Well I only have 3 weeks of internship left!! I. CAN'T. WAIT.
It's halloween night and I am sitting at Panera Bread avoiding tricker treaters at home. My supervisor invited me to come to her house and give out candy and stuff with her and her family but I'm just so pooped and I have to work tomorrow too. My grandma called me this morning and asked if I wanted company this weekend and I said UHH... YES. But then she realized my little sister has a piano recital tomorrow so she's planning on coming next weekend. YAY!
So I finished collecting data for my project. I'm going to try working on it at work but I never have the time... I think I'll have time during the last week of my internship so hopefully I can get it all done. I'm also mostly done with loading all the CDs I just need to double check that I got them all.
We FINALLLYYY can use our Bose speakers and our ipod! It sounds WONDERFUL. I've been listening to my own ipod on it while writing notes.
I can't really think about anything exciting or important that has happened lately... I still love behavioral health and music therapy. Soooo that's good. I've been seriously considering getting my masters in mental health counseling but I don't want to unless I can get a scholarship or something. I'm already drowning in student loans.
Oh another thing, my supervisor started a ladies bible study at work and it's been sooo good. I've been either working on Sundays or am exhausted on Sundays from working the saturday and the week before so I haven't really been going to church. I feel like this study group feeds me spiritually. It's only 6 weeks so the last week we do it will be my last week!
This internship has taught me a lot, but I think the biggest thing it has taught me is that things aren't usually as scary or as stressful as I make them out to be. I am so happy to find myself doing so many things and enjoying them that I would have never imagined myself doing before starting. It's made me more confident and sure of myself and my future.
Hmmm I'm thinking about getting some coffee. It is cold in here.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
adolescents
I've been thinking about my approach to working with adolescents vs. other people's approaches and I realized that I think rapport with this population is probably one of the most important things. If I build a great rapport with them, they are more likely to listen to me, be involved in my groups, and therefore get something out of my groups.
Sooo how to build rapport with adolescents?
Get on their level. Talk about things with them that they are interested in. Be sarcastic. Use humor.
Don't constantly tell them "don't do this. don't do that. stop that."
Instead say "what the heck are you doing. you're going to crack your head open boy."
They might laugh then most likely stop.
Once you've built a rapport, thennnn you can tell them what to do. They need to know WHY they should trust you or listen to you. And if they do trust you and listen to you, that reason is most likely: because you're cool and you get them. That's really what kids care about at that age I think.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Wow I haven't written in a while. Well a few updates...
I started a project. I'm determining which types of interventions (active music, lyric analysis, or relaxation) improve the mood of pts the most, which they find most helpful, and which they enjoyed the most. There are a lot of variables and I wish I started a project sooner in my internship then I could've done a really awesome elaborate one because I always think about all these things I want to find out and do studies on but I don't write them down so I forget them....
The adolescent unit has been CRAZY. The doctor is kinda new (I think he started about when I started) and he takes all the kids off their medications and he accepts children as young as 4... so now we have this huge age range with more kids not on medication with no kind of program in place because of all the changes happening with the new doctor. We had a meeting the other morning that I went to about the unit and what kind of program to implement. They are also going to set apart a separate area for the younger kids (thank goodness) and provide more activities for them to do and stuff because they really just sit around the majority of the day... which basically means the staff is just trying to keep them from killing each other the whole time.
Alsoooo there has been a bit of drama. My supervisor was very upset yesterday because she feels the expressive therapies department is becoming more and more undervalued. Kind of like we are just "the activity people" when we are doing actual therapy, just like the therapists and social workers do. Unlike the therapists and social workers, we are not assessing the patients, we are not involved in treatment team meetings, we are not writing our treatment goals for the pts most of the time, and other fun things like that. My supervisor was saying she feels like she is not doing what she is supposed to be doing as a music therapist which is ethically incorrect. There are a lot of little things that have been going which has made us feel like we are being more and more undervalued. Anyways stuff went down with my supervisor and her boss and I think things are going to be getting better from now on. Her boss really does value us and I think the staff does too, but I don't think they fully understand what we do. (My supervisor told me I should present the results of my project to the staff so maybe that would help!) It's been a good learning experience at least!
