Today is Tuesday, July 28th, and we begin this thirtieth episode by sharing some reflections on a topic that, for the sake of simplicity, I will group under the term supervision.
I know that tons of pages have already been written on this subject by distinguished scholars. And to avoid pretending to be something I am not, I’ll tell you straight away: I have not done any research for this episode.
I must also warn you about a very strong bias that is guiding me as I share these reflections.
When I was a music therapy student, many of my teachers were psychiatrists with a specialisation in psychotherapy. During lessons, they would talk to us about clinical topics and then about this thing: supervision.
And immediately after stressing the necessity — almost the obligation — of having supervision, they would give us a list of names to choose from.
And on that list there were only them and their friends.
And when, in the next step, they gave us another sheet with the hourly price list…
well…
let’s just say…
it bothered me a little.
I am almost certain that, in this reconstruction, I have romanticised the events a bit.
I now know that things have changed, that it is no longer like that. So this podcast will serve only to allow me to externalise, and perhaps understand, everything that escaped me at the time.
Let me make one thing clear straight away.
Far be it from me to underestimate the necessity and importance of being able to contact someone we trust, someone experienced, someone we respect, when for some reason we find ourselves “stuck” in one of the many areas that make up our profession.
We may be stuck because of a purely musical problem.
In what key could I improvise in order to connect as closely as possible with the sonic exploration of the person with whom I am doing music therapy?
What instrument could I use to be more effective in reaching that specific goal?
Should I use harmonic accompaniment while I sing, or should I leave the voice alone?
Faced with the stereotyped but regular pulse of a child with a pervasive developmental disorder, what should I do?
Keep the same BPM?
Halve it?
Double it?
Then there may be more general doubts, linked to our sense of adequacy and competence.
That time when you do not know whether what you are doing is right or wrong.
Or worse still, those times when you simply do not know what to do.
At certain moments, you feel trapped by the anxiety of going in the wrong direction.
There are doubts that attack you before a session begins and buzz around your head the whole time.
But there are also judgemental thoughts that arrive when a session ends.
There are days when the mere idea of entering that institution, that working context, weighs down your soul.
And who knows how many other situations I have not mentioned, but that perhaps have happened to you.
Another large category of topics that trigger doubts and questions, blocks and uncertainties, concerns the profession itself.
Who are we?
Where do we position ourselves?
Who is beside us?
Who is above us?
Who is below us?
Perhaps this is a less politically correct way of saying it, but it gets straight to the heart of that exhausting and exhausted farce of musicoterapista versus musicoterapeuta.
Good.
So, coming back to the point: I agree that if these thoughts come to us — and above all if these thoughts somehow block us, if they take away our freshness and lightness — one possible solution is to talk about them with someone whom we invest with “wisdom”.
You will have noticed that I said one possible solution.
The other one, which personally has helped me more than a few times, is to question myself about what I choose to be.
When I feel insecure, blocked, drained, or unable to read an event calmly, perhaps it is because I am dreaming of being something else.
Perhaps I am dreaming of being one of those psychiatrist-psychotherapists who, many years ago, spoke to me about the importance of supervision.
I’ll stop here.
We’ll meet again on Tuesday, August 4th, with a new episode of A Light-Hearted Journey Through Music Therapy.