[If you are looking for conference handouts, scroll down.] Last year I made some bold statements after the American Music Therapy Association’s national conference in Atlanta. #3 was especially important from last year.
This year I have 2 more bold statements.
1. You can be an expert AND a life-long learner at the same time. Dear music therapists, just say YES to outsider collaboration. Don’t build up your own personal anxiety about people taking the term “music therapy” and misusing it. Don’t even spend 10% of your time and energy worried that people are going to “steal” your expertise, especially if there is no evidence of such actions. They can’t, and they won’t, and if they do it’s not as big/bad/horrible as you think. That’s why we have standards, a degree program, a board-certification process.
Thanks Kellee Coviak for capturing me in action!
Stand in your power, consult, and do your good work. Maybe even consider packaging your expertise online. There’s no need to prove yourself, and if there ever was a time when you had to prove yourself, it’s over. There’s no need to “do your time.” Stand in your power, be the expert, be the authority. Don’t limit yourself. Otherwise, you’re making decisions based on fear. Decisions based on fear never have a good outcome. Let’s quit making decisions based on fear.
You can be an expert AND a life-long learner at the same time. Go that route.
2. Just say no to the masters level. I know far too many well-known music therapists who have said to me in confidence “Oh, I think masters level will kill our profession, but I’m in no political position to state that publicly.” Well, here I am stating it publicly. Apparently I don’t care much for politics and who is going to “like” me or “dislike” me, etc. Don’t let my biases be yours (as Dr. Madsen would say). But consider this:
There are about 2,909,357 registered nurses in the United States.
There are about 845,000 LCSWs in the United States.
There are about 96,000 speech language pathologists in the United States.
There are a WHOPPING 5,583 board-certified music therapists in the United States.
Do you think our numbers will increase or decrease by requiring a masters degree? If we assume that the numbers will decrease, then do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing for our field?
Simple math. I vote no. =)
But I voted yes at first. The math changed my mind. I love the idea of music therapists in the field who have delved into studies and specific populations deeper than bachelors level. However, considering the numbers, we would be shooting our profession in the foot. There would be even FEWER of us to go around. There is power in numbers, so let’s keep growing.
Now for your conference goodies! If you attended our presentation on Web-Based Business And Beyond, Nat Mullis and I have this bundle of goodies for you.
I like #s too! Hard to argue with from my perspective…and yet, some people still are. How fascinating, as Ben Zander would say!
Fascinating indeed =)
Amen sistah! I echo your sentiments on the Master’s Level issue. I am all for more education and raising the bar but at what cost? Compared to other therapeutic feilds whose numbers far outweigh ours, Music Therapy is still a tender plant that needs nourishing and nurturing. Lets not squish our plant. Lets continue to build our numbers and our force for good in the world before we adding more costly and complex requirements to become an MT. There are still those who will go on to get additional degrees. There are so many ways to improve yourself as a therapist wihout getting a Masters Degree. That day will come, but it’s not today!
I’m with ya here, Janea!
Just stopped by the blog and noticed the picture – LOVE IT!
Well, thanks for being the photographer, Kellee!!! Great to meet you in person finally!
I agree that requiring a Master degree is counter productive for the development of the field. I recently received my BT-MT. I’m finding that many employers require a master. I recently interviewed at a facility as a creative arts/music program assistant. They also had an opening for a MT, but as it was explained – a masters offers a deeper level of understand and clinical practice. The standards of that facility required a masters. I am going to observe one of the session by a masters level MT. What as I missing? I am also finding that billing without a masters degree difficult at best. I am going to watch the reimbursement video for assistance.
I agree that requiring a Master degree is counterproductive for the development of the field. I recently received my BT-MT. I’m finding that many employers require a master. I recently interviewed at a facility as a creative arts/music program assistant. They also had an opening for a MT, but as it was explained – the standards of that facility required a deeper level of understanding and clinical practice that only a masters can provide. I am also finding that billing without a masters is difficult at best. I am going to watch the reimbursement video for assistance.
Thank you for sharing this bold statement Kat about being an expert and life-long learner. There is so much truth in owning ones understanding and knowledge and being able to share it without feeling like they are giving it away or wont be recognized as a music therapist if they don’t share it with the “right” qualified people, however, I have to disagree about the master’s level being a hindrance to the profession of music therapy. It’s not the degree that is the problem, it’s the agencies, groups and institutions requiring master’s level competencies that have a higher expectation. The issue lies in organizations believing they are getting a more qualified music therapist if they have gone through a certain number of hours and studied into a particular population and therefore they set the bar higher making it more challenging for good qualified MT-BC Bachelor level music therapists to get a job, however, if you really want to hone in as a music therapist a specific skill set and have a particular job in mind, you may opt to get a master’s to pursue this endeavor. I have a huge debt from my master’s level training, but I don’t regret having that experience. It has opened up more doors for me than I could have possibly imagined and I think the MT-BC should require people taking the exam to have a master’s degree to even out the expectation of various institutions having this as a qualification within the United States. It sounds counter-intuitive from most of the comments, however, most institutions want higher credentialed music therapists (and eventually that will be a standard) in general, and since we cannot change all the institutions, we have to change the qualifactions on our end, which can be very tricky, because many have different beliefs on this issue, respectively. However, you can still be a shitty music therapist with a Doctoral degree or an amazing music therapist without a degree at all, who changes peoples lives through the transformative power of music (I’ve seen this happen in so many places, in subways, in a park, in a school, among a community of friends) people who have no music therapy training but are living as music therapists without the title and have great jobs doing music that is therapeutic and not calling themselves music therapists. The real issue lies in ones ability to put what they know into practice and be able to share this knowledge and skill through various means such as education, workshops, a website, an organization etc. It really boils down to how people feel about themselves, their worth and their ability to go for what they want regardless of the odds or master’s level competencies. I think every music therapist is unique, regardless of their title, and they are allowed to create and shape their own music therapy path they wish to share with the world, while adhering and respecting the integrity of the standards of clinical practice. This can be done whether you have a bachelors or master’s or doctorate in the field but to bash institutions for expecting a higher level of clinical practice, to me, is wrong.
Right on! I actually agree with almost everything you said. I’m just a simple numbers gal, and if we go for Masters level entry, then the *rate* at which our profession grows will significantly decrease.
And in my opinion, the rate of our profession’s growth as it is cannot keep up with demand of our work.
I’m just a simple numbers gal.
But like I said – I agree with almost everything you said. I’m glad there are differing opinions =)