music, therapy, and me

Today, I am thinking about making some comments on the social media that I consume - not what I create. A couple of years ago, I realized that my social media picture was consumed by music therapy and only music therapy. All of my Facebook groups were music therapy groups. All of my Instagram follows were music therapy accounts. Music therapy was the only thing that was represented in my social media accounts, and I remembered that I was more than just a music therapist. So, I made a concerted effort to enrich what I was consuming via different and various platforms. I started with some paper groups. I made a separate Instagram account - one for music therapy and one just about me. I changed who I followed on my personal Instagram account. I still follow and am part of lots of music therapy groups and accounts, but I branch out into things that just plain old interest me. I try to be aware of how much time I spend in mindless social media use. TikTok is the worst for wasting time. It i...

I am relegated to being an observer in music therapy these days. My junior intern has taken over full responsibility for her caseload and my senior intern has two weeks left of her time with us. It is my time to observe and be an evaluator rather than a therapist. This switch from being therapist to being a mentor/observer/evaluator is one of the essential roles of supervising music therapist, but it is the most difficult for me. I love being a music therapist - it is what keeps me interested in this profession after 26 years - and being the person in the corner who is always writing things down is not my preferred role. I want to be leading the groups and the individual sessions, but that's not my role at the moment. My role is to watch. Now, do not fret for me, friends. I do not have an intern for April or for June, so I will get to do therapy for a long and extended period of time coming up after Spring Break. I enjoy interns, but I don't actively recruit for my open p...

One of the challenging things about being an internship supervisor is that my role with my clients has to change as part of the training program. I have become "observer" with some of my clients rather than "therapist." This is a difficult step as my interns become more competent and comfortable and need to have the safety net that I provide go away. I become a shadowy figure sitting in my office rather than an active part of music therapy. It is something that I struggle with on a regular basis. Then there are days like today... One of my interns is sick. She is not coming in to the program today, so I am going to be stepping into her role as "therapist" until she is better. Some of my clients will ask about her, express that they want her to feel better soon, and then settle into my way of doing music therapy. Others will not know who I am AT ALL. They will view me with suspicion as I pick up my guitar and start to make music with and for them. My ...

Welcome to an occasional post theme. I've decided that I will reflect on being part of an internship program on this blog. I will do every little thing I can to ensure that my interns are protected while I still express some of my emotions and feelings about being part of this experience. I am an internship director (ID). I have been doing this job since 1999, and I have trained many interns at my program. My internship has not ever been completely full (except for from 2007-2010 where I had three years of back-to-back interns), and I have had the luxury of only taking those interns who have interested me. Over the past three years, I have not been an active ID - space constrictions and recovery from an injury really took over my life - my program went inactive for a time, but now the internship program is back up and running, and I am finding my way back into being a supervisor. It is amazing how much I've forgotten about being a supervisor, including the contagious enth...