Thoughtful Thursday: Bias and the Music Therapist
Stick with me here.
Bias is something that pervades all situations. We all use our biases to structure our living and experiences. Every learning situation I have ever been in has had bias as part of the structure. Also, every work situation, every leisure opportunity, every single thing.
While I was watching Ms. Marvel, I was exposed to the partition of India into India and Pakistan. I am sure that we spent about a class period on this time during World History, but the television show really shows the devastation that people felt in that era and illustrates the continuing generational trauma that exists. That led me to thinking about why we didn't talk more about this situation in World History.
As someone who has taught classes, designed continuing education, and developed training programs, I know that the materials that I present are filtered through my biases. I have to make decisions about what to teach and what to focus on. Every presentation slide, every learning objective, and every single activity that goes on in my courses is filtered through my set of biases. I have to determine what is important to share because there is no way I can share everything from every perspective in a limited amount of time.
As a music therapist, I have biases that arrive in my clinical interactions as well. I select music to use with my clients. I select times when my clients can access materials, props, instruments. I do what I think is good for them. I shape things that they want to do into therapeutic interactions based on my own biases about what they need from a therapy session. My education, experiences, and biases are part of this process.
I have always been someone who has been interested in how we do music therapy. I am very interested in the clinical decisions that we make before, after, and during music therapy sessions. I am fascinated by the fact that two different music therapists, with the same clients, will make decisions to approach clients and their goals in different manners - not right or wrong decisions, but different decisions. This is inevitable because we approach what we do based on what we have experienced and what we believe.
One of the things that I have had to acknowledge in my decades of being a music therapist is that I am biased person. There is no way to be a human and not be biased in some way. I have always felt that it is better to acknowledge that I have biases than to attempt to deny those thoughts and beliefs.
I am the type of person who strives to accept each human being as an unique and important person. I am always striving towards this goal, and I hope I am not alone in this goal. I try to understand why people find things to be important to them. I do not always know the root behind specific beliefs, but I try to place those beliefs into my own being to see if they are things that I can assimilate into my way of viewing the world. Sometimes, my beliefs adjust. Other times, I cannot make the ideas of others fit my way of being in the world. I have, however, gained a greater perspective of how others perceive things and events. My attitude has always been that I will support what others believe, even when I do not share the same beliefs.
My biases are mine. I acknowledge them and work through and around them when needed. I identify the thoughts and beliefs that interfere with my role as a music therapist, and I try my best to curb the ones that could be harmful to others (because we all have them...). I try to filter clinical decisions through my beliefs to see if my beliefs are mine or someone else's. I constantly question what I believe and where those beliefs come from - are they mine or are they influenced by social media, other people, my family members??
I may be writing a bit more about this topic.
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