The speakers in this AMTA-Pro podcast – Abbby Dvorak, Lindsey Landeck, Marie Lesiak, and Deborah Spiegel – have extensive clinical experience working with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and music therapy. Dialectical Behavior Therapy is an active treatment model building skills in four key areas: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. The speakers talk in depth about ways DBT can enhance an MT-BC’s music therapy practice as well as how music therapy may enhance and support DBT skills training in the clinical setting. These experienced MT-BCs demonstrate some clinical interventions in the podcast and discuss research applications for music therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. The text section of this AMTA-Pro podcast includes a detailed list of resources about DBT and music therapy as well as bios of the speakers.
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Active Music Engagement (AME) is a music-based play intervention designed to address parent and young child cancer treatment-related distress. Positive results from earlier research based on therapist-led interventions led to the next step of translating Active Music Engagement for parent delivery to increase accessibility and sustainability. Music Play Kits were designed for parents to share with their children and enjoy making music together while the music therapist stepped back into a coaching role. Although the pilot study yielded positive results for the children and parents in many areas in this model, one unexpected finding emerged. Parents actually indicated a need for greater support from the music therapist and a preference for therapist-led interventions. Our AMTA-Pro podcast speakers, Sheri Robb and Amanda Henley, discuss the research and clinical practice implications of these findings, and they share details about the continuation of this study with research funded by a $1.4 million National Institutes of Nursing Research grant. This latest research project, involving 15 Board-Certified Music Therapists, 12 Certified Research Associates, and 4 Site-Primary Investigators/Project Managers across three sites, is studying the effect of play interventions, such as active music engagement and storybook programs, on health outcomes in young children ages 3 to 8 undergoing chemotherapy treatment and their parents.
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Florence Tyson was a trailblazing music therapist who began her work in the 1950s with the Musicians’ Emergency Fund in New York City. Recognizing the need for outpatient treatment for individuals with mental illness, Florence created the Music Rehabilitation Center to provide arts-based community services, thereby decreasing the need for inpatient treatment. In the early 1960s, the agency’s name was changed to the Creative Arts Rehabilitation Center and moved to 51st Street in the theater district on the edge of Times Square. Until the mid-1990s, CARC was a space dedicated solely to providing music, art, dance, drama, and poetry for people with mental illness. In this AMTA-Pro podcast, three of Florence’s colleagues – Ken Aigen, Christopher Bandini, and Jeffrey Friedberg – share compelling stories about their work at the CARC, and about the significant impact of CARC and Florence Tyson on the lives of scores of individuals with mental illness as well as on the staff and community.
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As of January 1, 2016, music therapy is a licensed profession in Oregon. The bill reads, “A person may not practice music therapy, assume or use any title, words or abbreviations, including the title or designation ‘music therapist,’ that indicate the person is authorized to practice music therapy unless the person is licensed. Only those agencies with qualified personnel may claim to offer music therapy services.” In November, 2016, four members of the Oregon State Government Relations Task Force – Jodi Winnwalker, Lillieth Grand, Angie Kopshy, and Chris Korb – gathered around the AMTA-Pro microphone to talk about the steps taken to achieve this ambitious goal. Beginning in 2007 with AMTA’s Judy Simpson’s issue of a Call to Action, the efforts of dozens of music therapists in Oregon, working with the guidance of government relations experts from AMTA and CBMT, resulted in Oregon licensure in 2016. The podcast speakers talk about that process, and they overview the necessary follow-up of the licensing legislation while encouraging music therapists in other states to step up to the plate and work diligently toward licensure.
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How can music therapy’s impact be maximized in the home environment? What steps can a music therapist take to help music therapy clients and their caregivers generalize what they have learned in music therapy to their everyday life? In this AMTA-Pro podcast, experienced music therapy clinician Ronna Kaplan discusses time‐tested and “family‐approved” areas of concentration in music therapy sessions that then translate and transfer to home. The case examples covers three areas of focus that arise daily for individual music therapy clients and their families and caregivers, i.e., music therapy for learning, for living, and for the love of music.
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Emotion Regulation (ER) development occurs in early childhood. Music therapists encounter many clinical populations who experience barriers to healthy ER development for a variety of reasons. In this AMTA-Pro podcast, our music therapy colleague Dr. Kimberly Sena Moore reports results from a mixed methods feasibility study exploring the impact of a music‐based intervention on ER development. She discusses the implications of the research findings in relation to how they influence clinical music therapy practice and future research.
