a "few" last thoughts

For me, this trip to Germany met and exceeded my expectations. It was as much a personal journey into my family history as it was a unique opportunity to develop and strengthen my identity as a music therapist.

Music therapy in Germany and Austria, from what I've gathered, seems to be more about psychoanalysis and improvisation than about learning repertoire and following a set session plan. Therapy is client-driven, and not as musically demanding for the therapist. If the client wishes to play music, an improvisation experience will occur. If the client wishes to talk about their day, an entire session might be spent talking and no music will be played at all.

Therapists are educated quite differently in Germany than in the United States, with most music therapy departments being located nowhere near a music school. Students don't take lessons on a primary instrument like we do in the states. Piano proficiency is encouraged for Nordoff-Robbins training, but for other schools of music therapy, students only need to be familiar with most instruments in a basic way. The range of instruments used in improvisation is seemingly unlimited, as it includes anything from a cello to a steel drum to Orff instruments to the basic drums and shakers that we use. The guitar is hardly used at all in therapy, which was quite a shock for us, since we must be able to play a broad range of songs on the guitar and piano.

Music therapy in Germany is very closely integrated with all other forms of therapy that a patient recieves. Hospital patients have a rigid plan of therapy for each day they are hospitalized, and music therapy is often included. The music therapist is in close communication with the other therapists to find out exactly what is going on with the patient and what they need. I feel that the treatment teams in Germany, are very effective, and the "gestalt" is adequately addressed.

One of the more interesting parts of the trip for me was listening to Dr. Susanne Metzner's talk about triadic structures--such a basic human concept--and yet so insightful. The fact that this music therapist found the relationships of people to others (in groups of threes) important enough to research and relate to her own work is pretty impressive to me. As therapists, we need to consider every aspect of our client's lives and how it effects their well being, and why not start with their relationship to other human beings? The research was very psychoanalytic, and very appropriate for the kind of music therapy that is practiced in Germany.

I've always known that music therapy has a great amount of potential as a profession, and that is part of what attracted me to it. However, it seems that we are limited in the United States by our culture, our ever-increasing drive to be better than the next person, to look out for "number one". Somewhere in the mix it seems like we often forget about the needs of our clients, and in Germany I was particularly attracted to the sincerity of almost every therapist we came in contact with.

For me, I would like to strive to be as sincere in my work as the therapists we met in Germany. I think there needs to be more focus in the United States on what the client needs and desires from the therapy, not just what we feel is best for them.

Being in Germany was something that I said I was looking forward to in my first post, and indeed, just the experience of German culture was enriching in itself. My mother was German, and I thought of her almost every day. She loved to cook, she loved to ride her bike, to sing, to drink beer, to enjoy nature. We did and experienced all of these things, and now that I'm familiar with the culture that my family came from, I feel more at peace, in many ways. I miss her dearly, and there were moments of intensity during the trip when I longed deeply to be sharing the experience with her.

So my favorite experiences on this trip can be summed up in (hopefully) a couple of pictures.

1) The Food:

2) The company, the nature, and the physical exercise:

3) The beer (really!):

Really though, all aspects of the trip were wonderful, and I would reccomend the program to other students, without a doubt. Thanks to the group for being such wonderful company and to Dr. K for giving us such a unique opportunity! :-)