TME Tuesday: Finding New Ideas for TMEs

It is Tuesday again. I am late, after going to bed at an earlier time than in the recent past, but it was still VERY difficult to wake up. Tonight will be a later night than yesterday since I have a webinar to offer on the topic that I am discussing here today - finding ideas and making them into therapeutic music experiences.

The most interesting thing about this particular topic is that it is something that is eluding me at the moment - well, sorta. I am feeling the stirring of creativity starting up, but the thought of sitting down to write out a therapeutic music experience is daunting to me. I am improvising to what my interns are singing in my dark little closet, so I know that music is still reachable, but writing down ideas is too much work. I love being a music therapist. I really do, but I am tired of it right now...and, we are getting ready to head into the hottest week of our summer so far. Enough of this pity party for one.

I do enjoy figuring out how to take an idea and turn it into a music therapy experience. I enjoy taking an object and using it musically to develop a therapeutic music experience (TME). I enjoy shaping a vague idea into a more specific TME for my clients and then watch them take my concept and morph it into something bigger than I ever conceptualized in my experience.

So, enough of this pity party.

There are so many things that can lead me into TME development. Right now, hearing songs sung by my clients and my interns are sparking ideas that I rush to write down into my little ideas book. Watching my clients in the hallways, walking from one place to another. Going into my music therapy materials boxes and finding something that I hadn't touched for a long time inspires thoughts about how I could use this thing in a session.

To get to the point of all of this, here's part of what I do when I am thinking about things to develop into a therapeutic music experience. 

I start with a multi-sensory view of the experience itself. Multi-sensory seems to be a buzzword around music therapy at the moment - it's nothing new to me, but I guess it is a new concept to others?? Anyway. I start with how things look, smell, feel, move, and other stuff (I draw the line at tasting most of the time). I have a chart and everything! The chart helps me figure out ways to use the material or object or item in a therapeutic manner.

After the sensory experience itself, it is time to think about my client. What are they working towards? Will this sensory experience move us forward? How can I incorporate music into this experience or object or material? How can I go towards my client's end goal? I start to brainstorm ways to match my clients and the objects. There's another list!

Ideas do not always come easily or often, but they do arrive. This is an important thing to remember as I am into a period of less active creativity.

There is a TME for every client goal. There are more than one TMEs for every client goal. There are many different TMEs for every person, every session, every goal, every material. There is NOT one RIGHT way to get to the end of treatment. Music therapy is not something that can be prescribed. Most therapies are not prescriptive - you cannot force humans into a mold and not experience some human push back. So, there has to be many different ways to get to each goal. We have to remember to shape the experience for our client rather than try to shape the client to our TME. So, even after I have a TME fully fleshed out, I find that my client takes it and further adapts and molds it into what they need in the moment and for the long-term.

I am running out of time, but writing this down has helped me figure out lots of things that were swirling around in my brain. I am looking forward to figuring this out more and more as I move through remembering the things that I have put into the back parts of my brain. I may even come up with some new thoughts about all of this.

Happy Tuesday.