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Philanthropy is a viable funding source for music therapy programs. Based on their experience in successfully funding and expanding a pediatric hospital-based music therapy program through philanthropy, Dr. Annie Heiderscheit and Jana Koppula are particularly aware of the importance of understanding the complex aspects of donor relationships in order to build and maintain a philanthropically funded program. Their conversation in this AMTA-Pro podcast includes examples of building successful donor relationships, gathering and presenting data to donors, and addressing donor expectations. The experience and expertise of these two MT colleagues is helpful to music therapists who are considering pursuing philanthropy as a source for funding music therapy services in any clinical setting.
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The unique goals of court-committed adults are being addressed in interesting ways by the team of music therapist Alison Etter and art therapist Jaimie Peterson in a forensic psychiatric hospital. In this AMTA-Pro podcast, Etter and Peterson describe a number of creative collaborative interventions giving their clients opportunities to be involved in a performances, exhibits, broadcasts, and publications. The wide-ranging and diverse therapeutic experiences are designed to increase personal connections, reduce stigma, encourage interaction and communication, facilitate leadership and cooperation, and provide opportunities for creative expression through music and art.
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Music in therapy can be viewed not as a “tool” to be “used,” but as a guiding principle informing an underlying ethos and driving the work in its entirety. In this understanding, music therapy is construed through an artistic lens, in which the value of the work is understood according to such criteria as experiential depth, narrative coherence, personal meaningfulness, and expressive beauty. In this way of understanding the work, the client’s musical constitution, as well as the music therapist’s clinical musicianship, extend themselves to all corners of the therapy. This understanding extends to the targeted outcomes of the work (goals) as well. In this AMTA-Pro podcast, a group of experienced music therapy professionals – Brian Abrams, Kathleen Murphy, Noah Potvin, and Laurel Young – converse about several informed perspectives on ways in which both music therapy processes and goals can be understood in terms of music.
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The second podcast in this two-part “MT for Adults with IDD” AMTA-Pro series features an insightful conversation with experienced music therapy clinician, Ellen Rayfield. After 30+ years providing services as an MT-BC and LPC in psychiatric facilities, Ellen switched gears and began working with adults with intellectual developmental disabilities (IDD). Right away, she became aware of the need for more music therapy resources, especially since intellectual and developmental disabilities begin in childhood and last for many decades, requiring life-long intervention and support. In this podcast, Ellen shares her observations about adults with IDD, describes the agency’s services and her music therapy program, and talks about her interactions with and responses of clients in group and individual music therapy. The first podcast in this two-part “MT for Adults with IDD” AMTA-Pro series features speakers Jennifer Jones, Nicole Rivera, and Todd Schwartzberg who talk about the history of music therapy with adults with IDD, provide an overview of available publications and research, and summarize two descriptive studies as well case examples. All speakers emphasize the need for more music therapy research, forums, publications, and profession-wide emphasis on the unique needs of the expanding population of adults with IDD.
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Note: some users in some browsers are reporting problems when attempting to listen to the audio for this podcast. If you see “File not found” after clicking the play button, please use this link to listen instead: http://amta.ianitor.com/audio//Jones-Rivera–Schwartzberg.mp3
The growing need for music therapy services for adults with IDD (intellectual and developmental disabilities), including ASD (autism spectrum disorder), calls for more research, forums, and publications in our field. In this AMTA-Pro podcast, the first of a 2-part series, speakers Jennifer Jones, Nicole Rivera, and Todd Schwartzberg encourage a renewed profession-wide emphasis on the unique needs of this expanding population. They begin that process by talking briefly about the history of music therapy with these adults and providing an overview of available publications and research. They summarize two descriptive studies and talk through case examples with a special focus on post‐high school transitions, adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and the unique needs of older adults with IDD. Part 2 of the “MT for Adults with IDD” AMTA-Pro podcast series features an insightful conversation with clinician Ellen Rayfield talking about her work with this population.
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Music therapy students and graduate teaching assistants from Drury University and University of Missouri-Kansas City gathered around the AMTA-Pro podcast microphone to describe their work with an intergenerational choir as a practicum experience. They describe various aspects of the music therapy treatment process, including assessment, session planning, data collection, co-treatment, supervision, and various interventions. Dr. Melita Belgrave, UMKC music therapy professor, joins in the conversation to provide information about the background and overall structure of the intergenerational choir practicum experience. The text section of this AMTA-Pro podcast includes brief bios of the speakers as well as a valuable 24-page resource packet compiled by Dr. Belgrave, Dr. Alice-Ann Darrow, and Dr. Natalie Wlodarczyk, professors who implement intergeneration choir practicums in their university programs at UMKC, Drury University, and Florida State University.
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