music, therapy, and me

I had a better yesterday than the day before, even though I broke a laptop display and then the same computer sat in a puddle of urine for an undetermined amount of time... Ah, the life of a music therapist that people rarely write about. Welcome to MY blog! Even with the destruction of my clinic computer (the one I use to play recorded music for my clients), yesterday was a better day than Tuesday. That happens often in my world - ups and downs all the time. My 2020 visual here needs to be updated a bit to include how 2021 has just taken me down a new track - 2020 is no longer a closed circuit but took a sharp turn into 2021 issues and events. I think this picture illustrates life pretty well - it is a series of loops and twists and turnabouts that just seem to happen without any sort of rhyme or reason. 2021 has continued the pattern here - there was a sharp fall after my father died with lots of bumps and twists in the (almost) three months since he passed away. Today is my parents...

A friend of mine messaged me yesterday to ask me how things were going, and I started to cry. Yesterday was one of those days where clients who used to love being in music therapy were ripping things off the walls, breaking the thermometers, and destroying things, all while trying to hurt me. Actually, it was just one client, but still, it hit me deep. We are very short-staffed at the moment, and the only staff members that were present are not ones that I know. I have no idea if they were trained in our crisis management system or not. All I know is that they did NOTHING to help me out. This happens every Tuesday, and I am exhausted by the situation. The student refuses to talk to me or to use the program that the student has agreed to use. This happens regardless of what we are doing or the sounds we are making which makes it seem personal. The student will bring in noise-cancelling headphones and then destroy them rather than wearing them. add in the fact that the student makes thre...

Yesterday, I was asked if I wanted a smart-type system for my music therapy room, and it plunged me into a long standing debate that I have with myself on a regular basis. Do I want a screen in my room? Do I want a room that is screen free? Now, this is the first time in about 15 years that I have been asked this question by my administrators, and the last year has shown that having a screen can be important when forced into quarantine situations, so I am actually contemplating it as something that will be good to have available...I think. I am torn and have always been torn on the use of technology in my music therapy clinic. Video games and apps are very reinforcing and easy to use in interaction with people who struggle with interaction with anything, but they are also somewhat consuming - in my experience, a device takes over attention and sometimes hinders opportunities for interaction with other humans. So, I have negotiated other things for my clinic area than smart boards. I go...

It is time to revisit something that I tend to write about every year - finding as many goal areas as possible in every single therapeutic music experience (TME) to assist in group treatment and to provide clear indications of why you would select a particular intervention or TME for a particular client. This form of thinking is something that I struggled with for a very long time and that is not something that I really was able to verbalize until I started working with practicum students. My thoughts and procedures were born out of frustration - students were coming to my music therapy treatment sessions with one TME to address each therapeutic goal. For stirring, we sang one song. For fine motor strengthening, we sang one song. For gross motor extension, we sang one song. Sessions were BORING! We played the same instruments at the same time every session. Clients were struggling, and I was struggling because the student had a script and just couldn't realize that there were other...