Feeling Demeaned, and Trying To Change It For the Better

My feelings got hurt yesterday, and I am tired of feeling this way. So, from now on, I am going to be a bit more assertive about what I need.

Let me explain.

I attend the clinical team meeting on Thursdays. I am usually the only school-based therapist who attends, and the clinical supervisor (not my supervisor) always refers to me as "school." Never my name. Never my modality. Just "school." Now, when there are others present, we are grouped together into the title of "school" - at least, usually. 

Yesterday, our two certified occupational therapy assistants attended the meeting. When it was our turn to speak, the invitation was presented in this manner - "School and the occupational therapists." That made me feel less than, and I am not less than.

Why am I singled out for something that is inaccurate? I am not "school." I am a music therapist. I have been doing music therapy at this facility for longer than anyone else on the team. I am the original member of the clinical team, and I am no longer going to be referred to as "school." Not when therapy assistants are given the title that I have earned. 

I am now trying to figure out how to make this change without coming across as snotty.

Even though I feel pretty snotty about it all.

The language that we use matters. It can be something as simple as refusing to acknowledge the education, training, and experience of someone. It can be acknowledging someone else's education, training, and experience while discounting another person's.

As someone who has always been required to stuff her feelings, it is difficult to confront the clinical supervisor about this, but I am fed up. Why were the assistants provided with the consideration of their medium but I was not? Why does this happen over and over and over again? 

I have a theory that may or may not be applicable here, but it has to do with a spurned professor who had a bad experience with a music therapist at some point and then made it a point to ridicule every single music therapy major that was in his abnormal psychology course from then on. He was a petty little man-baby who just had to humiliate many generations of music therapists through his bully pulpit. I have seen some of his legacy in my years as a professional. I wonder if this is part of the way I am referred to and treated in this meeting. If nothing else, it certainly made an impact on me.

I am not someone who speaks up, but this was inappropriate, and it needs to be rectified.