Systems in Music Therapy: Why Is Thinking About This Important to Me?

I am sorry about my lack of writing lately. My body has been insisting on sleep rather than thinking, and my eyes aren't uncrossing until later and later due to the increase of allergy medication that I am having to take because of harvest in this area. For some reason, I get sick every time we harvest corn and soy beans around here. I don't know if it is the dust or the foliage being cut that stirs up things that make me sick, but I can pretty much plan on getting bronchitis or pneumonia this time of year.

Anyway, that's the reason that I haven't been writing very much. That, however, is not the topic of this particular post, so let's get to it!

I have always been someone who likes thinking about how things are done. Some of the best years that I have worked for this personal preference were in the company of 14 other music therapists who all did the same job very differently. I had an opportunity to observe how they did things like documentation, session implementation, and planning. There is something about quietly watching someone do their jobs that can help me to figure out what I would like to try for myself.

The way I do things in my music therapy clinic are an amalgam of systems that I have picked up from others and figured out for myself. 

I write TME plans because of an assignment that made sense to me. I have added and shifted and changed things, but the bones of my plan are firmly based in that original assignment. I remember struggling to write 25 plans. Now, my database has over 2,000 TMEs to choose from. There are many more ideas that wait to be recorded.

Some of the assignments that my interns do are because of my Internship Director, Sheryl L. Kelly. She made me write songs. She helped me figure out how to improvise without anxiety. She also encouraged my own creativity and started my life-long struggle with Contact paper. I can see her influence in several of my systems.

Other systems that I use are mine alone. At least, I think so. My color-coding came from my need to find materials quickly. So, I started a color system for different clinical treatment domains. This helps me pick things out of a mass of materials easily. My way of evaluating interns is mine (with the assistance of William G. Spady). I organize my instruments by how we are most likely to play them. There are so many little routines that I do and pass on to my interns because this is how I function.

I am a fan of figuring out ways to do things with the least amount of work possible. Am I lazy? Of course I am! I want to use my time for other things, so why not??

I've got to go now. Tomorrow, I am presenting for the Music Therapy Association of Ontario on Competency-Based Clinical Training. Before that though, I have a day of work, a doctor's appointment, and a full night of sleep to get!