music, therapy, and me

It is Monday again, so it is time to talk about being an internship supervisor and some of the joys and challenges of taking on that role as a professional music therapist. To protect the identities of all involved other than me, I do not identify my interns - if it was you, former interns, you may or may not know... [Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! - If you know, you know...] ANYWAY... Some of the things that I have noticed in my decades of being an internship supervisor are listed here - in no particular order... Each intern has something that makes them memorable to me. Some of those things have been interactions, some have been personality aspects, some have been specific words that kept coming up, some have been through the lessons that I've learned while working with those interns. I can remember each one of my interns through the songs that they wrote and through their assignments. It takes time to get to know each intern and how they learn. Some of my interns have not been able to underst...

This is the second version of this post - the first seemed a bit disjointed, but that is primarily because my life is a bit scrambled at the moment. My inspirational message at the moment is "It's not happiness that makes us grateful. It's gratitude that makes us happy." I am grateful for so many things today, so I think I will engage in some gratitude journaling here today - mostly focused on you, fellow music therapist! I am grateful that I am one of a small but vocal group of dedicated professionals who get up every day and go out into our uncertain world. You do important things, fellow music therapist! It is often not recognized in the bigger world, but it is important to the people who ALWAYS matter the most - your clients! I am grateful that there are music therapy clinicians who go out into the world to do the art of music therapy. Without us, the profession dies. We have to remember that fact and embrace the burdens and the powers that come with acknowledging...

Today is Friday.  Is anyone else breathing a sigh of relief over this fact? I know I am. It has been a long, strange week, and I am very glad that it is coming to an end. It started with a headbutt and is ending with a series of sinus headaches and worship services, so it's been an up and down kind of week. I am close to completing one of my financial goals - that of a good cushion just in case. Today is payday, and I was able to put actual surplus money into my savings - I consider everything that is left over after a month's bills to be surplus money. I have been able to put something away every month for the past several months, but this was the most yet. Once that cushion is firm, I will spend the next bit on a brand new mattress. Today is going to be a work day. I only have one push-in session on Fridays, and the rest of my time is spent in planning and cleaning. I have an instrument hospital full of things to be sanitized and returned to the general instrument popul...

A music therapist who is also an acquaintance of mine was talking about doing nothing for an entire day. He made the observation that it was difficult for him to plan a day of nothing - no work on presentations, no catching up on progress notes, nothing at all planned...a complete day devoted to self-care and something just for him. I can certainly relate. I think many music therapists can relate to his conundrum. How do you get away from the job, enjoy getting away, and find something to refresh you enough to get back to the job? For me, my issue usually comes in the form of guilt - guilt that I'm letting someone down (I'm usually not), guilt that work will still be waiting (because it always is waiting - it's work), and guilt that doing something just for me is inherently selfish. I'm learning to let those feelings of guilt start, pass through my conscious mind, and then leave me again. I am part of a Facebook group for music therapy business owners. I enjoy r...

I did something to the iPod during my medical leave (You can certainly see my continuing struggle with iThings in posts in this blog, if you are interested). As a result of whatever I did, my music library on the computer went from 22 thousand songs to 2 thousand. I made 20 thousand songs and files - POOF - disappear!! So, now I am in the process of re-establishing my music library on the computer. Fortunately, I started my music therapy career a long time ago, so I have many, MANY CDs in my library. That is a good thing when it comes to disappearing music, but a bad thing when you are trying to re-rip everything that used to be there. You can see, in the picture above, some of the CDs that I am going to rip this weekend. This is a small percentage of my collection, but these are the second round of essential CDs to load onto the iPod. I went through several of my CD books and pulled out CDs that clients asked for over this past week. There are CDs of The Beatles, The Beach Boys,...

So, you may have read through my rant about not liking the music saturation that pervades the months of October through December. Now, the music that is the exception to my rule of no music (outside of work, of course )... John Denver and the Muppets This album of music just warms my heart in ways that no other seasonal music does or can. I love these songs, mainly because I grew up with the Muppets and have ALWAYS loved John Denver. This album puts me right into the mood of the holiday season, no matter where I am, what I am doing, or who I am with at the moment. There aren't too many people out there (that I've found, anyway) that share my enthusiasm for this collection of songs, but I still love them all! It is difficult for me to pick my favorite song, but here I go... Best for a giggle - Twelve Days of Christmas (especially Miss Piggy!) The ones that make me cry - Noel: Christmas Eve 1913, When the River Meets the Sea, and Silent Night The others are a...

I am full up of the music therapy goodness that happens often for me - it is a refreshing change from the goblin-filled thoughts of a day ago...   Yesterday was a good therapy day.   I actually had a chance to run music therapy groups (with drums) during my day, and I spent some time with some great kids! It was the perfect way to banish that shoulda goblin from the forefront to the background (but he hasn't left entirely yet...). We used a variety of drums yesterday in my two groups. With my students, I typically do not do anything really fancy with them until we can entrain to a steady and common beat. This is always an interesting exercise. Some of my students entrain quickly and easily - others do not. It seems that most of my nonentrainers are higher functioning, need less supports, and have diagnoses on the Autism Spectrum towards the Asperger's range. Sometimes they seem to be fighting the urge to entrain to a beat. If I change my pattern to match theirs, they cha...