music, therapy, and me

I am taking the next two Fridays off for professional development and for collecting some CMTEs for this certification year. I am doing this for several reasons. First, by taking these next two Fridays, I will only miss one clinical session. Second, by taking the second Friday, I will miss having to go to the circus. The circus is a source of trauma for both myself and my mother. I am the reason that my siblings never went to the circus with our family. Neither Mom nor I could handle a repeat of what happened the day we went when I was a toddler! Sorry, siblings, but I'm not all that sorry, if you know what I mean! For some reason, the administrators at my facility are REALLY good at scheduling mandatory participation for my trauma triggers. To avoid the trauma response in myself, I have had to do things like this - take professional time to avoid being placed in situations where my trauma experiences take over my rational mind. I don't share that I am filled with fear when I h...

I didn't blog yesterday or the day before because I was sick and then just tired. It has been a couple of days since I've felt like writing, but I feel like I can sit down and think again, so here it goes. This morning, I feel the need to write something, and I pulled off a post-it note from my blog idea board. "Things I Care About in the Field of Music Therapy." So, here are some thoughts about what I care about in this field of ours. Music Therapist Longevity - One of the biggest questions I have had in my career is "why do music therapy clinicians leave the field?" We have always been a young profession. It seems that the majority of clinicians that are out there are still in their first years of being professional. About half of my 36 former interns have left the field but about half are professional music therapists, so I think that is pretty good. I just wonder what happens during the fifth through tenth year of a music therapist's life that tends ...

One of the benefits to getting older in this profession is the ability to remember how things used to be and to compare and contrast them with how things are now. There is a bit of nostalgia that is included (sometimes), and there is also a bit of "history repeating itself" that also sneaks in there. To preface all of this, let me tell you that my facility is undergoing a major change in how we do things with our students. This change is significant and will affect all of the things that we do - there will be changes in our student population, in our classroom configurations, and in what my job entails. This change is happening but no one has really thought through the implications for the rest of the program at this point. We are focusing on what has to happen for the new program, but not on what has to happen for the rest of the folks in the facility who are on the periphery of this program but who will also be affected significantly by these changes. That's where I fit...

I have to admit that I am not the most "other focused" person in the world. If you read these posts, you will see that the most used word on this blog is (probably) "I." I do not work with many other music therapists, so I write from my own perspective as a therapist and as a musician and as a music therapist. I am trying really hard to expand my views from those that are in my realm of experience to see those of others. It is difficult to do since my reality is just that - my reality. I have a cousin who is struggling with schizoaffective disorder right now. I believe it is of the bipolar type, but I do not have all the information. I know that the posts that are happening on social media indicate a skewed view of reality. I engaged in an interaction via social media and got shamed for offering a fact - the cousin decided that I was stupid for stating a fact that is geographically appropriate and then declared that I was an idiot. It was a bit hurtful because at th...

What is your music therapy style? How do you do this job that we share? Are you a "it's all about the music shared between the client and the therapist" type, or a "all sessions must be planned around the client's goals" type? Are you someone who likes to create new music at every session opportunity, or are you someone who likes to have memorized music in predictable patterns? Are you someone who identifies as a music therapist within a specific theoretical or technical structure, or are you someone who identifies as "eclectic" when it comes to how to do this job? I am curious about how other people define themselves at the moment, probably mainly because I am moving to a new home and am going through all of my stuff. It is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate when you live in a place for 17 years, especially when you tend towards wanting and keeping all the stuff! I am wondering why I am thinking about this right now, but I think it is becau...