music, therapy, and me

To be completely honest, I am currently just getting through my library books right now. I have finished seven of them, have three more to read, and twelve more days to finish them up before I need to turn them back in. I will finish them before that time, but not until this weekend. It is interesting that when I try to read anything at work, attempting to gain some sunshine and get away from my desk, all I get are condescending and snotty comments. People walk past saying, "Gee, must be nice to have extra time where you can just sit and read." This always rubs me the wrong way because I am taking my 25-minute duty free lunch that is part of the contract that is between myself and my school district. I get to choose when and how I take that time. I don't leave my office much because of the attitude that I get when I leave my space. All I can think is, "Well, ____. If you were as efficient in your job as I am in mine, you would have some time to take lunch as well, an...

It is Wednesday, so it is time to talk a bit about what I am reading these days. To start, it is easier to talk about my personal reading than my professional reading because I have not been doing much professional reading lately. I will start with the professional reading, though, because there is not much to talk about. This morning, I walked into my library where I have currently stashed all of my professional textbooks. I selected one from the shelves that I have purchased but not even opened yet. The book that drew my attention was Group Analytic Music Therapy  by Heidi Ahonen-Eerikainen (sorry that I cannot figure out how to do the umlaut over the a on this program).This book was published by Barcelona Publishers in 2007, and it was part of a sale order that I made a couple of years ago. I picked it because it is part of analytical music therapy, a form of music therapy that confuses and intrigues me, but also because it concerns group music therapy which is my primary servic...

I am trying to be a bit more intentional in my writing this week, so here is a topic that I hope you all will like - the books that have influenced my music therapy practice over the past "ahem" MANY years. Some of these books are music therapy texts, others are not. There have been many different books that have made me think a bit more about who I am and what I do with my clients. Here they are, in no particular order... Music In Therapy , edited by E. Thayer Gaston, published in 1968. You can find a copy at this link here . The influential part of this book, for me at least, Chapter Two, Processes in Music Therapy by William W. Sears. This was one of the first things that I really understood when I encountered it as an undergraduate, and it still has deep meaning for me. I am lucky enough to own a physical copy of this book, and I am meaning to reread this chapter. It reminds me that there is so much more that music does than just fill the brain with stimuli. I think I wou...

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...

I did some reading this week, but I didn't get very far in my reading because the book I started this week, Clinical Supervision: A competency-based approach, by Carol A. Falender and Edward P. Shafranske, is so full of ideas, concepts, notions, and challenges that I get overwhelmed by thoughts and have to stop to synthesize things. So, I got to page four. That's right. Page four before I felt the need to stop and unpack the concepts presented at the very start of this book! This is going to take a bit more time than I thought originally, but I have gone down this reading rabbit hole before. I know that this book gives me so much to think about that I never remember when I get things started. Time to unpack what I read and what I am thinking about at the moment. Some background to this, of course. I will be presenting on one of my favorite topics - competency-based clinical training - at a conference later this month, so I am getting myself organized. I selected two books to r...

Last week, I set an intention to start reading my music therapy texts again, and this week (well, yesterday), I started the process. I actually need to give myself a bit more credit than this since I did identify all of the chapters in both of the books that I want to read this quarter and started my outline, but once I did that, I left it all alone until yesterday afternoon. I started out with Karen Goodman's book on music therapy education and training, and I read the first chapter. This chapter, Music Therapy Education and Training in the United States, covered the history of how music therapy became an educational program in the U.S. Now, I have done much research in this area, so nothing here was a big surprise to me. I know most of the events and information that were listed. I am looking forward to the next readings - in both of the books I've selected (by the way, the citations are listed at the end of this post). I have always been much more interested in the how we do...

It is Sunday again, and I have nothing to synthesize. I basically referred to all of my ideas yesterday when I wrote about the AMTA Symposium. There was a comment that it is more difficult to find virtual presenters these days. I thought about that for a bit. I am part of a team that runs an international online conference, and we have more presentations than we need. I also know that I sent in two virtual presentation proposals for the conference that was cancelled, so I bet there were more people who submitted virtual proposals as well. I digress, though, back into my funk of yesterday. Time to shake myself out of this funk into something a bit more positive and more supportive of music therapy. The only other topic that I have on my idea board is about pet peeves in music therapy, and I am just not feeling that topic...yet, so I will figure out something else to synthesize. Time to head to my music therapy bookshelf!! (That's right, I have been able to make a portion of my libra...

A while back, I decided that it was time to start reading for music therapy enrichment again. Now, I have done this particular thing many times over my career - with varying levels of success, but I feel that this is one way that I can continue to grow as a music therapist even while conferences are being canceled and things are a bit uncertain in the American music therapy world. There are always books - that is one of my personal mantras as well - there are always books. I tend to fall back into books when I need to do so. Right now, family matters are taking over most of my emotional bandwidth, so reading is something that I can do while still engaging in fretful worrying and hypothetical planning. I have decided that I do not have to take notes when I am reading. Before, I insisted on taking notes because "that's what you do when you are reading for research." Then, I realized that I am no longer required to do research. I can just read. So, notes are no longer requir...

