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Music Therapy and Mykolaev, Ukraine
Hi all:
Well, at the end of April I received a call from the Council of International Educational Exchange of Scholars, inquiring whether I would be available to undertake a three-week teaching stint in Music Therapy, at Petro Mohyla Black Sea Mykolaev University, in Mykolaev, Ukraine. Under the Fulbright Senior Specialist, where I am on the roster of the Social Work/Psych division, a request came in from this University, asking for an "arts" therapist. Surely, the powers in Mykolaev had no idea what they were getting into! Several vitae were sent and I was the one chosen by the University! Turns out that they had NO CLUE what music therapy is, what the training consists of, where and how clinicians are accredited and employed, and so on!
So I quickly packed to get ready to leave on May 13th, in order to be on time for the first professional event: A Conference on Arts Therapies, May 15-16. Let me say that a 7-hour time lapse takes a bit of adjustment! Never the less, there I was, standing before a huge crowd in an auditorium, speaking about Music Therapy In The United States -- mostly about training and credentialing. But that was just the beginning. Over the next 2-1/2 weeks, I gave 12 separate (and different) lectures to some 180 different students (total); conducted activity music therapy workshops for a class of 30 students (having no instruments, and in a space the size of a small livingroom!); and provided lectures outside of the University, to a crowd at the local (lovely) public library, and at the Children's Hospital at Grand Rounds (they call it "Conference"). Did my brain feel like a loaded spunge? Indeed.
The bottom line is that the people are now clammering for information. Social Work and Psychology students thought that in two weeks, they could learn to conduct music therapy sessions. Is that a laugh? They were awe-struck viewing some of the DVDs I brought of MT in schools, hospitals, geriatric setting, individuals in cancer and pain management, stroke and coma victims... et al. They simply had no clue. When I got through with them, it was quite clear that Music Therapy is a treatment modality that requires first excellent music training, supported by courses in psych, physiology, human development, diseases, plus practicum and internship. No. Two weeks would not be sufficient to train and conduct music therapy treatment sessions. Many persons I was in contact with (at my sessions) said they had taken various short "workshops" in Music Therapy, and were able to use some of the activities in their clinical practices.
This was rather frightening to hear, and I began to wonder about the many European Music Therapists who conduct various workshops in the Ukraine (so I was told) through internet-distance learning, encouraging subscribers to then go out and use the material.
If all it takes is learning some tasks in order to say "music therapy", then why have I spent so much time training? Am I missing something here?
Music Therapy is a treatment. That seems to be a difficult concept to grasp. How can "music" -- an entertainment medium -- be a clinical treatment? After all, anyone can beat a drum, or listen to a CD and "feel better". So as I sat on my return flight from Ukraine (through beautiful Prague overnight), I wondered about the term "Music Therapy", and whether many are doing a disservice to the profession by throwing out task ideas without considering the "why" for the tasks.
My frustration with this profession runs deep. How many MT clinicians are truly well-trained musicians able to understand the individual music elements and how each contributes to human function when specifically applied for certain ailments? Is it enough to just sit down and play a tune, chords and all, on a piano or guitar, without considering which or how the music elements are impacting the system? What is music, anyway? Maybe I'm on the wrong track, but being in a country that has absolutely no clue that music therapy is actually a treatment approach and not a relaxation/entertainment -- again makes me question how well prepared our clinicians are to use the term "treatment" - a recurrent application of what I term the music "pharmaceutical" of pitch/melody, harmony, timbre, rhythm, dynamics and form... either individually or in various combinations to address certain physiological and emotional details.
Am I in a world of my own here?
Well, at the end of April I received a call from the Council of International Educational Exchange of Scholars, inquiring whether I would be available to undertake a three-week teaching stint in Music Therapy, at Petro Mohyla Black Sea Mykolaev University, in Mykolaev, Ukraine. Under the Fulbright Senior Specialist, where I am on the roster of the Social Work/Psych division, a request came in from this University, asking for an "arts" therapist. Surely, the powers in Mykolaev had no idea what they were getting into! Several vitae were sent and I was the one chosen by the University! Turns out that they had NO CLUE what music therapy is, what the training consists of, where and how clinicians are accredited and employed, and so on!
