My career journey

I love music therapy. Music therapy has my heart. I have my MT-BC credential. Im getting a Master's in Music Therapy...so why am I also getting a Master's in Counseling? For several reasons.

The first time I considered doing the dual master's program was during my undergrad coursework. I don't even remember what course I had to read this article in, but it definately made an impact on me: Levels of Therapy: The Classification of Music Therapy Goals by Barbara Wheeler. I realized that what I really wanted to do would require some additional training.

Then I did my internship and was touched by a child who had experienced some severe trauma in her life. The trauma was pretty obviously the cause for the developmental delays.But since it was in a school district the focus was academics and language. Nevermind the fact that she had been working on these academic goals for 3 years without much improvement. We were not allowed to address any trauma and the school district was not addressing the trauma either. It broke my heart. I also realized that with my undergrad training as a MT processing the extreme trauma would have been outside my scope of practice. I also realized that I wanted to be able to do "deeper therapy."

My first jobs as a music therapist were.....pretty awful. I will not go into the specifics, but they were pretty horrific. I quickly burned out. Looking back, it still the events still make me sad. It also makes me sad, that there are many MT-BCs who have similar experiences. Why is that? Music therapy is such an amazing and beautiful therapy. Why do so many of us have to defend what we do day in and day out to parents, teachers, adminstrators, legislators, friends, doctors, OTs, etc. etc. you get the idea. Why are there mostly companies that don't pay fair wages or force us to have sessions in closets? I could go on and on, but I will stop there.

As I have gone through the counseling program, I really enjoy counseling. It is the "deeper" therapy I wanted but I miss the music. I so much miss the music. Unfortunately the dual program only allows the integration of MT and counseling in the last internship, so I have spent the last 3 semesters without music therapy. This summer is my last internship!! I am excited to see how I can integrate music therapy into counseling!

While I am excited to see how I will incorporate the two disciplines, I cannot put aside my passion. My professional paper is a comparison of hospice music therapy articles and hospice counseling articles. I read these articles and some days my heart really yearns to be able to work in hospice, to be a music therapist. Today is one of thos days. Maybe one day I will work in hospice as a music therapist. Maybe not, maybe I will be a counselor that incoporates music therapy into my counseling practice....

I leave you with this: Music therapy provides something very desirable in a hopeless or extremely unpleasant and undesirable situation. Music therapy has always been a profession in which its practitioners 'stand in the gap' to accomplish what cannot be done better in any other way. Music therapy interventions go far beyond the music heard on the television or a radio at a bedisde, sometimes referred to by nurses as 'music therapy.' When implemented by a skilled professional, music therapy contributes markedly to physical, psycholgoical, social, and cognitive functions for those requiring interventions. -Alicia Ann Clair