music, therapy, and me

I am thinking that it is time for a soul-searching type of post. I am struggling with things that are happening in our world, and I believe that every person has to come up with their own way of dealing with these things. However, I also have very strong opinions about what is right and what is wrong. I am trying to reconcile myself to the things that I am drawn to do and the ways that I can respond to things outside of my home. I have to get back to what I believe, so here I go. I believe that every person deserves the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I believe that every person is valuable. I believe that every person has the ultimate right to decide what makes them happy in their time on this earth. I believe that there needs to be structure and boundaries in society to protect those who are unable to protect themselves from those who feel that they can control how others live their lives. I believe that we are the product of evolution, and I can recognize that ...

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...

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...

I admit it. I was not someone who was very knowledgeable about music therapy outside of the United States for much of my professional career. My views on what music therapy was (and, to some extent still, is) is very US-centric. Most of the texts that I have accrued since my undergraduate days are by US authors, and most of the research that I read (when I read anything at all) comes from the US journals that I receive.  In 2010, however, I saw a thought on the Music Therapy listserv. Yes, fellow MTs, WAY back in 2010, our primary way of communicating with one another was a listserv with emails sent out to people who wanted them rather than posting comments on another platform. The email was sent by a music therapist from Canada who was interested in starting an online conference for music therapy. It sounded like something that combined my interests nicely, so I reached out and said that I would be very willing to help, but I didn't really want to have a large role. Bam! I b...

I'm currently pretty brain fogged in, getting ready for work about 45 later than usual, and somehow managing to lose every single thing about 2 seconds after I put it down, but I'm also here, ready to write something for the blog. I decided that I need to get my brain in gear, so I went searching for a quotation that is directly important to me as a music therapist. Plato to the rescue!! "I would teach children music, physicas and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning." - Plato When I was in graduate school, learning about music philosophy, it struck me that music was recognized by so many of the great learners and teachers of the field. Music seemed to be popping up in almost every philosopher's writings as something that was inherently important to the act of being human. Being a musician myself and someone dedicated to using music with those who feel that it is not for them, I found th...

I am in a deep thinking kind of mood this morning. Most of this mood is because my Mom is leaving today to go to her home. I am glad that she was here - we did lots of things that I would never have done on my own - and I am sad to see her going, but I know that it is time. Some of this mood is because I am in my last week of my fall break - only five days left before I have to go to work - and I don't feel ready to go back yet. The rest of this mood is because I am contemplating my new year's resolutions. I had to write a short blurb about my theoretical orientation this morning. That kinda threw me for a loop because I don't often think about this topic. I identify as a humanist mostly - well, a humanist with behavioral and sensory integration tendencies. I do not practice from within any particular music therapy theoretical format, but I do use techniques from various frameworks when they are necessary. That question, however, started me thinking deeply about who I a...

This morning, as I was wondering what to write about, I stumbled upon an NPR article entitled, "'Cutting edge' program for children with autism and ADHD rests on razor-thin evidence. " Oh boy. Talk about a headline to suck me into reading the full article!! Talk about autism and programming? I'm there! I read through the entire article. It concerns a franchise treatment program that purports to "cure" ADHD and autism. The franchise program is called Brain Balance. There is a franchise that is close to the movie theater near my parents' home - I noticed it last December when we went to see The Last Jedi , and the claims made on the windows (the only thing that was available to see) were astonishing! Curing autism? Hmm. Just so you know, I personally don't think that autism is something that needs to be cured. I think that persons with autism deserve to be celebrated the way that they are, but the world isn't ready to shift for them yet. ...

Now that I have taken up the role of Internship Director/Supervising Music Therapist again, I am finally getting an opportunity to put my Trauma-Informed Care Trainer Certification to work. (Also, you will be hearing lots and lots about my interns and how they challenge me to think about music therapy from a different perspective than my own!) One of the training topics that the trainers are trying to insist that my interns sit through is "Trauma Sensitive Care." I refused the topic (mainly because I have sat through it and it is pretty much worthless) stating that I would take care of that training myself. In retrospect, I have not told anyone at work that I am a T-IC certified trainer, so that may be some of the insistence on their parts, though I doubt it would make much of a difference if I told them that fact... I digress... One of my future interns is very focused on working with persons through a T-IC focus, so I'll be spending time talking to that intern abo...

