music, therapy, and me

Oi. My return to work yesterday was frustrating from beginning to end.  The day started with a smooth trip to work. I traversed the 50 miles from my house to the facility parking lot without difficulty, and I entered the building to find my room pretty much the way I left it. For some reason, the stereo had been removed which negated about 50% of the sub plans that I had left. There were chairs everywhere, but no major holes in walls or things that looked too bad - at first glance. Later investigation revealed that someone had knocked over a soda or a cup of coffee on the top of one of my cabinets that was just left there, so there is now a thick residue there that I will have to figure out how to clean because I just cannot handle that sort of mess in my space. Okay, not a bad way to reenter the work space after a month being gone. I arrived 30 minutes early (of course) because I needed to go through my emails to see what we were going to be doing for the day. The calendar said th...

I slept better last night than the previous nights which is a good thing as I am heading into a session with "that client" again. Monday's session was smooth and quiet which means today's will probably be a doozy. I am not looking forward to the interaction, but that's the way life goes, so off I head to remind "that client" that is is fine to make choices for oneself but not for everyone. I don't want to dwell on "that client" today. I just want to recognize that it is the middle of my summer schedule workweek and move on. Today is my busiest day in the summer - six groups with four back to back. I fully intend to collapse as soon as I get home. After today's session marathon, I will only have five more groups for the week before the three day weekend.  I have less preparation to do for my mother's visit in 10 days than I had at the start of the last break, but I still need to vacuum and clean and get things put together. Her bed i...

It is Wednesday, and I have to face "that" client again. You know the one. The one client that challenges me more than anyone else at the moment. The one who resists every single interaction. The one who would rather not do what others want to do. The one who disrupts the therapeutic process so much that no one in the group gets any benefit from being present. The one who is not able to respond to group therapy due to the extreme behaviors of concern that have become routine. I did some data review yesterday on "that" client. My location is not the only place these behaviors of concern occur. That was good to see, but we have had four significant incidents in the past month that have disrupted instructional time to the point of affecting two classes rather than just one. I am dreading the next two sessions with "that" client because it affects more than just me and "that" client. I do not feel like I can do the job that I want to do when I am hav...

It is Monday, which means that I now give myself permission to get into a bit of a rant or express opinions that I hold near and dear. So, here it goes. I was thinking in the shower this morning about education and how students interact with the world these days. My sister, a second grade teacher, has a group of students that are challenging her this year. The students have not settled into any sort of learning routine. They have no interest in learning anything. All they want to do is play without consequences. Almost all of her students are performing significantly below grade level, and they have not been taught how to learn in their school experience so far. She is struggling to find ways to engage their interests while teaching curriculum (which is an entirely different rant) and reining in the extreme behaviors that happen every hour in her current classroom. I feel that we have shifted so far away from teaching into the realms of social-emotional development that we have forgott...

Mondays used to be my days to talk about being an internship supervisor, but I'm not in that role anymore, so I am not sure what I can talk about on Mondays now. The only thing I've got are my opinions about things. So, Mondays may be opinion days for a bit until I figure out if there is something else to write about. Now, all of my posts are opinion posts, but I tend to try to pull back some of my non-music therapy opinions back most of the time. I don't want this to be a place where I just spew my thoughts about other things willy nilly. I still don't, so I will try to figure out ways to rant or opine about things that directly affect me and my fellow music therapists. Today, it is pretty easy to find something that stirs me up about the world outside my door. There is so much that is going on that affects my profession (and yours, probably) in the halls of our government. I am not confident that there will be much resistance where there should be people standing up a...

I am struggling with the current state of my country, and it is something that just makes me sick to my stomach to think about. I am not doing well, and my like minded friends aren't helping the matter out with their constant calls for action. I am having to hide and block and wriggle away from relationships that once were affirming but now are causing me extreme amounts of stress in addition to the stress that I already have. Anyone else? I am a blue dot in a blue town in a blue county in a red state. My vote for president does not matter at all in our current electoral college format, and those who count on making my vote null and void will continue this antiquated system because they benefit from it. My senators are not blue, and my vote has been gerrymandered in all sorts of ways that are just hinky. I also work with people who are compromised and very expensive to support. My job is funded through categorical aid from the federal government and is affected by changes in federa...

