music, therapy, and me

So, let's just start off by saying that I really do not have a thought about what I will end up writing about this morning. I just need to kill some time because I will have to stay after school to finish up some things with my last intern, so I want to get to work on-time rather than early. I also have an additional hour of preparation time since we are still down one classroom space, so I have the time to take. Since I will be staying after my official 8 hours of time, I can justify the staying home a bit longer. Anyway, I do not really have anything in mind to write about, so here goes nothing! For session time fillers this week, I have gone deep into my TME compendium (database) for some inspiration. The thing is, TMEs come and go in the life of a music therapist. There are times when all I sing is one specific song and then it goes back into the vault until a later date. I have so many of my own songs in that state right now that I am enjoying the opportunity to bring them bac...

One of the things that I often forget when I am accepting interns to work with me is that the system that we have in place offers lots of flexibility. I have the ability to adapt and change my program in ways that I have never thought of. In the past years, I have had interns who worked four days a week, interns who have worked three days a week with me and started their own programs the other two days per week. I can do part-time internships, full-time internships, hybrid live and video production internships. I can do it all as long as the intern and the academic advisor agree with the plan. If I want to offer three, two-month long internship placements, I can. The 1020 hour, six-month internship was started way back when music therapy was in its infancy. It is a relic that we have continued based on tradition and convenience. Now, I know that finding housing for seven months (how much my internship lasts) is extremely inconvenient, but could you imagine having to find housing for tw...

Hello, there. It is Sunday which means that it is time to step into my Way Back Machine and travel back to the days of November 2010 . I wrote a whopping 3 posts that month, and had reached the big number of 147 posts by the end of 2010. Fast forward 13 years, and I am now writing my 3.209th post. This blog has really become a place for me to think "out loud" so to speak.  Back in 2010, I was getting ready to start my tenure as chair of the Association Internship Approval Committee. I had been a member for some time, and it was time to start my time as chairperson. I loved everything about that job - the work with the AIAC members, communicating with internship personnel and with interns, helping to navigate conflicts between members of each clinical training team, and working with the Education and Training Advisory Board. Leaving that position was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I am glad for the opportunity to have served in this position. Check out the po...

I slept in yesterday morning rather than getting up and writing. Wednesday was a busy day and kept me from waking up at the usual time, so Thursday was a rush to get out of the door, even with my late arrival at work already arranged. The good news about Wednesday was that it was a typical day for me - which means that students acted the way I expected them to act rather than being surprising. We had one tantrum due to a thrown choice board and the subsequent refusal of myself and the behavioral health technicians to allow the client who threw the board to go get the board. We had one episode (in the same session) of significant aggression and attempts to injure self and others. That was the most difficult session of the day. The rest just flowed quite nicely, even the one where the BHT was expressing doubts that I could do my job all by myself.  Uh, yeah, I'm fine. So, that was how Thursday started. It was a long Wednesday because of an extended day and Ash Wednesday services at n...

It is Wednesday again, and I think I am ready.  For some reasons, Wednesdays are my most difficult days. I know that they are my longest days. I know that Wednesdays are the day that I spend more time in groups than in anything else. I know that Wednesdays just seem like they go on and on and then there are two more days to work after Wednesdays. This Wednesday is going to be an even longer day to get through. In addition to an entire day of music therapy groups, we have a training that starts at 4 and goes until 8. I have to leave because today is Ash Wednesday, and my other job requires my presence. So, I have to take personal time rather than comp time for my absence. (Everyone else gets comp time, but I am not allowed for some reason - that's an entirely different subject and a bit of a rant, I'm afraid...) In order to make sure that I am not being punished for being around early (since I have to take the time from 5:20 to 8pm regardless of when I start my day), I am not go...

Today's the day that I take over my full caseload without an intern in sight. I am looking forward to this chance to be "THE music therapist" again, I am not going to lie. I like having nothing other than my job to do. I am enjoying the fact that I get to get to work when I want to and then leave when my 8 contracted hours are up rather than spending more time in supervision mode. The change in my status from supervisor to therapist means some changes in how I am working with my sessions. I do not write full out session plans. I have not written many session plans since I stopped being a practicum student way back. My university program focused on writing session plans, and I had one supervisor who would check off my procedures when I was running the plan. If I didn't do things in the order I had written them, she would challenge my clinical decisions. I don't know if she was testing me to see if I could justify the changes or if she honestly thought that a 3-year...

