TME Tuesday: Why I Do Not Write Session Plans...
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 old client would do exactly like I had envisioned. The non-university affiliated music therapists that I worked with (that semester and ever since) laughed at me when I asked if they wanted my session plans. Now that I am doing 23 group sessions and other individual/dyad/lesson sessions every week, I do not bother to write plans down either.
Now, when I am talking about session plans, I am talking about long descriptions of what we will do during a session. I do that type of description in my therapeutic music experience (TME) plans. I focus more on why and what we will be doing during each TME than in the session itself. This is a shift away from what I was required to do during my initial training to be a music therapist but it also allows me to be a bit more flexible in my client interactions than I was allowed to be during that time.
As I am moving back into full-time therapy at my facility, I am putting together my typical way of doing things. This consists of writing TMEs and then making a list of TMEs that I could do during sessions. This list is not set in stone, in fact, I change what I do with groups based on their current state of being on a regular basis. I put all sorts of stuff onto that list - wiggle songs, time-fillers, and our focus for the week. This week, our focus is a music education concept of some sort. I think we will work on beat identification. So, all sessions will include a TME or two about beat. After that, there are no firm plans on how we will proceed, but I will have plenty of things in my head to lead with my clients.
I like to think of what I do as "session strategizing." This is a bit of a silly thing, but when I think about strategizing, I think of being a bit more flexible than I was taught in my education. The way session plans were used during my years in my early training was less flexible than what I strive for in my clinical practice. I think of a strategy as a series of possibilities rather than a set task analysis. It's a silly little difference, but it makes sense in my head that way.
In my clinical work, I strive to be responsive to all the clients who enter the music therapy room. They are often angry because so-and-so tried to be first in line or didn't do what they were told to do. I end up having to deal with lots of emotions because my students do not have good social skills. That's one of the primary treatment goals during their time at our facility - improving their social skills. So, the three minute walk from their classroom or from the special right before music therapy often brings up lots of emotions and inappropriate interactions with others. That's how they enter.
As a result, as their music therapist, I have to be able to adapt my musical input to their way of perceiving the world in the moment they enter. I have to decide if the TMEs that I have placed on the list will be the best option for those students in that particular moment. My strategy is to match my music to their observable behaviors and known preferences to change their mood and their way of interacting with others, including me. There are times when I get yelled at for no reason at all, just because I am the authority figure in the room. I can usually change that sort of mood within minutes, if I am able to gain any sort of attention, even angry attention.
If I have a plan organized and a group walks in fully consumed in anger, then my plan may or may not work. I have to be able to adapt what I want to do with them to how they will best interact. There are times when my entire strategy has to be reformed in the moment - more times than not.
Those in-the-moment reframing situations are why I write robust TME plans. Those moments are the reason that I write about the therapeutic functions of music and outline the options that I have to change, adapt, and revise the music that I present to my clients. I spend a significant amount of time thinking through the ways changing the musical input can affect the interactions that I have with my clients. All of these things happen during the TME design and implementation stages. Reviewing my TMEs helps me remember all the options that I have each time I start to make music with my students - all of the different musical elements that can and do affect how they relate to me, to music, and to each other.
This week's focus will be on the beat. That is the one thing that all sessions will have in common. Next week's focus will be on musicians. The next week will be our country of the month. Then, we have break.
When I get to work this morning, I am going to spend some time developing my strategy for each of the groups that I will see today. (There are five of them plus two individuals.) I will figure out how each group will experience beat. I will write a list of possible TMEs and take that list with me into the session space. I will also start reorganizing my space to make it mine again.
I am looking forward to this time without an intern, mainly because it does give me an opportunity to do what I love to do most of all - music therapy. Happy Tuesday, all.
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