I finished the book I was reading and synthesizing this week, and I am getting ready to read it again - not because it was difficult, but because I feel like I can really get my teeth into it through reading it with less demand placed on myself. It is time to get back into the idea that music has meaning to me more than just what I can do with it during sessions with clients. That may sound a bit strange coming from a person who is a music therapist, but I find that my own personal music consumption is low. I've written about this before - I tend to go towards television or movies rather than music listening for my leisure time. I listen to people speaking instead of listening to music during my commutes to and from my jobs. I prefer television shows and movies instead of my playlists. I miss music as something that I just immerse myself in as deep as possible. The book, Wellness, Wellplayed. The Power of a Playlist , by Jennifer Buchanan, is helping me figure out what is missing. ...

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...

Well, hello there. It is time to start reading my book again - Emotional Processes in Music Therapy , by John Pellitteri. I am in Chapter Four and have reached page 78. There are about 160 pages to go before I hit the references. Let's see if I can get to the end of this book by the end of the calendar year... Anyway, time to head back into the ideas... Emotional States - p. 78 - emotional states are "inferred constructs." I like this statement because it means that all states have to be interpreted - either by the person experiencing them or by others who are observing specific behaviors. There are five theories shared in the text - each of these is based on the research and information from specific researchers. Physiological-Behavioral - James-Lange Cognitive Appraisal Theory - Lazarus Cognitive View - Implicit Memory Model Physiological-Cognitive - Schachter & Singer Social-Cognitive - Sociology, Cultural Psychology In these different foundational emotional theori...

When last I was reading the book, Emotional Processes in Music Therapy by John Pellitteri, I was starting into the second part of the book - "Foundations." I had explored a bit of emotion theory and some processes that have been mapped in the brain. As I continue to read, I am struck by the amount of research that has been accomplished into understanding emotions and our brains, and, again, by how much we still do not know. For example. Panksepps, in 2000, can identify specific brain areas and associated neurochemicals associated with certain emotions, but at the time of publication, had not mapped those pathways activated during the experiences of said emotions (p.72). What an interesting time we live in. Moving forward now... Some things that I want to remember from my reading today: p. 73 - "emotional elicitors are closely intertwined with the emotional states that they invoke." external or internal; sensory channels constantly accept information from inside and...

Here it is. Sunday again, and I have not even found the book I am reading for the betterment of my professional self. It is in one of the boxes or bags that I brought back with me from California eight days ago, but I haven't managed to unpack things yet. I have at least started, so I think I will find that book and see what is in store for me this week... That didn't take as long as I thought it might. Hooray!! It was in the first place I looked, so I am back after mere seconds to open up this book and start my skimming process. I like it when things come together. Friday was not that sort of day, by the way, but things worked out at the end. Yesterday was a day of resting and trying to keep going through a house offer authorization and trying to get some quiet. So, having this work out so quickly, it seems to be a sign that I need to be reading this book a bit more than I have in the past...ugh...month. In case you don't remember what I am (ahem, should be) reading right ...

I'm not going to lie to you - this was not an easy week to get to reading, but I did a bit of it and here's what I have to report... This week's chapter is the last of the first section of the book, and it covers how we have developed ideas of culture, language, and music in ways that are both unfamiliar and givens, at least in my knowledge base. Chapter three dives a bit into sociology, anthropology, and emotional psychology to discuss how we use music. There is a bit about whether animals use sounds as communication/language and some debate about whether those sounds are also musical in nature. I did not get through the chapter yesterday. There will be a much better review and report next Sunday (I hope). I find Pellitteri's writing style very readable and the concept makes sense to me. I haven't had to write down many vocabulary words to check (which tends to happen when I read music therapy texts), and I know what we are discussing most of the time. I like that ...

It's that time again - time to update you on what I've been reading. I actually sat down yesterday and did some reading in my book - finished chapter two and looked forward into chapter three of Emotional Processes in Music Therapy by John Pellitteri. I must say that I am enjoying this book. It is providing me with a framework that is valid (in my opinion) regardless of which theoretician you subscribe to in your way of doing music therapy. I like that. I feel that it gets me one step closer to my goal of a Grand Unifying Theory of Music Therapy - the one thing that links us all together rather than pulling us apart. That's what I want for the music therapy community - things that pull us together instead of pulling us apart. My quest for understanding is moving along quite nicely. Anyway, back to the book that I am currently reading. I took notes this time around, so here are some of the things that I gleaned from my research yesterday afternoon... p. 26 - A Model of Emot...

I have finished the first week (and first chapter) of John Pellitteri's Emotional Processes in Music Therapy book, written in 2009, and published by Barcelona Publishing. I am enjoying this perspective about therapeutic relationship and how emotion plays a part in all that we do and perceive. I am actually excited about what I am being challenged to consider, and it is only the end of the first chapter! I started off with the table of contents as well as the "About the Author" portion of the book. I like getting a bit of perspective about what I will be reading about and who ends up writing books like these. I know another person named Pellitteri, so I admit to wondering if there is a link between the Pellitteri I know and this one - I have no clue, but it is interesting to think about... ANYWAY... The author started off by discussing the relevance of emotion research to music therapy and why we need to know about it all. The author makes a point to indicate that the the...