Thoughtful Thursday: Rough Week and How We Work Through It In Music Therapy

This has been a long, rough, severely understaffed week at my facility. Only one of the 15 groups that we have done so far have been fully staffed. Most of my groups have only one person coming with them to music therapy sessions. We're supposed to have at least two people in some of my groups and often we have more like four additional people coming into music therapy with our client groups. So, we are understaffed at the moment.

This makes for very cranky staff members and kids who see a gap in supervision and try to take advantage of that gap.

In addition, I've been dealing with some strange stuff behind the scenes - situations where people have overstepped their role in my training program and in areas where they have no business making decisions for me rather than consulting with me. I've had to fix things that should never have been an issue, and that is extremely frustrating for me. 

The week has been progressing really slowly. It is still really hot here, and the humidity is oppressing. I am one big bunch of pains and tight lungs and twinges as a result, so this makes me prone to shut-down and frustration. So, I feel like there is lots going on where I have little to no control - a position that I do not enjoy at all.

In the midst of all of this strange stuff happening around us all, we spend time together in music therapy.

I pride myself on being a therapist who is able to be flexible in the moment. I think about sessions as fluid and something to shape around the clients present. I function as someone who thinks about the therapeutic elements of music and how my clients fit within those elements as I choose my therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) both prior to and during the session.

Sometimes, I am able to fix problems before they even start. Other times, I watch as my carefully crafted TME comes crashing down around my ears. With my years of experience, I always have options and ideas of what comes next during the implementation of all things that happen during music therapy. 

Yesterday, I was involved in my least favorite part of my job - a safety assist. The situation was not something that I started - the client walked into the therapy room engaged in a significant behavior - but I had to assist in keeping the client and others safe. I do not like putting my hands on a client, but I know that it is part of the job that I have to do when necessary.

So, there I am, sitting on the floor, trying to hold onto a client's legs to keep the client from kicking and pinching the staff who was completing most of the assist, watching the four other clients who were sitting there, staring at us. Well, that's not what music therapy is supposed to be, so I verbally facilitated a Boomwhacker TME with the assistance of my intern who did the things that I stated. After I was relieved from my safety assist duties, I moved the staring peers from the carpet with the assist to the other carpet (I'm so happy that I have two), and made up an adaptation to the plan. I had my clients bowl with a soft, squishy ball - they knocked over "pins" and I used my left hand to play the notes that they knocked over. Then, we shifted into singing familiar songs with me sitting on the floor, playing a left hand accompaniment while using my right hand to manipulate materials. We finished the session, and I had to just sit for about 10 minutes to get over my adrenaline surge.

I was successful in that I was able to keep my clients engaged during a safety assist. I was unsuccessful in that the assist had to occur at all. I think the client is not participating in group therapy because the client is currently participating in individual therapy. I will have to discontinue individual therapy until the client's group therapy work is more stable because group is the expectation - the right - individual therapy is a privilege.

Anyway, because this has been a rough week for us all, music therapy sessions have been focused (well, somewhat) on stability and distraction. It seems to have worked. Other than yesterday's assist and an incident on Monday that did not require physical management, students have had pretty good behaviors in the music therapy room. We are working through a rough week - one note at a time.