One of the most important things that I can do as an internship supervisor is to take breaks from that task and just be "therapist" again. I am entering this way of being tomorrow. I am ready for the break.  I have always been someone who loved doing music therapy more than talking about it. While I enjoy talking about music therapy with others, I definitely prefer being the person leading the music exploration than watching someone else. The most difficult times in my life are when my interns have taken over the caseload and I am relegated to the role of watching and offering feedback. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy my time with interns. If I didn't, I would stop my program and just be "therapist" for the rest of my professional career. Interns offer me many opportunities to learn and change my viewpoints as well as unique challenges throughout their time with us. So, having interns is something that I enjoy, but I also enjoy their absence from time to time...

I have to admit that I am enjoying these glimpses into what past me was thinking about in various times of my blog. Today's post, #2137, is from March 10, 2019 . You can find that post here . In 2019, I was thinking about how we experience each other and how we are perceived by others. This was really spurred on by several events that happened in the music therapy and bigger worlds. In 2019, my country was run by a person who I feel is not interested at all in anyone other than himself. We were splitting into "us" and "them" factions, spurred on by a megalomaniac who found that he could do things to hurt everyone but himself when we were distracted by the "others." We were in that sort of situation in the music therapy world as well - well, not the megalomaniac leader bit but definitely the "us" and "them" factions. The ramifications of things that happened in 2018 at our conference are still with us. I still do not understand every...

I have decided to participate (at least, to try to participate) in a #100DayChallenge. There are lots of ways to do this, but I've decided to pair two things together - a creativity exercise with some cleaning. Starting on Wednesday, I will be working towards five minutes of cleaning daily as well as a rolodex doodle thing. What does all this mean? Well, it means that I am going to try my best to focus on the things that I want for myself - a cleaner environment and a routine that includes making art every day. Now, I tend to get pretty excited about these things and then peter out after a couple of weeks. This challenge will last from February 22nd through June 2nd. I have enough stuff to take with me to keep the art part going for the entire time. I can take my rolodex cards with me when I go traveling this season. I have lots of little colored pencils and markers and stickers and things that will travel easily. I will not be able to clean my home for five minutes when I am not a...

Today's Fiction Friday blurb is a short one. Let me introduce you to "the heretic." CHAPTER ONE The stories were always a bit too scary to listen to.  Earth Before had told us what was happening, but most humans couldn’t (or wouldn’t) hear the warning. It was almost imperceptible, but one woman, later called “The Heretic,” heard and wondered.  Intrigued? Keep tuning in on Fridays to learn how these three stories fit into my current world view and my thinking about things...

My Wednesday led me into some angst and issues. There are some brand new staff members who are questioning my ways of engaging with my clients, and they are openly challenging me. I think I hurt my intern's feelings when I told the teacher that I was talking to that my session management is different and sessions will be different when I take over again. The teacher said that the behavioral health technicians were concerned that I would be alone next week. The technicians that have been employed for three weeks are concerned. Let me set the stage here. The first session this particular person walked into the music therapy room, this person yelled over the music happening, led by the music therapy intern, to tell a student that the student had lost iPad privileges. The student then escalated into a serious behavior of concern that this staff member felt compelled to talk about - LOUDLY - while my intern was working with the other students in the session. This staff member ignored my...

I am getting ready to be a solo therapist again which means taking over my entire caseload for the first time in a bit over a year. Now, this is not a bad thing at all, but it means that I have some things that I will need to make habitual again that have been set aside in favor of intern development. One of those things is putting together about 20 group sessions per week in a way that allows me to keep myself organized. I find that thematic programming helps me be a bit more organized and helps me remember which clients have experienced what in their time with me. Now, when I say thematic programming, many music therapists become a bit defensive - on both sides, to be fair. There are valid arguments to all sides, so let me elaborate a bit on what I am meaning by thematic programming... I like some themes, and you may find that my idea of themed programming is a bit different from your own. That's okay. I do not have a week for "Dogs" or "Science" or "Supe...

