Music Therapy Maven — The Business and Science of Music Therapy. The Life of a Music Therapist, Academic, and Career-Minded Mommy.

Do We Value Our Worth Enough?

June 25, 2014

Money negotiation. This was not a skill I was taught nor, quite frankly, is it something I’m good at. But it’s an important skill to practice, not only for your own personal security and happiness, but also for the profession as a whole. See, negotiating a salary or fee is not really about the money, […]

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5 Ways to Handle Misrepresentation of Music Therapy

June 11, 2014

One of the most common complaints I hear from fellow music therapists relates to misrepresentation—that is, when a person, company, or media piece advertises “music therapy” when none exists (well, there may be music involved, but not music therapy as provided by a qualified professional trained with the rigorous competency standards of board certified music […]

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Presentational vs. Participational Music: A Recap of the 2014 CMS Summit

May 22, 2014

Music therapy is an inherently interdisciplinary field, which makes it all the more surprising that it has taken me almost 15 years to finally begin attending non-music therapy-specific conferences. The first was the Society for Music Perception and Cognition conference in Toronto last summer. The second was the 2014 Summit for the College Music Society […]

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The Next Chapter: A Life of Academia

May 1, 2014

The final transition of the graduate school experience may not be the passing of a thesis or dissertation defense, but rather figuring out what happens next. My conversations with fellow graduate students at this stage in their degree often centers around job possibilities, job interviews, and professional scuttlebutt about who is moving into what position. […]

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[PsychToday] The New “Happy”: A Protest Anthem

April 23, 2014

Although I initially liked the song, my feelings about Pharrell William’s Oscar-nominated hit “Happy” had been moving towards how I feel about the 1990s version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song.” So over-played that I immediately felt drawn to change the radio station once I heard the opening notes. But I recently read an […]

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Musings on Music and Science

April 16, 2014

I love quick-and-dirty resources that provide valuable information in an accessible format. In that spirit, I want to share this great resource recently published by the music therapy team at Neurorhythm Music Therapy. Their interactive map of the brain provides brief overviews of music’s effect on different parts of the brain with a click of […]

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Musings on the State of Music Therapy Research: Strengths, Challenges, and Future Directions

March 18, 2014

Earlier this month I invited Dr. Michael Anestis, a clinical psychologist and researcher, to share his perspectives on music therapy research. By his own admission, his area of focus is mental health research—which omits the medical, rehabilitation, developmental, wellness, and preventive areas of focus in music therapy research—but I felt he had fair and valid […]

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Mommy Mondays: Why the Word “Good” is Bad

March 17, 2014

I think it’s time I removed the word “good” from my parenting vocabulary. As a therapist you learn not to use the word “good” to reinforce a client’s behavior or action as that suggests there is a “bad” way to act or behave. So why don’t I apply that same principle to parenting? Just the other […]

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