Well, yesterday the universe said "hold my beer" after my rant and crying jag about the flood in my music therapy office and sent the entire education wing into an electrical emergency requiring evacuation, a visit from both the fire department and the power company, and flickering lights, loud buzzing noises, and a fishy smell in the area. Strangely, this actually made me feel better. Shared catastrophe is better than solitary catastrophe. I am also interested to see if these two incidents are related in any way because my leak is about 30 feet along the same roof from the electrical box that went bad yesterday. It seems very coincidental. I was able to move my desk and electronics away from my water-soaked office to the storage room yesterday with a little bit of help from one of our behavior specialists. I still have some file cabinets and a bookcase and bulletin boards to move over. Once the roof is fixed, I want to transform the former office into an instrument room wher...

I admit, I am not a fan of this day, and I feel it every single year. I am not interested in dressing up or opening my door to trick-or-treaters. I am just not interested in much of this at all. I thought about doing a costume, but I just haven't done anything for the parade this afternoon. I am supposed to get something to hand out to my students, but I am not sure that I will. Communication about things does not often get through to the people that need to know the information. Also, the week of Halloween is always a rough week in education, and throw in many layers of diagnoses and things get so much more complex. There are things that will happen, and we have some who are forgetting that our students do not have any good concept of cause and effect and do not respond well to threats of taking things away based on behavior choices. So, there have been so many tantrums over statements like, "You haven't earned the Halloween party," and "You just lost your Hallo...

I work in a publicly funded private school embedded within a residential treatment facility. I am a music therapist, but I am employed by the school at this treatment facility, so for all intents and purposes, I am often incorrectly classified as a teacher rather than as a therapist. During Therapist Appreciation week, I am ignored. During Teacher Appreciation week, I am often grudgingly included. Comments happen like "Well, we know that you are not a teacher, but we're including you anyway." Gee. This week has been full of food to begin with - I cannot eat things that are prepared or washed in the local water because of how it is softened, so I can't partake. I am not upset about that because I would prefer to not get sick for months on end because of what my body does when I try to digest the softening chemicals, but it is a bit disappointing when food is the only focus of our celebration. I would love a card or a magnet or something other than food, but that's ...

Time for another randomly selected post to spark some thoughts about the profession and about my role in music therapy as well as my role as a human being. Today's post number is 452 which takes us back to November 16, 2013 .  This particular post was titled, "An Introvert at AMTA," and it occurred right before the American Music Therapy Association's conference in 2013. I cannot remember where that particular conference was held but I know what it was like for me. I was rooming with someone who was about as busy as I was in the music therapy world, and I spent more time in meetings and conversations than I did in presentations. This was the third of five years where my role was to pay full price for the conference and not experience anything other than work for the association. It was simultaneously energizing and enervating. I am not someone who misses in-person conferences. I have no problem with virtual conferences because I can still see people and do not have t...

One of the things that I tend to do during my three day weekends is wander around my living place and explore stuff. Now, you might think that I would do that all the time, but I don't. It is not uncommon for rooms to go unvisited in my home for several days in a row, but I try to go into all the rooms at least once per week. During the summer, I tend to wander around a bit more. Now, this is not a new behavior for me - even when I lived in an apartment, there would be weeks where I wouldn't go into one of the bathrooms and the craft room. I visit the rooms more often now in my house than I did in my apartment - and, I have more rooms to visit now. So, anyway, I have spent a little bit of time in my library room. This is one of the rooms that needs work - well, all of them need work. I have about seven boxes in there that need to be unpacked. I need to get a bedframe for the bed in that room. I have an idea for a daybed setup in there, but I need to find a cheap frame to get st...