This is the last week for intern #35, so we have been preparing clients for next Tuesday when intern #35 is no longer in the music therapy room. We do not have any say about when our clients attend our facility or when they leave our facility, so we cannot go through the process of termination with clients. So, we do the termination thing with interns. We start the talk about three weeks before the intern graduates, and we term the leaving as "graduation." Many of my students have been around when our older students have graduated from our program, so that concept is usually pretty understandable for my clients. The responses to the intern's announcements vary from "Nooooo. Stay. MJ can leave," through "So??" and "Yay!" There is nothing more simultaneously uplifting and degrading than telling a bunch of adolescents that you are leaving them. Next Tuesday, when it is just me, there will be many questions - there always are questions, but we wi...

Today's random number generated by the random number generator that I use is 2981. I did the calculations that I have to do to figure out which post is #2981 - June 9, 2022 , and I found that it was a post that I wrote last summer about my version of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. You can find the post here . I am enjoying these trips back into things I have written over the years. This one is an interesting glimpse into situations that I go through every year. As it is winter right now, I am in a pretty good space as far as my depression goes. I do much better in the winter than in the summer. While the humidity happens here at the same levels, the air is easier to get in and out of my lungs. I enjoy the earlier nights, but I do miss the sunrises of the summer. I get to enjoy more sunsets during the winter. I am sitting here, reveling in my arthritic state, but I feel so much happier in the depths of winter than I do in the heat of summer. Reading over this post, I am remind...

I am getting ready to start a 100 day challenge . Actually, I am getting ready to start two. The first is an art challenge - I haven't quite decided what I want to do with that one. The second is a clean-up challenge that I am going to also do - something that I need to get done for my home and my well-being. So, there you go. Two different 100 day challenges. The art challenge starts on February 22nd - at least, that's the date suggested by the art challenge coordinator. Like I said, I don't know what I want to do for this challenge, but I will figure something out. I may do something similar to some of the smaller art challenges that I have gone through before - I may make a book and then fill it up with drawings or journaling or something like that, or I might try painting or crocheting daily. The purpose of the entire thing is to just do something every day. There is no expectation of getting better at any sort of skill but just to do something. So, I will be doing som...

It is Friday again, so here is another part of the stories that I am writing. I call this part of the story the "D-flat" story line. (There are three story lines right now that will all end up being a part of the same book.) Let me know what you think, and happy reading! CHAPTER ONE - D-FLAT “Seventeen microtones from perfect,” Allia whispered in a hushed tone. “Can’t he hear that?” I shrugged in reply. My ear was not nearly as sensitive as Allia’s but I had good relative pitch. Allia had perfect pitch, so tuning came more easily to her than to me. Absolute pitch was all that was required to qualify to be a core tuner. Allia was ready to move from training to her internship. Me? My future was not so secure. I was sure I wasn’t going to move on into the next phase of core tuning. Alllia nudged my arm. “Are you listening to this?” She hissed, “he’s moving farther away from center. The is AGONY!” I shrugged again as my gut clenched. This final tuning test determined everythi...

Well, it is Wednesday again, and I am getting myself ready to go to work for a day full of therapy groups. I am still walking gingerly with a pulled muscle in my side that complicates every move I make. Coughing makes it worse, so every time my asthma comes out to play, so does this pulled muscle. This is my asthma season, so you can imagine. Enough of that, though, it is Wednesday. My focus for today is always just to get through it all. For some reason, my schedule is overly full of sessions on Wednesdays and not on Thursdays or Fridays, I would love that to change, but it is not likely at the moment. This is the one day where I don't have many individuals and the two that I am supposed to have today did not do well in music therapy yesterday, so I am not going to reward them for their inappropriate engagement in group by giving them more time to do whatever they want. So, that time will be spent explaining to these clients why they don't get to go to music therapy. I will wr...