Clinician
I have worked with a variety of people in my years as a music therapist. After my first few jobs, all of my clinical work was part-time, along with teaching. I have divided it here according to the needs or ages of those with whom I worked or the music therapy method that was employed.
With People with emotional challenges
I began my career as a music therapist with three full-time positions in state mental hospitals. The first was before I received my music therapy training, when I was asked to play the organ and direct the choir at the state mental hospital (Hastings Regional Center in Nebraska). I worked 25 hours a week through my senior year in college, then stayed the next year to develop the music program in the chapel. During these years, I worked on the psychiatric and geriatric units and had some very good experiences on the alcohol rehabilitation unit. I realized that I was doing something related to music therapy and made the decision to go to Florida State University to pursue music therapy training.
I did my 6-month music therapy internship at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia. This was a very large psychiatric hospital (shortly before I was there, I believe it had 12,000 patients, and I understood that this was the largest psychiatric hospital in the world). I had a great experience there, as an intern and then for 2 years as a music therapist. I worked with a number of Registered Music Therapists and music therapy aides, all of whom had unique skills. I was assigned full-time to a psychiatric unit but also had some significant experiences with children and adolescents with emotional problems (as an intern), adults with what was called mental retardation at the time, and older adults.
My final full-time position was at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, Connecticut. Although I had intended to stay longer, I was only at this position for about 9 months. During that time, I worked with psychiatric patients, those in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, and people with medical problems as well as their psychiatric disorders. Although my full-time clinical work ended in 1975 when I went to Montclair State College to teach, I value these experiences. Later, I worked one day a week with psychiatric patients at the Creative Arts Rehabilitation Center (a ground-breaking community-based center in New York City founded by Florence Tyson).
With Children
In Schools
I worked one day a week in several schools while I taught at the university as my full-time employment. This allowed me to know what was occurring clinically, thus helping both my teaching and the people with whom I worked.
The first was at a school for children with neurological impairments and communication disorders I saw these children in their regular classes, mostly consisting of 10-12 students, and my sessions served as their music class. (I am certified as a music teacher in NJ, but I do not believe that this was why my sessions were considered as their music classes.) Our sessions resembled regular music classes, but my goals were primarily clinical rather than musical.
I spent two meaningful years working at a school for children with multiple severe disabilities. I worked with children for whom music therapy was part of their Individualized Education Program (IEP). This meant that music therapy had been determined to be essential for them to learn in a particular area or areas, and their music therapy was paid for by their school district. I worked with about 10 children individually or in dyads. Because of their multiple disabilities, these children were challenging to work with and progress was slow and sporadic. I loved working with them. My pleasure in working with them became the topic of the first qualitative research study that I did, a first-person study on my “experience of pleasure.” See my publications page for more information on this study.
Later, I had the experience of conducting the assessment of a child to determine whether music therapy was essential for her educational progress and, when it was found to be so, working with the child and others in a school in Kentucky. This school and others in the area used the SEMTAP (Special Education Music Therapy Assessment Process) developed by Brunk and Coleman, which compares a child’s performance on musical and nonmusical tasks that are part of the Individual Education Program goals and objectives to determine whether music therapy is required for a child. This required documenting the children’s progress according to the goals for music therapy from their IEPs.
Paraverbal Therapy
Paraverbal therapy was developed by Evelyn Heimlich, and she offered training through Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City. The term “paraverbal” means alongside verbal, and her method used what she called “maneuvers” to elicit responses from children. She had about a dozen maneuvers. Evelyn was a fine therapist, and I feel that paraverbal therapy was of high quality, as was the training that she provided. She did not consider it to be music therapy, as she had a bad (and in my opinion quite distorted) impression of what music therapy was. This was a source of conflict for me as I studied with her, but I was usually able to listen and learn from her. When Ken Bruscia wrote his first book, Improvisational Models of Music Therapy, he included Paraverbal Therapy as one of the models of music therapy, with Evelyn’s cooperation. My final presentation for my paraverbal certification was of a child who was abused, It was published in The Arts in Psychotherapy in 1987.
Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy
Through my friendship with Clive and Carol Robbins, I had the opportunity to learn at the Nordoff-Robbins Center at New York University when it was first being established in the early 1990s. The first U.S. Nordoff-Robbins music therapists were being trained at this time, and I was able to work and learn alongside them. I did this two days a week for a semester when I had a sabbatical, then continued one day a week through the next semester. Sadly, I was not able to complete the training and become a certified Nordoff-Robbins therapist, but I learned a great deal about both individual and group work. It was a privilege to be supervised by Clive and Carol, and the training has had an impact on all of my work since then.
Private Music Therapy Practice
I saw six or seven clients for several years while I was in Montclair and a few when I moved to Louisville. Although some of these were adults, most were children. They had a variety of problems, and I saw them for varying periods of time. I saw one boy for many years and developed an important professional relationship with his family also. Another girl came to my home office for sessions. Her mother used the success of these sessions to get the girl’s school district to include music therapy in her IEP, leading to music therapy through other children’s IEPs being offered at the school. The relationships that develop when people (children and adults) come to a noninstitutional setting, and with a family member, are unique.
