The More I Try to Learn. the More I Find We Are Really the Same

I am currently taking a continuing education course on a theory that is related to others I have studied over the years. This course is rooted in a different music therapy tradition than my own experience, so it is a good exercise to observe music therapy from a different philosophical perspective. This is something that I am trying to do this year in an effort to deepen my understanding of what music therapy is and what we do as music therapists. I am looking outside my own philosophy to that of others to see what I see - for better or worse.

I am finding that much of what we do is exactly the same but we call things different names and may have different ideas about why these things are happening.

Now, I'm not talking about the current push in our national organization to focus on social issues or inclusivity or anything like that - I think those discussions are important, but they are a bit removed from client services. I am talking about client services here - how we do what we do with our clients during their time in music therapy treatment. That's all - nothing else, so please don't think that this is a conversation about anything other than what we do.

In the 1970's, the music therapists in the United States split into two factions - two different ways of doing things. This seemed to be more a split based on educational practices rather than anything else (at least, according to my research in the AMTA archives), but there was a long-lasting effect of this split. To be precise, there was a huge skepticism between the two factions about the validity and usefulness of the other way of doing things. 

I was "raised" in music therapy concept and theory in a behavioral program. We were taught about building relationships with our clients while connecting antecedents to behaviors and rewards. This was a concept that I could engage with and understand. We were told about other models of music therapy, but none of our teachers really practiced these other models, so I did not get much exposure to these "other" ideas. I do not recall ever being told that the other models were wrong or bad, but I do not have much experience working within psychoanalytical models or music therapy focused on the more psychodynamic philosophies. I never really looked at the way my client interacted in music within this type of perspective. I really never have.

When I went off to do my internship, I looked for an experience with my preferred population but in a different perspective, and I found it at the Center for Neurodevelopmental Studies, Inc. Our treatment philosophy was Sensory Integration and this philosophy and theory matched my own needs as a therapist a bit more than the behavioral procedures I had been taught. I was able to engage my clients in therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that were focused on each client and his/her sensory needs rather than on eliciting a specific response to a stimulus.

When I graduated and went into the world of music therapy as a clinician, I was able to pick and choose how I would work in the world. I write a philosophy of music therapy statement every so often to see what I think about the roles of client, music, and therapist in the act of music therapy treatment. This functions as a good check for my ideas and how I feel about my chosen profession. I have decided that my personal music therapy philosophy is a combination of humanistic perspectives, sensory integration and focus, and a splash of behavioral theory mixed in there as a remnant of how I learned how to do this job to begin with.

As I am now exploring other theoretical perspectives and techniques, I am coming to the conclusion that what we all practice is actually the same. We just call things different terms or approach things from a different set of thoughts. There is no "good" or "bad" or "right" or "wrong" philosophy to approach the act of musicking within a therapeutic environment - there is just the music, the therapist, and (in my opinion - ALWAYS the most important element of all of this) the client. 

So, in the midst of my exploration about music therapy and in a quest to find information about what makes us different and the same (I am convinced that there is a Grand Unifying Theory of Music Therapy out there), I am taking courses, reading books, and doing lots of thinking about all of this. The perspectives are different, to be sure, but most of the outcomes are the same - better lives for our clients.

I have spent six hours in a continuing education course in the past month - the last two hours will happen today - where the theories presented are interesting but the treatment perspective and practice is something that is very familiar to me. I just haven't called it what folks within this perspective call it. I think I want to put together a list of music therapy techniques with an associated glossary or vocabulary list. I wonder if this would be something that I could ever complete - probably not, but it would be interesting.

I have studied (ad nauseam) the reasons that we only have philosophies and theories based in other professions rather than our own. The reasons? Mostly to be accepted by other professions or models of treatment that are controlled by others. Another reason? Because we cannot agree, as a group of professionals, on what we want to think about what we do.

The course that I am taking right now has some of the echoes of the old disagreement. There are comments about how "behaviorists" do things rather than how "we" do things. These biases are interesting to me since I strive for a more inclusive viewpoint of how to be a therapist. I want to know about the mechanisms in behavioral therapy and in the medical model and in the biological model and in the psychiatric model and in the sensory integration model and in all the models. I think I can be the best therapist I can be when I can understand how all these models view the interaction of the client with the music and with the therapist. I can then decide how to move forward in treatment of the client. I want to figure out what we are doing the same way regardless of who we think has the right theory about how music affects and engages humans.

There has to be something that we all believe at our core beliefs of why music is a therapeutic modality for all the clients we work for. There has to be.

What is it?