explain why I varied my statements to my clients from what I had written on my session plans. She was the supervisor who taught me to think about and talk about the decisions I was making within the session itself.
I learned that all of my thinking and planning is only good if the client is ready to go on my journey with me. Most of the time, they aren't on my journey, but on their own journey. That's the way it should be, right? My client has to be the one who drives the journey and takes me where he or she needs to be, rather than me dictating what has to happen.
This doesn't mean that I completely give up all control over what happens in a session, but it does mean that I take what the client communicates to me, and I turn it into a therapeutic experience that intrigues the client. It's my job to drive the client towards things that will make a therapeutic impact.
One of the better presentations that I attended several years ago presented the idea of using pictures as analogies for music therapy concepts during the clinical supervision of students and interns. I liked the picture of a car. My analogy was that the driver of the car was the client - the person who was deciding where to go. The therapist was the navigator - the person who helped to find the direction and who would help the driver reach the final destination. The goal, of course, was the destination. There were lots of other things that made a part of the car analogy, but that image was the strongest for me.
It's time to start my morning process and go to work. Three more Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and two more Thursdays.
Happy Summer!
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