What I'm Reading Wednesday

What I’m Reading: A picture of a hot cup of cocoa on top of three books. Under the graphic, the title, “What I’m Reading” is followed by smaller type that displays the URL, www.musictherapyworks.com. The last line of text reads “a new weekly series.”
Gee whiz.

Two weeks ago, I was actually reading some pretty interesting things in the world of music therapy, but I am not reading anything in our field right now. This, of course, doesn't mean that I am not reading - I am just not reading something about the field of music therapy at the moment.

This is not unusual for me to not read things about our profession. I do not like to do that very often, but I recognize that it is important to do so on occasion. My problem with reading research articles and the like is that it takes lots of work to make the research relevant to my experience as a clinician. I am naturally suspicious of research results, having done my own and recognizing the limitations present in the process, and I find it hard to justify some of the results with my reality in my clinic. 

As a result of my avoidance of research and desire to know more about research, I have developed a research to practice process that works for me. It involves a form - swoon! Perhaps it is time to start using these again. I mean, I have an AMTA membership, I might as well use the access to current and past journals.

I am NOT going to set any sort of goals here. I do not do well with setting personal goals for reading more research or anything like that, but I may add this to my quest list. What is the difference between a quest and a goal?? My attitude. That is the only difference!

So, I will add a quest to read more professional literature.

The nice thing about a quest (at least, in my brain) is that I can take small steps and feel like I am progressing.

My current quests for this year include reading other things. I am fascinated by people who do book review journaling, but I am not interested in doing the same thing myself - primarily because of my deep seated lack of interest in book reports. I love reading but hate book reports. Go figure!

In my non-music therapy reading, I am reading things from Heather Graham, Lucy Johnson, and a book called Olive Kitteridge (I cannot remember the author's name). In order, these books are physical, on my Kindle, and my work book. I do not usually have three books going on at once, but I do today. I have already read the Heather Graham book, so that can wait while I finish the other two. The Lucy Johnson book is a set of books that I got for free on my Kindle, and I am on book five of eight right now. These are fantastical mystery books - there is magic involved and the books are set in an France-adjacent land. They are fun and do not require much thinking which is what I like in a book...

What are you reading right now?

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