Neurologic Problems And Rehabilitation
When I taught at the University of Louisville, where I was developing a new program, I saw part of my role as developing music therapy in the area. I had gained some experience with people who had had strokes and traumatic brain injuries in my work with a grant at Kessler Institute of Rehabilitation in New Jersey (described on my publications page). Frazier Institute, a large rehabilitation institute in Louisville, seemed like a logical place to show what music therapy could accomplish and hopefully build a program. I worked with adults and children and co-treated with physical, occupational, and speech therapists. I also supervised music therapy students in this facility.
Later, I worked on the rehabilitation unit of a medical hospital in Louisville doing similar work with adults and supervising students. We also had a group on this unit, intended to provide an outlet for patients who focused on the physical aspects of their therapy all day to process emotions and also to relax.
I did the Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) training while I was working in these rehabilitation settings and later became an NMT Fellow. I find NMT to be very useful with people with neurologic problems. In an effort to provide students at the University of Louisville with some exposure to NMT, we developed a program at a facility run by Kindred with dual purposes of helping with the rehabilitation of the residents and giving our students a taste of NMT. This was primarily an older population and was time-limited due to our funding.
Although I decided not to do any more clinical work when I retired from the University of Louisville in 2011, I did make one exception. In 2019, I spent three days as the music therapist for the Retreat & Refresh Stroke Camp in Basking Ridge, NJ. I served as the music therapist for the camp, and utilized some of my Neurologic Music Therapy training. This camp was one of a number of similar camps across the United States. It provided an opportunity for people who had had strokes to come, along with family members, for some positive experiences, including music and other arts, recreation, and socializing. Many of the attendees had been at the camp for several years. The relationships that they had developed over the years were strong and clearly one of the important aspects of attending the camp. I understand that, after COVID, the camps never started again (they certainly required a lot of organization and funding). I am grateful to have been able to experience the one that I did. The picture in this section is from a performance that was featured as part of the Stroke Camp.
In Medical Hospitals
General Medical Hospital
As part of my efforts to develop music therapy in Louisville, I worked with staff at Norton Audubon Hospital (one of several Norton branches) to start a music therapy program. I initially provided music therapy for just a few hours a week and included music therapy students, which expanded the services that we could offer and also provided training for the students. We worked with individuals on a regular medical unit and also had a group for patients who were on a longer-term care unit and did not have many chances to leave their rooms. The program expanded in many ways, and eventually, a full-time music therapist was hired. Under her direction, music therapy was adopted at the other Norton facilities in Louisville. It was an exciting development!
With People Dealing with Cancer
Having been so successful in helping to establish music therapy at Norton Audubon Hospital, I hoped to do the same at another Louisville Hospital, Baptist Hospital East. Administrators on their oncology unit were willing to have music therapy and had some funding for it. I worked with music therapy students there and even had an intern (a much larger time commitment than the practicum students). The program continued in the oncology unit but never expanded as I had hoped for.
I was involved in other small aspects of treating those with cancer, including a grant funded by the Susan G. Komen Foundation for which I made the medical contacts but was not the music therapist. I also did a number of workshops and in-services, some of which included experiential work with people dealing with cancer. In addition, I made several presentations across the country letting people know how music therapy could be used in dealing with cancer.
My Work As A Psychologist
Although I was not required to have a PhD to teach at Montclair State University (or to receive tenure), I decided at a certain point that, if I was going o remain in high education, I wanted to have a PhD. I thought that a PhD in Psychology would be most useful, as it would help me expand my skills. I did not want to leave my teaching job so looked at programs in the New York and New Jersey area. I chose the PhD program in Educational Psychology that was offered by Fordham University. This was a great choice! My biggest gain was in my research skills, but I also expanded my understanding of emotion and human development. One of the advantages of this degree was that it allowed me to be licensed as a Psychologist in New York State. This license opened up several experiences to me that were important.
The most significant was my work at Daytop, a therapeutic community for people recovering from drug addiction. Most of the treatment is done by recovered addicts; the psychologists and a few physicians were the only professionals involved. I traveled to several Daytop facilities (primarily in the Catskills) and saw people individually for assessment for psychological problems and psychotherapy. I was closely supervised in the assessment work. I also ran what we called “abuse groups” for women who had been physically, sexually, and emotionally abused. These provided a safe place for the women to deal with some of the issues that arose from their abuse. I feel very good about this work.
Later, I worked at two Jewish nursing homes on the lower East Side of Manhattan, assessing people’s mental status and doing some very basic therapy. This was interesting work, partly because the culture was very different from what I knew.
I had two supervised clinical experiences as a psychologist while accumulating hours to sit for my New Jersey psychology license. I saw student clients at the counseling facility on the Montclair State University campus. I also did some personal injury work, helping people who had been in car accidents learn to use basic biofeedback techniques and learn that they could have some control over their pain without resorting to the use of medication.
My experiences as a psychologist enriched my music therapy practice and teaching and ultimately helped me be even more committed to music therapy.