I am almost finished with reading my current music therapy text. I have one chapter left after this one, and I am looking forward to the end of the book. It has really enriched me and my understanding of improvisation and music therapy. Having said that, I want to share that I had lots of difficulty with understanding and even liking this particular chapter, Psychodynamic meaning in music therapy. Full disclosure here. I am not a psychodynamic music therapist. I was "raised" in a behavioral context as a music therapist, trained as a sensory integrative therapist, and have decided upon humanism as my primary philosophical view. I don't recall anyone ever saying anything mean, inaccurate, or degrading about folks who are psychodynamic or psychoanalytical in nature during my educational processes, but I've never felt comfortable with the entire set up. I went into the chapter, trying very hard to figure out what was being said. I kept getting caught up in the ...

In Chapter 10 of Music therapy in context: Music, meaning and relationship , Mercedes Pavlicevic continues to discuss the perspective of the importance of relationship to the therapy process. She avers that you cannot completely separate music and the client from the client and therapist interaction. This supports what I've been telling interns for the past five years during intern webinars - without the music, the client, and the therapist, music therapy cannot happen. You have to have all three of these elements in place in order to have music therapy. Now, Pavlicevic didn't say this - I did, but I like it when I find something that supports what I believe about music therapy. Anyway. The rest of the chapter offers a perspective on psychodynamic theory and how music therapy fits within that perspective. I have to admit, this is not a theory that I am completely comfortable with - often the folks that I've met who practice within this framework have been very dismiss...

My brain is full. After three days of music therapy information, two 4.5 hour car trips, and two days of Trauma Informed Care Trainer Certification, my brain has been overwhelmed by music therapy possibilities and has not really stopped clicking. It is now to the point where I think I've got over my information overload and can start processing and moving forward.  This is one of the reasons that I take time off after conference - this year, I filled it with training, but I do take that time. I now have spent some time away from thinking and doing music therapy, but I am getting ready to get back into the swing of things. I am almost back to a regular schedule. I woke up at the regular time today (after a very confusing dream about getting married, a robbery at my parent's house, and lots of other strange happenings - but, at least it wasn't about work this time!), and I know that it is Saturday. Yesterday, I spent the entire day trying to make it Saturday instead of ...

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know that I try to synthesize a chapter per week of a music therapy textbook. I will do this by the end of today, but it will be a bit delayed. Chapter seven is starting off to be very interesting, and I want to make sure that I do it full justice. I'll spend time in between church services this morning reading and thinking. There should be a synthesis later this afternoon. UPDATED AFTER I ACTUALLY DID WHAT I SAID I WOULD DO! Chapter seven of Music therapy in context: Music, meaning and relationship is entitled, "Meaning in relationship: The music between. In this chapter, Mercedes Pavlicevic continues the thoughts that she started in Chapter six but goes more in depth about what is happening in music therapy treatment rather than just what happens in music improvisation from a music psychology aspect. She makes a case for music therapy as a unique interpersonal experience that is more than what pathology the client bring...

I jumped the gun a bit last week - if I had only looked at the chapter after this one, I would have found that there was a natural synthesis break, but I didn't look, so I got in an early synthesis post. Never fear, though, I won't take another synthesis break next week. This week is dedicated to Chapter Six: In Concert: Improvisation, Cognition and Music Therapy. I have lots of new people to look up from this chapter - Aldridge, Brandt, Sloboda, Davidson, Howe, Meyer, Ansdell, Pressing, Clarke, Cook, West, Howell, Cross, Brown, Serafine, Hargreaves, Sundberg, Lindstrom, and Lee. This chapter focused on the basics of improvisation from a musical aspect and then from a music therapy aspect - something less tied to music theory and more tied to therapeutic intervention and relationship. I think I finally know why I am so comfortable improvising with my clients and so much less comfortable improvising in jazz band. One of the things that I like about this book is that Ms. ...

