Being an Internship Supervisor: In a School Setting...In the Gap Between Holidays

Oh boy.

It is that time of year again. We go back to work today in our school program for children and adolescents with developmental and psychiatric considerations after our Thanksgiving break with 18 school days until our Winter Break comes around. Our Behavioral Health Technicians (BHTs) worked over the Thanksgiving break so they are tired and missed out on family traditions because they had to be at work, caring for the kids. I am returning to a situation where some of us have had a long weekend while others of us have been working through holidays and have had no break. This is, traditionally, a difficult time of year for our students and our staff members. Many BHTs will decide that working holidays is not really worth it and will disappear - at least, that's the way things have happened before.

So, what does this have to do with being an internship supervisor?

If you ask ANY school teacher about this period of time in this country, they will all say the same thing - it is difficult to teach during this season. Being a school-based therapist means that some of the behaviors of concern that happen during music therapy are not part of music therapy. Those behaviors of concern are not things that only happen in music therapy, but when an intern is only in the music therapy room, it is easy to conclude that music therapy is the cause of all things that happen every where.

That is not true, but in an intern's developmental stages there comes a period where the novice therapist is super-focused on what they are doing with little to no awareness that clients are individuals who bring their own situations into sessions. It is easy to end up in "I should" territory in this developmental stage.

During one of the presentations that I did as a member of the AMTA Association Internship Approval Committee, we discussed intern's clinical development in terms of how the intern views clients and the role of therapist (self) and music in these interactions. I have never been able to find that information again, so if you know what I'm talking about, let's talk. 

From what I remember, the intern starts in hyper awareness of self, then moves into hyper awareness of client, and then ends up in awareness of all three parts of the therapeutic triad. The therapeutic use of self is something that is difficult to explain, but it is a crucial element of being a music therapist. If you cannot find your sense of self, then you cannot be an effective therapist.

There. I've said it.

Again, what does this have to do with being an internship supervisor?

Interns are not weathered clinicians. They have not been through this type of season before. I have been spending lots of my time talking about "this is not atypical for this time of year." I also spend lots of time saying "we are not part of our client's lives all the time, so there are things that happen that we don't know about or will ever know about. We meet our clients where they are, and we help them move towards their goals." We increase our structure for our clients who may not be able to find structure for themselves.

This year feels a bit different. I don't always have interns during this time - it depends on who applies when whether I have an intern or not. I have an intern this year. Due to the interns that I have had recently, the timeline worked out that I have one intern during this season. It has been some time since I have had to talk to an intern about these topics - the scattered behavior of kids from the beginning of October until Winter Break, the increasing frustration and exhaustion of Direct Care staff, and increasing structure and maintaining expectations even more strongly during October through December than other times of the year.

So, we navigate the usual stuff that happens in any school setting as well as intern development as well as staff member emotions as well as our own holiday baggage.

Can you tell that I am not really all that happy about heading back to work this morning? Two five-day weekends have been wonderful. I am not ready to walk back into my music therapy role yet, but I still have about an hour before it is time to get going. I am heading into this first full week in a long time (for me) after a troubled night where I dreamed about numbers all night which usually means that I am sick. No temperature right now, so off I go. Once I get to work, I will enjoy the interactions with my clients. I lead one group and three individual sessions today. I observe two groups and will provide some feedback to my intern this week. I'm striving for an entire week of feedback as I have been lax on the formal feedback lately - of course, that's primarily because we have been gone, but I still need to step up the formality. So, I will. I will interrupt her sessions to get classroom votes for the Holiday Sing songs that they want to "sponsor." So, I will probably be in more sessions this week than I have been in for a long time.

Anyway...

Send out good vibes towards your fellow music therapy clinicians this season. It is not easy for any of us and is very difficult for our clients as well. Good vibes are very much appreciated. 

Also, send out good vibes to our current music therapy interns who will be experiencing this season and thinking that all clients are like this all the time. Rest assured, they aren't, but this is a bit of a predictable situation during this season.