music, therapy, and me

It is day seven of winter break, and I have four more days before it is time to report back to work for the rest of the 2023-2024 school year. I am sitting here, at 3:56 am, writing the second iteration of this post to try to analyze what is going on in my brain and body after an insomnia night. I get these every so often, and so I am not all that surprised that it happened after Mexican food and arranging a visit with a friend from junior high all the way up to now. Add in the full moon, and of course I am waking up over and over again! I am starting to get into the holiday funk that happens to me sometimes. I start to feel squirmy because there are things that I want to get done but can't because those things are there instead of being here. In addition, I want to play with all my Mom's crafting toys, but I am scared to because they are her toys and not my own. I know that she would be fine with me using the stamps and the punches and the dies and all that, but I feel like I ...

So, I went to pick up my car from the emergency room parking lot where it had remained since Wednesday evening when I had to go to the emergency room until the day that I could get a taxi and brake without significant amounts of pain. Then, I found this... Doesn't look like much, does it? This little tear in the back of my car sent me into full hysterics for quite some time. Someone decided to back into my car and not leave any information about insurance and the such. I now have scrapes, a dent, and this tear in the back of my car - one that I am going to be trading in in a couple of weeks, of course! The new car has been ordered and is on its way from its country of origin as we speak. The police officer who took my report stated that the damage was a crime since the person responsible didn't try to contact me about the incident. We have about five days of security footage to look through - if the cameras even worked - to see if there is any sort of identifying informa...

Does anyone have "typical" days in this job? One of the reasons that I am still a proud, fulfilled music therapist after 26 years in the profession is that it is rarely completely planned or routine. I like that because I have an idea of how the day is going to go, but that idea is never set in stone - at best, it is set in half-set cement. I wonder if there is any music therapist out there who plans their day and it goes exactly as planned - no surprises, no clients changing the way music is used, no power outages or missing materials or crabby moods or things like that. Is it just me? Or does this happen to you all as well? I'm curious. I think the fact that my days are somewhat random is affected by me as a person and as a therapist as well as my clients, but I think that there has to be some part of us music therapists that is able to recognize the unexpected and then go with it. Maybe. I'm not exactly sure, but I think that this type of ability is something...

There are times when you just have to keep going and going. This is the time of year when I have many different things going on in many different places, and all are doable, they are just all happening right now. So, I go from thought to thought, task to task, and eventually get everything finished. I have learned to compartmentalize my thoughts and my time. I think this habit used to drive my interns crazy because I had to take time to finish out one train of thought before switching to another. This seemed to be most frustrating for them in the early mornings. That's when I do my clinical documentation and that's when I can think about what my clients did the day before in treatment. My interns would come in during that time and want to chat. I just couldn't do that. It would distract me from what I needed to do and make my documentation time twice as long. I learned how to let my interns know how I needed to work and that I would be able to address them and chat, but i...

Yesterday, I revealed my shameful secret that I didn't really enjoy or even try to read much music therapy research. Now, there is a talk radio show, run by Janice Lindstrom and Meganne Masko , that does talk about the research being done in our field, so I am not the only one who is seeking this research to practice link. That's reassuring as it seems, at times, that I am solitary in my opinions about this profession. Here is proof I am not alone. (By the way, here is the link to the most recent Journal Club podcast. Check it out!) I went back to work and during my planning time, I delved my way back into the most recent edition of the Journal of Music Therapy (JMT, 52(4)). This is the special focus edition. I read through the thoughts of Carolyn Kenny and Simon Gilbertson (who I have kind of "met" through the Online Conference for Music Therapy - coming soon!!). I am starting to understand what is meant by Arts Based Research and am finding that, while it doesn...

I was talking to my friend yesterday while she was working on nametags for one of her groups. She had an entire stack of puppy nametags and one monster nametag. She wrote the name of one of the most difficult to like clients on the monster nametag and the names of all of the others on the puppy nametags. She handed me the stack and asked me if I noticed anything amiss. I immediately picked up on the not-so-subtle message included with the theme.  I think we often send such messages to our clients - sometimes purposefully, sometimes less so. I talk to folks all the time about sending out "I Don't Trust You" messages and how those types of interactions can really harm relationships. How can a person really sink into an interaction when the message from the other person includes conflicting messages of "do something, but only the way I want you to do something, not your own way, but my way" - how can a person feel trusted? Okay, I'm projecting quite a bit h...

It's that time again - time for the fourth blog challenge from Julie Palmieri and Serenade Designs . This one is going to be a challenge for me, one that I continue to struggle with even after 22 years of being a professional and continuous practice on this task. Here's the task: This week’s challenge is to pick a current research article or chapter of a book that is closely related to your target audience and summarize it. If you read this blog on a regular basis, first of all, THANK YOU! Secondly, you may have noticed that I try to do something like this on Sundays. But, for some reason, research has always been a bit of a disconnect for me. I know how to read it, how to interpret it, but it doesn't really connect with my day-to-day interactions with clients. As a result, I don't spend lots of time reading research in order to make my music therapy practice more strong, I read theoretical texts to strengthen my relationship with music and to become a better music the...

I'm in need of some inspirational thoughts. 'Tis the season for sunshine, high temperatures, and the end of summer school. So, 'tis my season for headaches, asthma attacks, and grumpiness. Added to everything else is the need to pack up my entire music therapy storage room and get ready to move as soon as we come back to school on August 7th. Added to that is the fact that everyone else is going to move into a newly renovated classroom, ready to go, while I get to move into yet another closet area. My room will not be finished for at least another month, if not two months. More itinerant therapy - HOORAY?? The good news is that all of my clients will be under one roof again. The bad news is that my stuff will be strewn all over the facility, so getting things ready may be a bit more challenging than it has been this year. Feel sorry for me yet? So, I am looking for some inspiration. I want a thought to cling to as I try to run therapy while everyone around me uses tha...