This week, I am going to take some time to put together the thoughts that I've had during my reading of Music Therapy in Context: Music, Meaning and Relationship by Mercedes Pavlicevic. This is partially because I didn't get any reading done yesterday and I woke up late this morning, but it is partially because I've had lots of information come at me from this reading, and it is time to put it all together. One of the biggest thoughts that I am processing through is that of cultural influence being always present - even if I am trying to engage in the music of another culture, my cultural experience will always be my primary filter. That makes sense to me, but I've never really thought it through completely, especially when it comes to how I process music.  Now, I've known for many years that my experience of music is different from how my siblings process music. This is due to my way of interacting (translation - many years of music history, theory, and stud...

I am a bit behind this week, and I am going to read as I write since I didn't get my reading done before this time. Fortunately, I have some extra time on Sunday mornings to catch up, so here we go. (Also, on Sunday mornings, the cat wants more cuddle time, so this may be interrupted by that as well. In fact, I think I'll go read, take notes, and be the cat's sofa for a bit. See you soon.) Okay. I've read (well, skimmed) through the chapter, but I'm not sure how much I really want to say about it. Here goes. Chapter Five, "Perception, Cognition, and Improvisation," addresses some of the differences between how cognitive psychologists and music therapists perceive music, our music therapy relationships, and how we interact with clients during clinical improvisation. For me, the most relevant concept shared in the chapter was that clients often hear music as a whole - one experience. As music therapists, we often hear the elements of music - we exper...

Chapter four of Music Therapy in Context: Music, Meaning and Relationship by Mercedes Pavlicevic is my focus for this Sunday's post. The chapter is titled, "With rigour and imagination: Music therapy and music psychology." (p. 48-54) This short chapter discusses the way we think about music within the worlds of scientific inquiry and art appreciation. There is a brief history lesson about why we think the way we think about art and science, and some discussion about what this means to music therapy and music psychology. The next several chapters promise to delve into music psychology more deeply, but this chapter did a good job of priming my thoughts about this topic. Right off the bat, I had to use my dictionary to find out the difference between the words, "nomothetic" and "idiographic." I love when reading leads me into new vocabulary. According to Pavlicevic, "nomothetic" means finding a "more general and abstract drawing up ...

It is time for Chapter Three of Music Therapy in Context: Music, Meaning and Relationship by Mercedes Pavlicevic. Before we get started, however, a cautionary tale about a music therapist who did not carefully check her resources and now is apologizing to her readers.  You know how people are always telling you to double check your sources? I know I've told people that a time or two, myself, but I was a poor example of this a couple of weeks ago. Over the past two weeks, I've been using some notes that I took about this text several years ago. At that time, I must not have looked all that carefully at the text, because I wrongly attributed the publisher as Barcelona. When I went back to the text for Chapter three, I happened to look at the copyright information and found that the book was not published by Barcelona but by Jessica Kingsley Publishers . I didn't check my sources carefully enough, but I have now. I have gone back and changed the posts and also admitte...

As I continue to spend some time in the book, Music therapy in context: Music, meaning and relationship by Mercedes Pavlicevic, I find myself moving into times where I am focused on one sentence for a spell. Just one sentence, repeating over and over in my head as I contemplate what the words actually mean to me, in my part of the world, and in my life as a music therapist. I like that. I enjoy thinking through concepts that are unfamiliar to me and trying to figure out what the thoughts of the author mean to me in my place in this world. The more I read, the more I think, and the more I have to write about my process. Writing really makes me think through concepts on a different level than just reading. Chapter two of the book challenged me to think deeply about how I interpret music, both inside a music therapy session and outside the music therapy environment. Did you know that there are some folks out there who do not consider music as a form of emotional expression? There...