So I quickly packed to get ready to leave on May 13th, in order to be on time for the first professional event: A Conference on Arts Therapies, May 15-16. Let me say that a 7-hour time lapse takes a bit of adjustment! Never the less, there I was, standing before a huge crowd in an auditorium, speaking about Music Therapy In The United States -- mostly about training and credentialing. But that was just the beginning. Over the next 2-1/2 weeks, I gave 12 separate (and different) lectures to some 180 different students (total); conducted activity music therapy workshops for a class of 30 students (having no instruments, and in a space the size of a small livingroom!); and provided lectures outside of the University, to a crowd at the local (lovely) public library, and at the Children's Hospital at Grand Rounds (they call it "Conference"). Did my brain feel like a loaded spunge? Indeed.
The bottom line is that the people are now clammering for information. Social Work and Psychology students thought that in two weeks, they could learn to conduct music therapy sessions. Is that a laugh? They were awe-struck viewing some of the DVDs I brought of MT in schools, hospitals, geriatric setting, individuals in cancer and pain management, stroke and coma victims... et al. They simply had no clue. When I got through with them, it was quite clear that Music Therapy is a treatment modality that requires first excellent music training, supported by courses in psych, physiology, human development, diseases, plus practicum and internship. No. Two weeks would not be sufficient to train and conduct music therapy treatment sessions. Many persons I was in contact with (at my sessions) said they had taken various short "workshops" in Music Therapy, and were able to use some of the activities in their clinical practices.
This was rather frightening to hear, and I began to wonder about the many European Music Therapists who conduct various workshops in the Ukraine (so I was told) through internet-distance learning, encouraging subscribers to then go out and use the material.
If all it takes is learning some tasks in order to say "music therapy", then why have I spent so much time training? Am I missing something here?
Music Therapy is a treatment. That seems to be a difficult concept to grasp. How can "music" -- an entertainment medium -- be a clinical treatment? After all, anyone can beat a drum, or listen to a CD and "feel better". So as I sat on my return flight from Ukraine (through beautiful Prague overnight), I wondered about the term "Music Therapy", and whether many are doing a disservice to the profession by throwing out task ideas without considering the "why" for the tasks.
My frustration with this profession runs deep. How many MT clinicians are truly well-trained musicians able to understand the individual music elements and how each contributes to human function when specifically applied for certain ailments? Is it enough to just sit down and play a tune, chords and all, on a piano or guitar, without considering which or how the music elements are impacting the system? What is music, anyway? Maybe I'm on the wrong track, but being in a country that has absolutely no clue that music therapy is actually a treatment approach and not a relaxation/entertainment -- again makes me question how well prepared our clinicians are to use the term "treatment" - a recurrent application of what I term the music "pharmaceutical" of pitch/melody, harmony, timbre, rhythm, dynamics and form... either individually or in various combinations to address certain physiological and emotional details.
Am I in a world of my own here?
Dorita Berger's Blog
How and When Audiences Improve Performance
Here's an interesting article from PsyBlog. enjoy.
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Social Facilitation: How and When Audiences Improve Performance
Posted: 04 Jun 2009 02:08 AM PDT
· Under the gaze of others do you wilt or grow?
When an ant builds a nest on her own she does so with little enthusiasm. She moves as though tired of life, bored with the whole business of excavating earth, perhaps dreaming of a better life elsewhere. But give our… Continue
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Social Facilitation: How and When Audiences Improve Performance
Posted: 04 Jun 2009 02:08 AM PDT
· Under the gaze of others do you wilt or grow?
When an ant builds a nest on her own she does so with little enthusiasm. She moves as though tired of life, bored with the whole business of excavating earth, perhaps dreaming of a better life elsewhere. But give our… Continue
Posted on June 4, 2009 at 1:14pm —
At last
What an wonderful thing it is, finally, that we can have several blog sites like this that deal with clinical music! The Music Effect site and this Clinical Music Therapy should finally begin to open up people's minds to the fact that there is more to music's impact on human behavior than the psyche! There is the physiology and the neuroscience--- the whole brain, not just the cognitive brain -- that responds to music.
And... it it not terrific that we can now begin to share information among t… Continue
And... it it not terrific that we can now begin to share information among t… Continue
Posted on April 28, 2009 at 1:30pm —
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All three wrong, and dangerous for the acceptance of Musictherapy. There's a lot of people doing basically what I call Let's sing together" or, in alternative, "Sing it, it will take away your sorrow".
Well, I think these are standard human reactions, you don't need a "musictherapist" for'em.
What it widely miss, I think, it s the use of the musical thinking combined with a medical thinking, in terms of Science.
It is worth to fight for that, Dori.