Music Therapy Internships - The More Things Change, the More Things Stay the Same

In the interest of full disclosure, I'd like you to know some things right off the bat. First of all, I was an intern in the last century, so it's been some time since I was an undergraduate getting my initial degree in music therapy. Secondly, I am an internship director and supervising music therapist, so what I write about is from the perspective of someone who deeply cares about music therapy clinical training but who is firmly entrenched in how things are run. Lastly, I have been a clinical trainer for long enough to be able to see some generational shifts in how music therapy students complete specific tasks. Everything that I write about here on this blog is my opinion, based on years of observation and experience. There you go.

I am a person who feels that you never really know how to do a job until you actually do it. I am a big fan of an immersive experience in music therapy, supervised by a music therapist, before becoming one yourself. I know that my internship really did make sense of all of the things that my professors talked about in my undergraduate training. Before my internship, my clinical experiences were more about getting comfortable with singing and playing instruments for clients rather than doing therapy. Sure, we had goals and objectives and we took data, but we really didn't have enough time to do what needed to be done. It wasn't until I ended up in my own internship that I started my process of becoming a "therapist," and I would argue that it wasn't until I became an internship director that I fully recognized what it took to become "therapist." 

I started my own internship program in 1998 (again, in the last century - egad!!). When I started my program, I was asked to write a statement about why I wanted to do this thing we call internship. I never really had to think too hard about the why - I loved my internship experience, my internship director and supervising music therapists supported and challenged me, and I wanted to pay them back a bit of what they gave to me. I knew what type of learning is best for me - full immersion into any topic. I enjoy the teaching and learning process, but I don't feel that lectures are enough. I love the practical application of education into a clinical setting, and I also like working with individuals rather than large groups where personalities can be more anonymous. I knew that I could offer lots training to others in a way that would challenge them and help them to grow as music therapists.

My first intern came to me at a time when I did not feel ready. In the subsequent years of mentoring others who want to be internship directors and of being an ID, I realize that we never feel completely prepared for next steps. Many times, it isn't until that full immersion that you understand what you are in for. Over the past 21 years, I've had many good interns and one challenging intern. (At this moment, my former interns who read this blog are wondering, "Which was I?" Heh, heh, heh!) I have watched many music therapy students start to assimilate that educational information and use their knowledge to structure therapeutic interactions with kids.

I say that they "start" the process of assimilation because there is never enough time to ensure that folks get to the stage of "therapist" knowing everything that they need to know to be fully therapist. I don't feel that I really became a "therapist" until after I had worked for three years and then started my graduate studies. I had enough experience as a clinician to be able to base all of studies on experience, and that made me understand things so much more quickly. There was also a bit more neurological development that happened in my brain from the time I finished my undergraduate degree and when I started my graduate studies - it's amazing the differences between undergraduate interns and graduate equivalency interns in terms of understanding concepts and self-motivation. 


Currently, lots of attention is given to music therapy internships that offer stipends to their interns. I get it. I wish I could offer a stipend to my interns, but all I can offer is two meals per day (more than I got with my internship) which my interns NEVER take advantage of anymore. Everyone wants a stipend, and understandably so, but not all of us are able to offer that type of support. My facility is a not-for-profit agency, and we get absolutely no financial benefits for offering a music therapy internship, so finding monies for intern support is impossible. The only way my interns could get financial support is if they were hired by the facility to work as a Behavioral Health Technician, but then their music therapy duties could be superseded by the employment needs. Interns would be BHTs first, learners second, and they could be called in to cover classrooms rather than doing music therapy. It does not work to have my interns be anything other than unpaid volunteers. One day, I will win the lottery, and I will endow an internship grant program to give every intern a stipend. One day.

Since this is my blog, and I get to write about what I like to write about, I wonder what would happen to the profession of music therapy if we changed how we currently do internships. Some of the ideas that have been floated around me in my many years of being an ID include splitting the time up into summer-type intensives - two summer internships of 3 months each, and doing an internship three days per week for an entire year with the other two days per week of lecture and courses. Other ideas have included removing the internship experience completely and going with a model where a new therapist would have to pay for supervision before being eligible to sit for the Board Certification examination. There are good things and challenges with any type of immersive educational experience, and it is interesting to think these things through.

Here are some of the things that have always been a challenge to music therapy interns - just in case you were wondering...

• unpaid experiences - there were very few internships that had stipends when I was looking around. Most were unpaid. That hasn't changed in all this time, but I guess, back then, we were more accepting of the fact that an unpaid internship was an inevitability rather than the exception to the rule.
• the amount of time - six months is a long time to be working without payment. I had to scrape and save every little bit that I could, and my parents still helped me out with housing during my internship.
• not getting the placement/population/experience desired - sometimes you can't get the "perfect" internship. Sometimes you can. 
• the application process - applying for internships is not easy. Sometimes the internship director has changed so all the contact information is wrong. Sometimes the internship director is buried with work responsibilities and can't get information out immediately. Sometimes your application is wonderful, but the competition is fierce, so you don't even get an interview. Welcome to the world, folks. That's the way the job market is as well.

If I were Empress of all things music therapy clinical training, I would make some changes to how things are done. First of all, all interns would be eligible for grant funding to pay for housing and a stipend during their internships. Second, all internship programs would be full at all times. The list of thoughts goes on and on, and I'm tired now, so I'll save those thoughts for the next occasional post on this topic...maybe.