My Persephone Story - Thoughts About What May Come

I am having a bit of fun thinking through a futuristic story about a music therapy student in the year 2047. This series is background and character development for another story that I am working on - for some reason, stories are piling into my head during this time, and I have a bit of time to work on them, I guess. Persephone, my hero, is going to be the foundation of my bigger story...and, it's just kinda fun to think about what generations of music therapists will do after all this.

I hope I see the world of 2047. It's not unlikely that I'll make it that long, but I will be elderly at that time and possibly in an assisted living facility, so I hope that my music therapists will be proficient in playing my music - alternative 80's rock and Broadway musicals, and songs from my therapy career - I should probably write an advanced directive about musical preferences and my background so I don't have to hear "You are My Sunshine" during sessions.

I have felt (for a while now, not just in the past month) that the profession of music therapy is on the verge of a significant evolution. When I press myself to define what I think is going on, I cannot figure it out, but I have a feeling in my bones that we are going to have to change what we do and how we do it in order to be a viable profession in the next decades.

I think this pandemic will be the turning point for us as a profession.

We are spending time trying to define our profession through a new viewpoint - that of telehealth and limited direct interaction with others. We will not be able to move away from this type of interaction. We have made it work, and it will be part of what we do from now on.

In my opinion - and only my own opinion - I think that our association is broken. I think the inability to keep two executive directors in one year is an indication of just how broken it really is. For some reason, the folks that were hired to run the business side of the association left us because we can't seem to wrap our heads around the role of a professional organization. We (and this is a global "we" including myself) often seem to want things for free, things that our association cannot provide because of the rules and regulations that are present for our types of organizations, and things that just aren't part of what an organization does for its members. All things have a cost, and legislation, representation in healthcare organizations, being written into education regulations, and product development are very costly.

I wonder if AMTA is trying to do too much for us. I wonder if we are demanding too much from our organization. Perhaps AMTA could move into a more streamlined format and move some of the services that AMTA currently covers into the regional organizations associated with the national association. Here's one idea - not researched or even well-thought out, but it's an idea. What if AMTA's function was to focus on state recognition, federal legislation, representation on (primarily) the national level. The National Office would still coordinate journal publication and education program oversight. What if the regions then took over some of the other parts of what AMTA tries to do now? What if the regions were in charge of conferences? Just thinking here. What if the regions were in charge of internship programs and CMTEs? I don't know how it could work, but that's part of evolving and growing - thinking far outside the box and then figuring out what we want from our organization and our membership dollars.

My goodness. There are so many things to think about these days, but my mind is stuck at this thought. We need to change to continue.

Telehealth will always be an option for folks now. We have shown that we have the technology and the ability to get a therapist in front of an audience. We will have to define what is music therapy based on the happenings here and now. There will never be a time where some folks will not think of music therapy as a Zoom meeting or watching their music therapist sing preferred songs on YouTube. We will have to figure this out as soon as we can. Are we going to define music therapy as an "in-person" therapy? Is watching a pre-recorded session considered therapy? Oh boy. I hope that other people are thinking about these things because I certainly am.

So, my story about Persephone is my way of thinking through the possibilities. I saw an article about the thought that many current universities may be closed soon. That was interesting to me, and it led me to deciding that there were only four programs in existence in the year 2047. Truth? We will have to see. Since there were so few programs, I decided that the class sizes would have to be enormous - so Persephone has 3.999 classmates in her graduation class of 2050. Then, that decision led me to think a bit about how information would be presented to my hero and her classmates. Large lectures? Online work? In-person work? You will see my biases as I continue with the story. I did decide that all programs are master's level entry in the year 2047. Personal bias #1! That's the best thing about writing fiction - you can make decisions based on what you think should happen! 

Let me know what you think about this post (and any of my other posts!). What do you think we, as an association, need to be doing in these times? Do you think that business should go on as usual? Let me know!