Things I Care About in the Profession of Music Therapy

Every so often, I feel compelled to write a bit about things that I think and care about in the profession that are bigger than my role here...

I feel like writing about these things today, so please indulge me as I think a bit about things that are important to me.

• Therapist longevity and attrition - I mourn each time someone leaves the profession and no longer does music therapy. I fully support their need to do what makes them feel happy and fulfilled as a person, but I mourn their leaving as a member of this profession, especially when they leave because they cannot sustain themselves as a music therapist. I am disappointed when someone says that they had a different idea of what a music therapist would do in the "real world."
• What is and what isn't music therapy - I have some VERY strong opinions about this topic. I am not always doing what I consider to be "music therapy" with my clients and that is perfectly fine with me. There are things that I do that anyone can do with my clients. I figure that there are things that I am uniquely qualified to do with my clients and there are things that we sometimes call "music therapy" that does not require my level of education, training, and experience. So, I think lots about what is music therapy and what is not music therapy. I have VERY strong feelings about lyric analysis - ask me about it sometime!
• How to talk to other people about music therapy - Oh, the elevator speech. Mine has become more and more personal over my years as a music therapist. I find that it is easier to explain in these days than it was when I started. Everyone has now seen some sort of media about music therapy, so it is a good starting point for our conversation about what we all do.
• Allied health or Support Staff or Adjunct Services - ooo-ee. This can be an interesting thing to think about - how do we define ourselves? How do we portray our profession in the world? Why do we allow ourselves to be defined by others? This was what we did in the early days to be included in any sort of situation. It is hard to break out of patterns and roles we took on earlier. I don't think how other professions define us will change until we take it upon ourselves to change our roles.
• Competency-based education and training - We aren't doing it, folks. We say we are, but we aren't. We aren't really even using these competencies to educate and evaluate our future music therapists. I can (and will) go on and on about this topic, but I am running out of time this morning.

What do you care about in the world of music therapy? I am always interested to know what others think...