Thoughtful Thursday: What Do You Need?

This post started off very differently, but I need to go in a different way this morning. It is day seven of my break before the 2022-2023 school year, and I am trying to figure out what to talk about today. 

I was thanked for offering information to a couple of music therapy students on Tuesday evenings. I always feel a bit uncomfortable when I am thanked about things, especially when I get as much or more than the participants get from the experience. Anyway, that started my under stimulated and rested brain into contemplating why I like to share information with music therapy students, interns, and professionals. This is the thread that is currently spinning around in my brain and will not let go. So, let's use this post to work through several of these strings...

First, I share information because I have found that I can't find what I want or need as a music therapy clinician. I also don't have the money to pay for all the various communities that other music therapists offer. I just don't. So, I seek to organize free communities for other music therapy clinicians who may be in the same spot I'm in. Did I mention that I don't have the money? If not, then, just know that I do not have the money!

Second, I share information that I wish someone had told me when I was a music therapy student, intern, and professional. I have always been interested in the attrition of music therapists. Why do we have so many very young and inexperienced music therapists and not as many therapists with years of experience. I hope that is changing, but I am not sure if it is. I know many more therapists who have reached the 15 year mark now than I did when I reached the 15 year mark 15 years ago. My theory is that most of the therapists who leave the profession do so because they feel like they can't do the job. Either they get overwhelmed with the constant need to perform, to create, and be present for clients with challenges, or they find aspects of the job market too daunting to navigate. Of course, this is conjecture on my part. We do not often ask therapists who have left the profession to tell us why.

Third, I am interested in how we learn to be music therapists. I am steeped in how I learned to be a music therapist, but I am finding that others did not learn the same way. There is a lack in coursework for teaching our students how to do the minutiae of our job. I talk to students about how we change and adapt musical stimuli in the therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that we offer to our clients in sessions. Most of them have never contemplated the fact that a change in tempo can significantly change how a client responds and reacts to music therapy treatment. Why not? Shouldn't we be teaching these things to future music therapists? I think that they are often not explicitly discussed or trained during courses for many reasons, but I find that music therapy students do not know what I'm talking about when I bring it up. I wonder why not?? So, if I can give people that information, then why sit on it and keep it only for myself>

Fourth, I need community. I often feel isolated in my role as a music therapist, and that situation is only getting worse through my lack of interaction with AMTA. There isn't much that AMTA does to directly benefit those of us who are clinicians. This has always been one of my criticisms of AMTA - I am still a member, though, which gives me the right to complain! So, given that AMTA does not do much for clinicians, we have to do things for ourselves. For me, the biggest thing I want from membership is a chance to interact with other clinicians - people who do music therapy with clients on a daily basis, not researchers. While research is important, having people who are directly interacting with clients is essential for any profession to actually continue. If there is no one out there to utilize the information gathered through the research, then there is no real reason to do the research, right??

So, that's why I talk to music therapists in all stages of their experience. I have found ways to do this job over the past three decades that just make my life easier. I find that others have things that they do that can make my life easier as well, and I enjoy setting up situations where we can share that together for the benefit of all.

So, what do you need? As a music therapist out there in the clinical world, what do you want? What do you need? What do you wish someone else out there would just give you?