Being an Advocate
Being part of a profession that continues its push to advocate and be recognized as a powerful part of allied health can, at times, be challenging. How do we continually bring more attention or credence to the work while also doing the work?
Much of our advocacy is exactly what being a music therapist consists of: continually having music therapy sessions in different settings, speaking to our allied health colleagues, families, patients, clients and friends, offering teaching or in-services formally or informally throughout the year.
Given the optics of this work, we still experience folks asking if we are volunteers, whereabouts we perform in the hospital/long-term care site/mental health facility, commenting on how fun our work must be. These questions are very natural given we are usually carrying guitars, speakers, sometimes a cart full of colourful, fun-looking percussion instruments and the like.
Shift in Awareness of Music Therapy
In the last five years of my 16 year career, I have started to notice a shift. When I tell someone I’m a music therapist, the response of “a what? what’s that?” is becoming less and less.
If someone hasn’t already experienced music therapy themselves, usually a family member or friend of the family has participated in some capacity over the course of their life. There is some head nodding, comments like “of course – that makes sense that music is therapy – I do that on myself sometimes”. As a young music therapist I would become quite defensive or pedantic about what they were doing with music vs what I was practicing as a music therapist. As time went on I am able to understand and appreciate more deeply the difference between when I listen to music at the gym versus when I am offering a powerful memory tool to a client with Alzheimer’s that brings them to tears. And the value that both can hold.
I am heartened that some of my colleagues are moving into managerial positions in health care sites, carrying with them the impact that music therapy makes on a population. I am wished ‘Happy Music Therapy Awareness Month!’ by passing colleagues in my different places of work. I hear from new music therapists that everyone they meet has heard of or engaged in music therapy.
Future of Music Therapy
This is how awareness is built in this profession. By music therapists moving through sites, connecting with our health care colleagues, inviting family and team members into sessions to show the breadth and depth of this practice. As much as I agree that our Music Therapy Awareness Month is important and shines a light on
this profession, I believe that awareness is built with each step we take and each note we play with our various teams, our clients and their families.
– Sarah Van Peteghen, MTA