My Wednesday led me into some angst and issues. There are some brand new staff members who are questioning my ways of engaging with my clients, and they are openly challenging me. I think I hurt my intern's feelings when I told the teacher that I was talking to that my session management is different and sessions will be different when I take over again. The teacher said that the behavioral health technicians were concerned that I would be alone next week. The technicians that have been employed for three weeks are concerned. Let me set the stage here. The first session this particular person walked into the music therapy room, this person yelled over the music happening, led by the music therapy intern, to tell a student that the student had lost iPad privileges. The student then escalated into a serious behavior of concern that this staff member felt compelled to talk about - LOUDLY - while my intern was working with the other students in the session. This staff member ignored my...

There are two sides to every argument. Know that from the beginning of this post. Also know that I am not involved in any part of this particular discourse because I am neither a brand new music therapist nor a music therapy employer. Some of what I write sounds somewhat curmudgeonly because I am an old music therapist. I have three months before I reach my 30 year anniversary of my move from intern to professional music therapist. I have been an employee of several facilities, and I did spend some time as a music therapy contractor back in the mid-90's. Some things have changed dramatically while other things have remained exactly the same. I can take a simultaneously futuristic glance and a historical view on several things that happen in this profession. (Can you tell that I am embracing my role as music therapy crone now? Might as well.) I started my music therapy professional life in 1993. By the middle of 1994, I had my first full-time job as a music therapist for the state o...

NOTE: This post is very opinionated and full of my current challenges, frustrations, and sparks of understanding. If I offend you in any way, please do not hesitate to send an anonymous comment to this blog. I do not automatically publish comments because most of the comments that I get are spam. If you want to engage me in more of a conversation about any and all of these topics, please do. While I have strong and possibly strange opinions, I am able to change those opinions when I can see the logic behind them, but I will never change if I cannot see that logic. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK... My brain is currently spinning around and around through all sorts of topics and situations. If you have ever been on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland, you may know what I am feeling as I go twisting and turning through all sorts of thoughts, situations, and emotions. I am thinking deeply about situations that do not directly affect me but that I have opinions about as well as all sorts of ot...

In my college town a couple of days ago, three women decided to take an unsecured scooter from the front of one of the Walmarts. They went in the store, noticed the scooter sitting there, went shopping, came out 30 minutes later, saw the scooter still there, and apparently thought, "Abandoned. Mine," and then scooted off, taking the scooter with them. Well, as you can imagine, this was not an abandoned scooter but was the property of a seven year old kid who was in the store with his mother. The police had camera footage of the three women, and the department posted their pictures all over social media. The little boy got a new scooter and helmet from some donations from concerned community members, and then the women returned the scooter and "apologized." The apology, which the police department also posted on social media at the women's request, included statements such as "If we had known it had belonged to someone, we wouldn't have taken it," ...

It is Tuesday, the day I usually spend talking a bit about what I do when I am designing the things that I do with my clients - what I call Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs). Today, though, I feel the need to write about something else. Last evening, I attended a Zoom meeting for internship directors and academic faculty members. I am not sure who was on the invitation list, but I think there were a bit more academic faculty than IDs - not many, but skewed towards faculty a bit. This meeting was called by the Council Coordinator for Education and Clinical Training, and we gathered to hear about what is going on with AMTA and were supposed to be able to ask questions about both education and clinical training. That part of the meeting took about four minutes. We were reassured that these systems are going to continue as they are at this time at this moment. Okay. That was not extremely reassuring, but at least we got some information about who to contact if there were any issues in t...

Rant. I was perfectly fine this morning. I really was. I took a couple more minutes of being in bed this morning. I took a shower and then came down to find a spate of messages that passively blamed me for technological issues that are happening in a particular group. I was named as the reason for not changing things to avoid some of these issues. No one else was named in the message line, and it really tromped up, down, and sideways on my feelings. Now, I am a grown up and I know that I do not have to relate to things in this particular manner, but this happens every year at this time and it is always the worst timing because I am very busy right now - more busy than others in this particular group. Interestingly, when things calm down for me, these same folks have no interest in changing things up. I refuse to participate in the conversations concerning technology because I always feel that I am the one who gets blamed, so I refuse to make the decision. I am not a fan of waffling and...