A few weeks ago, a kind woman by the name of Rebecca from the Masters in Counseling website, sent me a note to tell me my blog had been nominated as one of 100 Best Resources for Counselors. Who knew?
And then, a short while later, she sent me a congratulatory note. How neat! And I'm in such fine company to boot. Thanks, Rebecca, and thanks to the kind folks who nominated me, and, mostly, thanks to you, you lovely readers you! I very much appreciate (and am humbled by) your willingness to slog through my commentary and carryings on about my music therapy experiences.
I live in New Jersey, and everywhere I went during the two weeks after mega storm Sandy (work, the grocery store, the library, the gas station), people asked me, "Did you lose power?" And I was struck by the metaphor contained in the question: "Did you lose power?" People in this area experienced, quite literally, being- let alone feeling- "powerless" (on a lot of different levels). They struggled through "power failure" and had to wait for their "power to be restored." Many of my students at Montclair experienced "loss of power", leaving them sounding somewhat rattled when we returned to class. A music therapist I know described her disabled clients' distress as they coped with yet another storm requiring their temporary relocation to safer and warmer living quarters (we had Hurricane Irene last year, along with a freak snow storm at the end of October, both of which caused a lot of power outage and flooding). In pondering our collective experience, I got to thinking, as I tend to do, about how this connects to our work as music therapists- how we react to the unbalancing effect of going through a frightening experience such as a major hurricane (for example).
As I played around in my mind with this idea of power loss and restoration, I thought about how we in music therapy are, essentially, working in a musical way to restore power, intra- and inter-personally. And, sure, this may be sort of a weird way to say it, but, if I were to say this using musical terms, I guess I'd be saying that in music therapy we're working toward "bring(ing) us back to 'Do'."
[A special thank you to MJ Landaker for her recent post about the important connection between music theory and music therapy. It certainly helps to understand why music is so "powerful" (if you will).]
It's National Psychotherapy Day today- the first one ever- and I'll be celebrating by heading, just as I do every other week, to my therapist's office. Why? Because I firmly believe getting my own therapy is an important part of my job as a music therapist. Knowing who I am and what kind of emotional baggage I'm carrying around with me helps me be present and attentive to the clients I serve when I show up to provide music therapy. When my clients do their best to avoid hearing me invite them to look at a belief they're strongly committed to (sometimes even going so far as to literally stick their fingers in their ears), when they fall asleep mid-session because something we're addressing feels way too overwhelming, when they fight mightily against change...I have a pretty good idea of what it's like. I've felt and done the same (okay, maybe I don't actually stick my fingers in my ears or fall asleep in therapy, but I can be pretty darned noisy if I don't want to know something). I'll be honest with you: I am uncomfortable recommending any music therapist I know who hasn't spent at least some time looking at his/her own issues in therapy. I mean, what are we communicating to our clients if we think we're above getting our own therapy? If we, essentially, perpetuate the attitude of stigmatization associated with taking care of one's emotional and mental health? One of the (many) reasons I loved the HBO show In Treatment was that the writers made sure the therapist, Paul Weston, went (even though he was kicking and screaming the whole way and was more of a pain in his own sessions than any of his clients ever were in theirs) for his own therapy! Psychotherapy for therapists goes beyond the usual nice, self-care sorts of things we tend to talk about in music therapy circles (you know...the whole getting a massage, taking regular vacations, taking a bubble bath and the like). It's an ongoing commitment to self-discovery, a recognition that, yes, we can and do get in our own (as well as our clients') ways, and figuring out how to (much as we may bravely resist) make changes in our perceptions and ideas about our selves, our lives, and our relationships. So, good people, with a grateful nod to Ryan Howes (a blogging buddy who shares his insights over at the Psychology Today blogs as well as being a contributing editor at the Psychotherapy Networker), I invite you to consider how you might join in the acknowledgement and celebration of National Psychotherapy Day. After all, mental health and self-awareness are most certainly worthy of celebration!
A few weeks ago, a kind woman by the name of Rebecca from the Masters in Counseling website, sent me a note to tell me my blog had been nominated as one of 100 Best Resources for Counselors. Who knew? 
