The New JMT is Here, AND It Was Relevant to ME!!!

Shameful confession here - I do not always read my Journal of Music Therapy when it comes to me in my mailbox. In fact, I don't always even take it out of the plastic covering. Just so you know, it takes three years for that covering to biodegrade, and it does it in lots of splintery flakes - just so you know...

ANYWAY, I picked up the latest JMT from my mailbox on my way out of the house yesterday. I arrived home before the mail carrier visited, so the journal was waiting for me. I tucked it into my bag and took it into work with me. I finished up my documentation with some time to spare (yep, I was there too early...again...sigh), so I thought, "why not open it up and see what's in there?" So I did.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the first article actually was relevant to one of my music therapy passions - that of internships. Dr. Amy Clements-Cortes has written about the pre-internship fears of music therapy students. I read the entire article, and I'll be putting the article through my Research-Informed Clinician process to glean as much information as possible from that journal article. I have my post-its ready for note taking, and I'll download one of my research evaluation forms from Teachers Pay Teachers (they are available in pdf format on TPT - if you would be interested in also getting an editable form in docx format, purchase the pdf and send me an email - I'll send you the docx file for free!).

I start off by grabbing a bunch of post-it note pads. I usually use about four different colors for my reading process. Each color has a function. In this case, I have one color for references and definitions, another for quotations that I like, one for theory/philosophy/technique, and another for keywords and clinical questions. Once I've read through the article and put my thoughts down on the post-its, it is time to start the synthesis process.

I take those colorful post-its, and I start to transfer the information onto my sheet. I start with keywords and clinical questions. Some of these are delineated by the researcher, and others come from me. I always make sure that I use APA formatting for the article reference (this comes in handy when I use this sheet for presentations and webinars and writing and the like). I list my additional references (the next articles that I want to read), defined words, the theory or philosophy expressed by the author, any relevant quotations that resonated (pun intended) in my music therapy brain, and any additional thoughts. The most important part of this form (at least, for me) is the last box. It is titled, "takeaways for my practice," and this is where I figure out why this is relevant to me as a therapist and to my clinical interactions with my clients...or, in this case, my interns.

The thing is, I find that many of the articles that are published have little to nothing to do with how I am as a music therapist. That's why the takeaways portion is so important. I have to figure out why something has relevance to my clients every single time for many different reasons - some have to do with clinical diagnoses, some with the level of trauma that my clients have experienced, some have to do with concurrent sets of situations and issues that have nothing to do with my clients but have everything to do with the setting in which they are placed. 

Does anyone else go through this type of process? I know that if I ever need some CMTEs, I can easily transfer this form into the information that CBMT requires to demonstrate use of research to inform clinical practice, and I spend some time doing something that I really SHOULD do more often (but that I resist ever since I left graduate school) - reading research. 

Let me know if you'd like to know more about all this - I can post my thoughts on the specific article when I'm finished. Let me know!!