music, therapy, and me

Here it is, Sunday again. I have tried a different way of "reading" this week - that of skimming rather than reading every word because I get so involved that I cannot read more than about four pages - AND, I am only in the first chapter!! If I only read four pages a week, I will NEVER finish this book! Page 9 (Yep, that's where I left off last week after what seemed like SO much information gathering) includes the introduction of how different theoretical orientations shape the supervision of interns and students. Pages 10 and 11 speak about developmental approaches stating that "Developmental models of supervision...are metatheoretical...and readily applicable to varying theoretical persuasions" (p.10). I know that my own perspective about intern training follows the ideas of the developmental model more closely than that of the psychotherapy model, but bits and pieces of the psychotherapy approach makes it into the experiences of my interns - how could it not...

Clinical training is something I really enjoy. I had a meaningful experience at my own internship (many, MANY decades ago), and I find being an internship director to be very good for my own clinical awareness and development. I hope that my interns learn as much from me as I do from them. All of that to say that clinical training is one of my passions in this field of music therapy. As such. I find it to be a consistent topic that I explore during my continuing education. Since this is something that I continue to be passionate about and always want to be better at, I tend to focus my time on learning more and more about this topic. Now, one of the other things that I am passionate about is competency-based education and clinical training. It is a nice situation when both of my passions come together in a smooth manner. I am currently reading Clinical supervision: A competency-based approach by Carol A. Falender and Edward P. Shafranske, published in 2009 by the American Psychologica...

I have not been reading - yet again - but I uncovered my books, so I have made progress towards my goal of reading these two books and learning more about competency-based supervision and music therapy clinical training. I also have my book of notes, so everything is poised and ready to take up the books again. I just have to do it. I also just have to vacuum the downstairs, clean the bathrooms, choose books to read in my leisure time, and all sorts of other things... I celebrated an anniversary yesterday. Last year, on the 19th of November, I moved into my house. This is my first home that is all mine. I am not completely (or even halfway) moved in, but I have also been either injured or sick for most of the year, so I am giving myself some grace with the fact that I haven't really unpacked. I make a little bit of progress every week, but I still have way too much and not enough places to put things. I am working on putting small things into containers which will use some of my sp...

...that never stops me from writing! I did manage to finish up my presentation for next week's SISC conference through the Music Therapy Association of Ontario. This makes me pretty happy since I am getting to talk about the topic that I am currently reading more about right now - specifically, competency-based education and clinical training.  I had a bit of fun going back into papers that I wrote and submitted for publication but that never got published since I don't really write things that reviewers can agree on (long story - don't get me started!!). I'm happy to be back into this particular topic since it invigorates me in a way that other music therapy topics do not. The thing that I like about the ideas of competency-based education as developed by William G. Spady in the 70's is that students know what they are expected to demonstrate when they start the educational program. All skills, techniques, educational outcomes and the evaluation process are clearly...

I did some reading this week, but I didn't get very far in my reading because the book I started this week, Clinical Supervision: A competency-based approach, by Carol A. Falender and Edward P. Shafranske, is so full of ideas, concepts, notions, and challenges that I get overwhelmed by thoughts and have to stop to synthesize things. So, I got to page four. That's right. Page four before I felt the need to stop and unpack the concepts presented at the very start of this book! This is going to take a bit more time than I thought originally, but I have gone down this reading rabbit hole before. I know that this book gives me so much to think about that I never remember when I get things started. Time to unpack what I read and what I am thinking about at the moment. Some background to this, of course. I will be presenting on one of my favorite topics - competency-based clinical training - at a conference later this month, so I am getting myself organized. I selected two books to r...

Last week, I set an intention to start reading my music therapy texts again, and this week (well, yesterday), I started the process. I actually need to give myself a bit more credit than this since I did identify all of the chapters in both of the books that I want to read this quarter and started my outline, but once I did that, I left it all alone until yesterday afternoon. I started out with Karen Goodman's book on music therapy education and training, and I read the first chapter. This chapter, Music Therapy Education and Training in the United States, covered the history of how music therapy became an educational program in the U.S. Now, I have done much research in this area, so nothing here was a big surprise to me. I know most of the events and information that were listed. I am looking forward to the next readings - in both of the books I've selected (by the way, the citations are listed at the end of this post). I have always been much more interested in the how we do...

It is Sunday again, and I have nothing to synthesize. I basically referred to all of my ideas yesterday when I wrote about the AMTA Symposium. There was a comment that it is more difficult to find virtual presenters these days. I thought about that for a bit. I am part of a team that runs an international online conference, and we have more presentations than we need. I also know that I sent in two virtual presentation proposals for the conference that was cancelled, so I bet there were more people who submitted virtual proposals as well. I digress, though, back into my funk of yesterday. Time to shake myself out of this funk into something a bit more positive and more supportive of music therapy. The only other topic that I have on my idea board is about pet peeves in music therapy, and I am just not feeling that topic...yet, so I will figure out something else to synthesize. Time to head to my music therapy bookshelf!! (That's right, I have been able to make a portion of my libra...

Oh my. I am trying to figure out some social media things that I do not fully understand. Here is one. Hashtags. I understand that by linking anything that I write to a hashtag or another, that increases the number of people that see it in their various feeds. I get that concept. I also understand that your best chance of getting people to see your information is to link popular and trending hashtags to things that have absolutely nothing to do with what you are writing about or wanting to share. That explains why there are so many posts on TikTok that have tags like #CheetosChallenge when there is absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH CHEETOS in the posted material! Can I just say that this frustrates me??? I don't use many hashtags in my social media posts. This is primarily because I don't want to wade through lots of irrelevant tags to find things that I am interested in. I am also not interested in seeing things under a #musictherapy list that have nothing to do with music therapy...

I spent my Friday afternoon commute thinking about philosophy statements. Not my usual way of thinking on the way home after an extremely challenging week in the music therapy spaces that I inhibit, but I embraced it anyway. My current way of being includes going where my interests lead me, so I thought about philosophy all the way home. I did not come to ONE decision or a SET philosophy, but I explored a bit about what having a philosophy meant to me. That's what I am going to talk about in this post - the importance of finding your philosophy and then basing your professional practice and demeanor on that philosophy. I also thought about how a philosophy can and should change over the years and experiences that you gather, so there will be a bit about that as well in the ensuing sentences. If you haven't written a personal, professional philosophy, then you might consider doing something like this. It is interesting to sit down and really think about what you believe and what...

The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) released an email statement to members on Friday about the current state of our Association and what is happening in the next several months. This statement documented some of the things that have already occurred in the restructuring process and included several links to supplemental materials. The email indicated that AMTA has changed some of the processes and day-to-day duties and situations of the organization and continue to examine areas where we still have room to change and grow. I, for one, really appreciate the way that information is being shared at this point. We now know the dates of all the Board Meetings and Assembly Meetings from now until the end of the calendar year. We have been assured that these meetings will not be closed to membership viewing which is also a good thing. There is a little bit of information about the AMTA Symposium (Sunday through Wednesday??? Why??) and the fee schedule (better than last year, for sur...