music, therapy, and me

One of the things that I tend to do during my three day weekends is wander around my living place and explore stuff. Now, you might think that I would do that all the time, but I don't. It is not uncommon for rooms to go unvisited in my home for several days in a row, but I try to go into all the rooms at least once per week. During the summer, I tend to wander around a bit more. Now, this is not a new behavior for me - even when I lived in an apartment, there would be weeks where I wouldn't go into one of the bathrooms and the craft room. I visit the rooms more often now in my house than I did in my apartment - and, I have more rooms to visit now. So, anyway, I have spent a little bit of time in my library room. This is one of the rooms that needs work - well, all of them need work. I have about seven boxes in there that need to be unpacked. I need to get a bedframe for the bed in that room. I have an idea for a daybed setup in there, but I need to find a cheap frame to get st...

If you have been reading this week, then you already know that I am on a quest to organize things as much as possible in the two weeks that I have in my first break (one week is done, one week left of this break!!). I have been tackling the library room first of all because it is the space that is the most coordinated. I already had bookshelves ready for that room...but, they were too tall and very floppy. I cut those down, tried several ways of propping them up on the wall without success, and then I got brave and anchored them to the wall - they were still up this morning when I awoke, so SUCCESS! I have been moving books from one place to another over the past two days, and I found a box of music therapy stuff. I found four texts to start exploring. The first book that I have is one that I have read a couple of times over the years - Music Therapy in the Treatment of Adults with Mental Disorders: Theoretical Bases and Clinical Interventions . My edition was edited by Robert F. Unkef...

Last night, I attended a webinar hosted by Alverno College that was led by Jenny Cook-McKenna. The title of the webinar was "The Genealogy of Music Therapy Theory," a topic that merges into my areas of interest in music therapy very nicely. I was not disappointed at all with the topic. It further strengthens my resolve to find the commonalities between music therapists while acknowledging some of the differences we have as well. Are you confused? Let me explain a bit more. All of my music therapy life, I have been baffled by the attitudes of some music therapists towards others that practice within a different philosophy of music therapy. I have been the recipient of these attitudes several times, and it makes me wonder why we have these thoughts and feelings in our profession. I have removed myself from many of the places where people seem to profess their beliefs that their way of doing music therapy is the only way to do things because I cannot fathom a helping profession ...

Yesterday, I asked the question, "What do you want when you call for changes in our National Association?" That started me thinking about what I would like to see happen in the world of music therapy. Are you ready? Please remember that this is a place for my opinions. You are welcome to challenge, comment, or question anything that you would like, but these opinions are mine and are written on my personal blog. Take it or leave it as you would like. What do I want my professional national organization to do for me? I want more transparent communication from all committees and members of the Assembly and Board. I don't think a Board Book is adequate in this time of constant interaction. I would like to hear what the Association Internship Approval Committee is doing to best represent interns and internship supervisors throughout the year, not just one email from the head office once per year (if that!). I would like to know what the Commission for the Education and Clinic...

I am amazed how many times I find myself thinking this exact title phrase during conversations with many different people in many different settings. This question, more than any others, is the thing that I am wrestling with at the moment in our current music therapy state of being. Okay. The disclaimers. I am a person of perceived privilege because of who I am, the level of education I have been able to attain, and because of what people automatically think about me when they see me. I am also a person who is not aware of many things happening in the music therapy world at the moment. I have heard some stuff, but I am not always in the know when it comes to the latest scandal. I know a bit about regulations and expectations of organizations here in the United States. I have very strong opinions about several different things, and I tend to share those only when feeling strongly about a specific topic and only here on my blog. I do not believe that social media is a place to make these...

It's that time again - time to update you on what I've been reading. I actually sat down yesterday and did some reading in my book - finished chapter two and looked forward into chapter three of Emotional Processes in Music Therapy by John Pellitteri. I must say that I am enjoying this book. It is providing me with a framework that is valid (in my opinion) regardless of which theoretician you subscribe to in your way of doing music therapy. I like that. I feel that it gets me one step closer to my goal of a Grand Unifying Theory of Music Therapy - the one thing that links us all together rather than pulling us apart. That's what I want for the music therapy community - things that pull us together instead of pulling us apart. My quest for understanding is moving along quite nicely. Anyway, back to the book that I am currently reading. I took notes this time around, so here are some of the things that I gleaned from my research yesterday afternoon... p. 26 - A Model of Emot...

