One of the things that I have to do during my internship, is write a weekly journal. So I thought that I would share with you all one of the journals that I just wrote for this week. I have had to keep names out and even if they are male female for my clients confidentiality.
Even though this may seem a little "down" I am really enjoying my internship and love that I am finally beginning to start my case load!!
Since being here at Matheny, I have not been able to do true
music therapy due to the flu quarantine that has been in place. This week it
has turned from a full quarantine to a partial quarantine, where green and red
zone adults can co-mingle. I have finally been able to start my caseload, but
only with clients that are on green and red. But hey, anything is better than
what I was doing before.
Thinking
back on the week, I think that my high point was meeting with my adult
individual client. He has been known to be resist to the intern who is not the
pretty girl intern. Obviously I am not the pretty girl intern, so I had
concerns about approaching him. But when I told them on Monday that we would be meeting weekly for music on Tuesdays, they seemed excited. So Tuesday
rolled around and I decided that it was going to be just a getting to know each
other type of session. We talked and all, and I asked them “So --- how are you
today?” and they got his dynavox (speaking machine) to say, “excited”. “What are
you excited for ---?” I asked. They then pointed at me and I figured out that they were excited to have music therapy with me! It made me super happy and relieved
that they wanted to do music with me. After this little moment, this made me feel
really confident that we are going to have great music therapy sessions
together.
Since being here I have felt pretty frustrated
with how the quarantine has been handled. The rules apply to some people and
then they don’t to others. But my biggest frustration was last night during
open mic night. Right before open mic, I was told that green and red zone
adults and children could co-mingle in the dinner room. So I naturally told
three of the children on green zone that were super excited about open mic,
that we were having it. Then I was told that green zone children could not
mingle with red zone adults, which was what I originally thought it was. So the
three clients were upset that they couldn’t come to open mic. I was then told
that I was only going to have green zone adults and children, so then I had to
tell my red zone clients that they couldn’t come. I was very frustrated that
every body was told a different thing, and then we had to contact a supervisor
and wait for things to start. It all worked out eventually, but I was just
super frustrated at that moment.
After my
individual session with my adolescent client, this was probably my low point for this
week. I felt after the session that it was utter chaos, and I felt like it may
not have been beneficial for them. I felt like this last week after our session,
but I put it off saying that it was just the first session and it will be
better next week. I know that the client is a little scattered, and benefits
from unstructured experiences. But I also feel like I am the client, and they are the therapist at times. I need to figure out a way to get across that I am the
therapist, and they are the client. But how do I do this? I have no idea yet…
Over all
this week, it has been great to actually get into music therapy and start my
caseload. It is kind of nice to be able to gradually sink into the caseload,
rather than jump right in without any swimmies to keep me afloat.
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