music, therapy, and me

Sigh... It is time for my summer break. I have a respite from work responsibilities for the next 12 days. I have no place to go, but plenty to do. It is time to organize my thoughts and physical environment. This is my ongoing quest, but I continue to strive towards the impossible dream... an organized place to live and work. Tomorrow, I will start to clean out the closets at home. I will strive for 3 bags of trash or donations before I finish the process. By the end of 12 days, I hope to have steam cleaned all of the carpet in my home. Knowing myself, I will probably find other things to do to avoid the steam cleaning, so, I also hope to write songs, design visual aids, and do some recording over the next 12 days. We shall see...

Taking a Deep Breath It is almost time for the end of the school year. When you are a school-based therapist, you wait for the end of the school year like others wait for their vacations - counting down the days. I have 5 days left. I relish my times away from the clinic, primarily because I get to the point where I feel like I am singing the same old songs while working on the same old skills. I can only sing "Elimination" so many times before I am LONGING for new musical interventions and interactions. The break allows me to clean my house while clearing out the old and bringing in the new. I have trends when it comes to refreshment of my therapeutic self. I enjoy listening to music that does not include rapping or Britney Spears singing. I make compilations for use in my car - my favorite songs from a variety of genre. I take time to play my guitar and my keyboard. I spend lots of time breathing. I think I often forget the power of a deep, cleansing breath. I use breathing...

Thinking about the music I mean, duh, right? I am a music therapist, therefore, the music should be the primary thing that I think about. Interns give me a good perspective on how far I have come in my profession - many times, interns are focused on the activity level of music therapy - music accompanied educational applications. The music is not the driving force of the session, it is the thing that should keep the client paying attention. The therapeutic use of music is something that I find interns have studied, but do not really understand. They have sat through psychological influences of musical behavior but have not internalized the important ways that music can be used to shape behavioral responses. They do not understand the iso-principle, the concept of entrainment, and the ways that therapists can change the music to affect behavioral changes. It is also difficult to express this concept to novice therapists who are just worried about finding the correct chords to their chos...

Interns I remember being an intern and hoping that I would get along with my fellow interns. As an internship director, I pay special attention to the personalities and habits of interns, hoping to get the best match for each person who comes to my facility. Difficulties with your fellow interns can be very distressing during an already stressful situation. Sometimes, however, the relationship is that of kindred spirits. My current interns are two such souls. They have bonded. They are deep friends at this point, sharing experiences with clients, with me, and with each other. They are learning from each other daily and are starting to sound alike. This form of bonding is rare, lasting, and important. They are also the second set of interns that I have had that have found this type of relationship. I hope for them that they can keep in touch with each other throughout their careers. There is something comforting about a fellow music therapist who shared a common experience out there in ...

Blogging is an art... ...and I am not the best at it. Okay, updates are in order. Since the word "me" is in the title of this blog, I'll focus just on me for a time. I know, egocentricity rears its ugly head. Indulge me, please. I have been sick since November with a brief hiatus in March. I have decided that sinus infections are cruel and unusual, especially when followed up by tonsillitis and bronchitis. I am tired of being on medications and then getting sick as soon as the meds are gone. Boo- hoo ! My job has become much more challenging as of late. The students have changed, but music therapy is still the job for me. The actual work keeps changing. I find that the changes make me constantly reevaluate my own growth as a therapist. I am now finding myself in the position of relearning music therapy from a different perspective. It is interesting. My population has dual challenges - developmental as well as psychiatric. The typical psychiatric platforms do not work we...

Where has the year gone? 2008 is almost over. It has been a busy year with many therapeutic "A-ha" moments for me as well as MANY "oh-no" moments. Here are a few for your reading pleasure... Oh-no #1 - realization that, while I have been working REALLY hard at my education, I have not made as much progress as I would have liked towards my advanced degree in music therapy A-ha #1 - the archives in Fort Collins are very interesting and a valuable resource for therapists interested in what folks thought about music therapy as a profession way back when Oh-no #2 - my anonymity in my profession is rapidly disintegrating A-ha #2 - other music therapists like my ideas and what I share with them during conferences - thanks to all who stopped by my space in the Clinical Practice Forum Oh-no #3 - I have not been able to spend as much time as I would like on developing new experiences, interventions, and applications for my clients - the projects are piling up A-ha #3 - online...

Irony There are many things that I find ironic. One of them is paying $140 a night for a hotel room where we have had to call maintenance twice - once for light replacement, and once because of a bad room key, where the water pressure starts off strong and ends up with a whimper, and where the room is about as big as my back patio. Something else that I find ironic is that the hotel has one restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch. The prices, which 15 years ago I would have found EXTREMELY disconcerting, run around $20 per meal. I now consider that reasonable. Interesting. I am still not happy about the entire situation - I tend to be more thrifty than not, but I guess I have become more accustomed to the idea of paying through the nose for food at professional meetings. I also find it ironic that folks who coordinate conferences ALL OF THE TIME do not have the logistical know-how of scheduling things so commonly-themed sessions are not scheduled at the same time. There are many dif...