I have finished the first week (and first chapter) of John Pellitteri's Emotional Processes in Music Therapy book, written in 2009, and published by Barcelona Publishing. I am enjoying this perspective about therapeutic relationship and how emotion plays a part in all that we do and perceive. I am actually excited about what I am being challenged to consider, and it is only the end of the first chapter! I started off with the table of contents as well as the "About the Author" portion of the book. I like getting a bit of perspective about what I will be reading about and who ends up writing books like these. I know another person named Pellitteri, so I admit to wondering if there is a link between the Pellitteri I know and this one - I have no clue, but it is interesting to think about... ANYWAY... The author started off by discussing the relevance of emotion research to music therapy and why we need to know about it all. The author makes a point to indicate that the the...

It is time to catch up a bit on my music therapy reading. I set a goal for myself of getting through 13 music therapy texts in this year. I have finished two books - well, three if you count the book on American folk songs that I read the first part of and then realized that is was mainly descriptions of song origins and how the American versions differed from the other versions. I may never finish that one. So, I guess I am only two books into my stack. With the next 10 days of break ahead of me, I can probably make some inroads into that stack! I am currently working on reaching my Goodreads goal of 250 books this year by reading cozy mysteries on my Kindle. I am not where I want to be on that goal either, but I am confident that I can catch up pretty well. See, the simple fact is that I love reading. It has always been my leisure activity of choice - to sit down with a book and see what types of things I can glean from the pages. While I love to read, I have less motivation when it ...

I am currently taking a continuing education course on a theory that is related to others I have studied over the years. This course is rooted in a different music therapy tradition than my own experience, so it is a good exercise to observe music therapy from a different philosophical perspective. This is something that I am trying to do this year in an effort to deepen my understanding of what music therapy is and what we do as music therapists. I am looking outside my own philosophy to that of others to see what I see - for better or worse. I am finding that much of what we do is exactly the same but we call things different names and may have different ideas about why these things are happening. Now, I'm not talking about the current push in our national organization to focus on social issues or inclusivity or anything like that - I think those discussions are important, but they are a bit removed from client services. I am talking about client services here - how we do what we...

The raw materials of making visuals Yesterday afternoon, I took it upon myself to sit down and work on the large stack of visual aids that I had been producing. I (goblin alert) should have been cleaning my bedroom, but I did get to that later on during the day. I sat down with my stacks of cardstock, my scissors, and my laminating machines, and I knocked out a bunch of projects - all while thinking a bit more deeply about the Therapeutic Function of Music model developed by Dr. Deanna Hanson Abromeit, Ph.D., MT-BC. I love the dichotomy that is often present in my life. I am sitting there, working with nursery rhyme songs, while contemplating something that I feel is the foundation of what I do as a music therapist. Theory and practicality - all in the same moment. This happens to me quite often. I may be internally reviewing the therapeutic function of music within a session all while saying things like, "Play with your hands, not your head," or "Hands on lap,...

Today is the day that I dive back into my synthesis textbook - Music, Therapy, and Early Childhood: A Developmental Approach by Elizabeth Schwartz. I am up to chapter seven, Awareness, and I am looking forward to reading these 10 pages. We are starting with the development of awareness in early human development - something that is important when working with persons with developmental interruptions or challenges. A long time ago, my facility served persons with significant involvement due to developmental situations. These persons often required 24 hour care for all activities of daily life, and this group of students seemed to be one of the most challenging for my music therapy interns because they responded to things very differently from all the other students. This chapter is reminding me of those students. According to Schwartz, awareness is linked to the "reflex phase of musical development" from Briggs and Bruscia (p. 49). Children respond to the stimuli presen...