music, therapy, and me

I admit it, I didn't get my reading done this week, but I did spend time thinking about trauma-informed music therapy practice - spurred on by several situations that occurred in my music therapy sessions and structured by the reading and training that I have had in this particular topic. As this topic is something that challenges my way of thinking as well as my own interactions with the world, I am allowing myself to explore at a leisurely pace rather than keeping to a specific schedule. My left arm was scratched by two separate clients on Monday. I have some wonderful bruises and small indentations on my forearm. This is just part of my job - there are times when I get scratched, bruised, kicked, pushed, hit up the side of the head - you name it. Part of my job is to help my clients learn that aggression is not the way to get what you need out of others, but there is a learning curve to that situation. When you've only been able to escape danger through fighting, you fig...

I have started my journey through a new to me book, Music, Music Therapy and Trauma: International Perspectives , edited by Julie P. Sutton, and published in 2002 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. I'm thinking this may be a long series of posts as I was not able to get through the first chapter without having to stop and process - I only made it through 4 pages, there was that much to think about. Perhaps it will get easier as I progress through the book, but I'm not sure if that will happen. There is lots of food for thought in these pages. This text was written as part of an Award program that included a conference and correspondence between music therapists who work in different areas of the world. There are authors from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Bosnia, and Israel. Each author offers a clinical perspective on music therapy treatment with those who have trauma histories. I haven't heard of many of these authors, so I am very happy to delve into yet ano...

So, I did something that I don't usually do when it comes to blogging - I skipped two days in a row! I try to blog every day, but there are times when I just cannot sit down and write. I had two of those days in a row this weekend. Strange. I did try to write something, but it didn't happen. I was a bit angsty because I hadn't heard anything about my AMTA presentation proposals, but that's since passed. Now, I am getting back into the routine of writing about something therapy-like on a daily basis. Today, I return to work after a week away. I have three group sessions and (I think) three individual sessions as well. That's right. I have some individual sessions to do today. Finally. 361 days after being injured, I get to go back to what I consider an adequate music therapy schedule. Individual sessions! To be completely honest, I am a bit scared of moving on. I know that I can do this - after all, I've been doing this for 23 years - but it's going to be...

I picked up a Sheet Music magazine from the 1980's this morning for Sing A Song Sunday and found one of my favorite pieces of music inside, Peter from Peter and the Wolf by Serge Prokofiev. Hooray! My family had a copy of the 1960 recording of this piece by Captain Kangaroo (AKA Bob Keeshan), and my brother listened to it over and over again. My sister and I also listened to it, but my brother really loved the piece. As I was looking over some of the information that's out there about the piece, I found that it was composed in order to encourage children to listen to music, especially classical music. Originally performed in Moscow on May 2, 1936, the piece has been performed, recorded, animated, and acted every since. This piece of program music presents a story. What I like about this piece is that each character in the piece has a different instrumentation making it easy to identify each character. The differences in timbre make it a bit easier to identify what is ...

Yesterday, I didn't do a very good job of holding up my end of the therapeutic triad. I wasn't really participating in the therapeutic process as much as I could have or should have. As I was watching my clients interact with music throughout the day, I kept thinking, "I could be doing so much more." Truly, not one of my better days as a therapist... Now, please don't think that I usually sit and watch my clients cavort around the music room without any type of intervention from me - that is certainly NOT the case at all! Unfortunately, yesterday was a day of pain for me, and I was trying hard not to telegraph my pain and fever to my students. It was more prudent for me to take a more passive role in the session than try to engage in the middle of pain. Today, I opted to remain at home rather than head to my summer school sessions and try to keep the increasing pain to myself. I should be able to return to my normal routine and the task of being a therapist to...

I was part of a domestic disturbance yesterday morning. I did not start the disturbance, nor was I a big part of the situation, but I called the police and got things going. The girls next door started screaming. Apparently their mother was under the influence of something and attacked her boyfriend. When I saw them, he was trying to throw her out of the apartment, she was scratching him, and the girls were screaming! I called 9-1-1 and reported the disturbance. In the end, the mother was taken away in the back of a cruiser. When the police arrived, she didn't show any emotional affect and simply asked for a chance to smoke a cigarette. The kids were picked up by their dad, and the police informed the man that the woman was not allowed back at the apartment without a police escort. Great! As I was sitting in my apartment somewhere between panic and hysteria, I started thinking about my clients. I work with kids with psychiatric diagnoses in addition to developmental and int...