Today is Tuesday, June 9th, and in this twenty-third episode I’d like to share with you some reflections on a topic that is not often heard in conversations among colleagues.
I am referring to those situations in which, however much effort you put in, you reach the end of the day with an overwhelming sense of inadequacy.
Has this ever happened to you?
I’m talking about those times when nothing goes smoothly.
And if things go well, the person you are working with seems not to see you.
They seem not to see all the wonderful instruments you have painstakingly bought in order to be as effective as possible.
They do not respond to your impeccable improvisation.
They repeatedly show an impulse to head for the door and leave.
They fall asleep, completely and without appeal.
They start pulling the strings of your guitar as if it were a bow for shooting arrows.
They lower the piano lid onto your hands — apparently with no malicious intent.
They accept the maraca only in order to throw it at you the very moment you smile with satisfaction.
And if things go badly…
they begin to have episodes of self-harm,
or decide to use you as a punching bag,
or insult you in no uncertain terms, offending your mother,
or ridiculing the sonic-musical proposal you have just offered.
In short, it may well be that fate has decided to make me the only music therapy practitioner destined to experience these situations.
But I suspect that, in at least one of the cases I have just described, some of you may have found yourselves too.
At this point, questions and statements begin to multiply exponentially.
Am I adequate for this situation, or not?
Am I adequate to do music therapy, or not?
If I were better, or as good as X or Y, things would certainly go better.
If I knew more psychology, perhaps I could manage.
And so on.
And as if that were not enough, then come the questions and statements from our colleagues:
“What protocol are you using?”
“Are you in supervision?”
“Well, of course nothing is working — you didn’t train at the school I trained at!”
“In my opinion, you should do this…”
“I had a case exactly like yours, and it didn’t go that badly for me…”
Rarely do we question the referral.
Who referred this person to us?
Why did they do so?
And what does the referrer, or the caregiver, expect from music therapy?
What criteria were used to identify whether this pathway was appropriate for that person?
Even less often do we reflect on what leads us to accept a referral from an institution, a team, a specialist, or a colleague.
Clearly, for those who live from music therapy, saying no to the possibility of taking someone on exists only in textbooks.
When you have rent to pay, the loan on the Doblò, the finance plan for buying your instruments, I’d like to see who actually says:
“Look, in my opinion this person is not suitable for music therapy.”
In the best-case scenario, this is the verdict we will use after the first cycle of twelve sessions.
And we will pronounce it through gritted teeth, and only if, in the meantime, someone else has rung the bell of our studio.
And then there is the world of clinical cases and videos shown at conferences, where everything runs smoothly: people who were mute speak, the blind see, and the dead rise again to the sound of the flute played by that colleague from overseas.
That is the final blow.
So you decide: right, I’m changing profession.
And, branded with the mark of failure, you enrol at university.
In Psychology, of course, because you have understood that you have no future in music therapy — but you still insist on wanting to help the world.
Perhaps it would have been enough if someone, during your training, had told you that it is not true that music is good for everyone.
And therefore it is even less true that music therapy is good for everyone.
At least then you could have saved yourself by saying:
“It is the candidate who is not responding to the treatment — not me who does not know how to do my job.”
I’ll stop here.
We’ll meet again on Tuesday, June 16th, with a new episode of A Light-Hearted Journey Through Music Therapy.