Some other stuff that's been going down... I talked to my supervisor about some anxieties I had the other day (something happening to make me cry will kinda bring that conversation up) and she was very encouraging and it was also really great to let her know about some of that stuff. Then something happened agaaiiiinnnn a few days ago and now I kinda just feel anxious whenever I go to the hospital and I hate it. Today I even almost started to cry when I was playing a song while a patient was being rude. What the heck?? That never happens to me. I usually don't mind and can handle it... I managed to just keep going though but for a second I was afraid I was going to just break down in front of the patients how EMBARRASSING would that be?!?!
Also roommate things have been going on to stress me out too but it's all good. I've really just been so impatient to be done. I have 6 weeks left and I just want it to be over NOOOWW! It's a wonderful internship. I love it and I'm learning a lot but can I graduate already?? I'm trying to be more in the moment and enjoy the experience but it's hard sometimes. Senioritis is hitting hard. That reminds me I need to order my cap and gown and all that fun stuff yay
Lily is coming to visit me this weekend!! I think this is the longest we've been apart! I can't waaaaiiittt :) :)
I started a project. I'm determining which types of interventions (active music, lyric analysis, or relaxation) improve the mood of pts the most, which they find most helpful, and which they enjoyed the most. There are a lot of variables and I wish I started a project sooner in my internship then I could've done a really awesome elaborate one because I always think about all these things I want to find out and do studies on but I don't write them down so I forget them....
The adolescent unit has been CRAZY. The doctor is kinda new (I think he started about when I started) and he takes all the kids off their medications and he accepts children as young as 4... so now we have this huge age range with more kids not on medication with no kind of program in place because of all the changes happening with the new doctor. We had a meeting the other morning that I went to about the unit and what kind of program to implement. They are also going to set apart a separate area for the younger kids (thank goodness) and provide more activities for them to do and stuff because they really just sit around the majority of the day... which basically means the staff is just trying to keep them from killing each other the whole time.
Alsoooo there has been a bit of drama. My supervisor was very upset yesterday because she feels the expressive therapies department is becoming more and more undervalued. Kind of like we are just "the activity people" when we are doing actual therapy, just like the therapists and social workers do. Unlike the therapists and social workers, we are not assessing the patients, we are not involved in treatment team meetings, we are not writing our treatment goals for the pts most of the time, and other fun things like that. My supervisor was saying she feels like she is not doing what she is supposed to be doing as a music therapist which is ethically incorrect. There are a lot of little things that have been going which has made us feel like we are being more and more undervalued. Anyways stuff went down with my supervisor and her boss and I think things are going to be getting better from now on. Her boss really does value us and I think the staff does too, but I don't think they fully understand what we do. (My supervisor told me I should present the results of my project to the staff so maybe that would help!) It's been a good learning experience at least!
Some other stuff that's been going down... I talked to my supervisor about some anxieties I had the other day (something happening to make me cry will kinda bring that conversation up) and she was very encouraging and it was also really great to let her know about some of that stuff. Then something happened agaaiiiinnnn a few days ago and now I kinda just feel anxious whenever I go to the hospital and I hate it. Today I even almost started to cry when I was playing a song while a patient was being rude. What the heck?? That never happens to me. I usually don't mind and can handle it... I managed to just keep going though but for a second I was afraid I was going to just break down in front of the patients how EMBARRASSING would that be?!?!
Also roommate things have been going on to stress me out too but it's all good. I've really just been so impatient to be done. I have 6 weeks left and I just want it to be over NOOOWW! It's a wonderful internship. I love it and I'm learning a lot but can I graduate already?? I'm trying to be more in the moment and enjoy the experience but it's hard sometimes. Senioritis is hitting hard. That reminds me I need to order my cap and gown and all that fun stuff yay
Lily is coming to visit me this weekend!! I think this is the longest we've been apart! I can't waaaaiiittt :) :)
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