Good for you! It looks like you assuredly begin a music therapist! Now,
in the words of Uncle Ben, "with abundant adeptness comes abundant
responsibility." Music analysis is a profession alive agilely to
authorize itself as a aboveboard and accustomed therapy, so anyone
calling herself a music therapist has a lot to acknowledgment to. The
boilerplate getting hasn't even heard of music analysis and actually
isn't accustomed with the ins and outs of the field, so let me accord
you a leg up. Your music therapist should almost resemble the afterward
description.
EDUCATION: A music therapist will accept an absolute bulk in music
analysis (sounds so new age, doesn't it?) from an accustomed academy of
music, aural a accustomed university. (This about rules out a lot of
online programs.) This could be in the anatomy of a bachelor's bulk or a
bachelor's adequation and they adeptness aswell accept a master's bulk
or even a PhD in music therapy. Higher apprenticeship is all the
acerbity these days. By the way, this agency that she auditioned and was
accustomed based on her agreeable accomplishment on a accurate
instrument, acceptation she was appealing abundant on par with all those
added elitist music acceptance (I was one, so I can say bad things
about us).
INTERNSHIP: MT acceptance are appropriate to complete a 6 ages
internship at a website that has been accustomed by the American Music
Analysis Association (AMTA, musictherapy.org). Not alone are they
monitored and evaluated by the site's music therapists, they aswell
complete apprentice coursework during the internship for their advisers
aback at school. Anniversary university handles this a little
differently...some schools will accolade just a apparent music bulk at
the end of the student's on-campus coursework, and again added accord
the music analysis bulk already he finishes the internship. Others
abstain any bulk until the internship is complete. Either way, you can
feel assured that your best therapist has formed her base off to get an
internship. The apple of music analysis is baby and the apple of
accustomed internships is even abate and added selective.
Often a apprentice attempts to defended an internship with a citizenry
they are absorbed in. For example, I appear to adore psychiatry and
thus, completed my internship in a psychiatric hospital. (Did I
acknowledgment that I am, in fact, a GOOD music therapist? Appropriately
my adeptness to animadversion on this topic.) Anyway, you actually wish
to ask your MT about her internship (no bulk his or her age-there are
lots of "non-traditional" MTs out there who could accept actual
acceptable entered the acreage at the astonishingly old age of 50 or get
this-even older!).
BOARD CERTIFICATION: After MTs complete their internships, they are
acceptable to yield the music analysis lath acceptance exam. That's
right...your music therapist should be able to acquaint you all about
her abhorrent acquaintance at the "local testing center" area she was
appropriate to yield her assay (mine was at a bedraggled H&R Block
in a bad allotment of town). The assay is a absolute analysis of
capacity alignment from abstracts accumulating and statistics to music
approach to counseling models. If you pass, you get agitative brand to
put at the end of your name (you aswell get to pay $80 a year to advance
those initials...not so exciting). Those brand are MT-BC, which stands
for music therapist-board certified. It is actually capital that your
music therapist backpack those brand or at the VERY LEAST be advancing
to sit for the exam. (She could be in music analysis no man's
land...between the end of her internship and the achievement of the
exam). If she doesn't canyon the test, you charge to canyon on her.
Harsh, I know, but this apple is rough.
ADHERENCE TO STANDARDS OF PRACTICE AND CODE OF ETHICS: A lath certified
music therapist is accepted to convenance according civic standards and
ethics. The standards accommodate a criterion adjoin which to
admeasurement a music analysis practice. I will not insult you by answer
what belief are. Anyway, as a customer of music therapy, this is
basically what you can apprehend to acquaintance apropos the standards
of practice:
Assessment-Your MT should complete a ample appraisal of the client,
including at atomic the following: history, interviews with caregivers,
and behavior both in and out of a agreeable setting.
Recommended Analysis Plan-After the appraisal is complete, the MT will
adjudge whether or not MT will be benign to applicant (usually yes, but
sometimes not). The base for this accommodation will be axiomatic in the
appraisal report, of which you should actually accept a copy. Such
paperwork is not a abstruse and if your therapist anytime declines to
appearance you this assessment, dump her immediately. This analysis plan
should aswell accord the bulk of analysis recommended (usually on a
account basis) and what goals will be addressed over what time aeon
(these goals should reflect what you were seeking, at atomic in part). A
GOOD MT will accord you the befalling to accede or disagree with the
projected advance of analysis afore annihilation can be implemented.
Appropriate Termination-A amenable music therapist will abolish analysis if goals are met or no added advance can be made.
CONTINUING EDUCATION V. RE-EXAMINATION: Already you are in a abiding
accord with a music therapist (ooh, commitment!), you will apprehension
that she disappears every year or every added year about Thanksgiving.
This is because she is accessory a conference...the civic appointment to
be added specific. And depending on area you live, she may abandon
added generally to appear abate bounded or accompaniment conferences.
THIS IS A SIGN OF A GOOD MUSIC THERAPIST! She is assuredly accommodating
in continuing apprenticeship and added chiefly for you, is active
burn-out. MTs are appropriate to re-certify every 5 years either by
accruing 100 hours of continuing apprenticeship classes
(CMTEs-continuing music analysis education) or by re-taking the
acceptance exam. Now, what I am about to say is an acute claimed
opinion-be alert of a MT who chooses to re-take the assay over commutual
the 100 hours of CMTEs. I say this because a getting who chooses the
assay is not necessarily befitting accepted with arising analysis and/or
new techniques and interventions. Over time, she will become a
dinosaur...like the awful librarian at my top academy who put aqueduct
band curve on the attic to accumulate us from searching at anniversary
other's computers. Forgive your MT for her absences, for you shall be
the benefactor.
YEARS OF EXPERIENCE: Lastly, there isn't abundant that can acting for
experience. Alone getting a 5 year old therapist myself, I apprehend
that I am risking a accident of business for those of us about my age.
However, for anyone that has anytime worked, you apperceive that even
ONE year of acquaintance can put you ablaze years advanced of those
admission abaft you, so don't absolutely calculation out the "young and
inexperienced." They do accept the a lot of contempo analysis and "best
practices" stored about in their brains, even if they don't apperceive
what to do with it yet. My point is, if you accept anyone that fits into
all the aloft belief and has at atomic one year of acquaintance beneath
her belt, she is apparently traveling to plan out just fine.
A FEW QUICK TIPS:
If your MT rarely plays reside instruments and relies mostly on recorded music, get rid of her.
If your MT keeps no paperwork, about-face her out on her ear.
If your MT is assuming and not interacting, get your ablaze saber and attending threatening.
This commodity is by no agency an all-embracing account of what makes
anyone a acceptable music therapist. It is artlessly to accord you, the
non-music therapist, an abstraction of what to attending for and expect.
It would apparently yield me 30 online writing to go into detail about
the accent of interpersonal skills, to adopted models of practice, to
something simple like transaction and reimbursement. Like I said, the
aloft is just a skeleton...lots added goes into authoritative a
accomplished body.
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