Music Therapy Clinician: Supporting reflective clinical practice Volume 1 | Page 4
Editors’ Reflections
Roia Rafieyan, MA, MT-BC, Editor-in-Chief
Saying It Out Loud
“I think you should start a zine.”
My friend and, at the time, colleague,
Judy and I were sitting in our shared
office, and she’d made the suggestion
after she heard me carry on, yet again,
about how frustrating it was to read
research and more research in the
music therapy journals — much of it
having little to do with my daily life as a
music therapist.
It all felt
so…sanitized. And disconnected.
It was more than that though. I wanted
to read about what other music
therapists were doing — not the latest
and greatest activities. I wanted to
know: how did they react to their work?
Did they have the same experiences I
did? What kinds of struggles did they
encounter? What were the moments in
their work that truly moved them? How
were their ideas about music therapy
shifting?
What
were
the
circumstances? What kinds of songs
came out of their hard days of being a
music therapist?
“What’s a zine?” I’d never heard of
such a thing.
“It’s kind of like…an underground
magazine. And it’s opinionated.”
Underground…hm. And, er, I’m
certainly opinionated. I liked the idea!
Obviously these weren’t conversations
people were having in the mainstream
publications.
But
they
were
conversations I needed to have.
People I needed to hear from. But I still
wasn’t clear what starting a zine would
entail.
So instead I started a blog. I figured it
was a way to start the process. And
maybe, just by starting to talk about the
things I wanted to talk about in blog
form, other people would chime in and
we’d finally get started having the
conversations I craved.
I blogged away for quite a while,
petering out somewhat over the last
few years because other writing
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projects had to take priority. But I keep
at it, and even though, eight years
later, I’ve only just hit one hundred
public followers, the people who read
what I share tell me, “yes! Thanks for
saying this out loud.”
Yes. Saying it out loud.
Something my clinical supervisor said
to me years ago, and I’ve remembered
and shared it repeatedly (especially
with my supervisees) is, “Roia,
sometimes the job of a therapist is to
say the unsayable.” Woah! That can be
frightening. At the same time, not
saying what needs to be said is
stagnating…to my clients, to me, and
to our profession.
When I spent some time as newsletter
editor for the New Jersey music
therapy association (NJAMT) I put
together a fairly standard nice music
therapy
association
newsletter,
complete with reports from the various
executive board members, job listings
and the periodic interview. And it
was…nice. It was functional, and the
information
needed
to
be
disseminated. At the time we were
focused on gathering support for music
therapy from legislators, so our goal
was
to
demonstrate
our
professionalism
through
our
newsletter.
Now it’s 2015. We are remarkably
close to achieving licensure. Thanks to
the work of many music therapists, not
just those in New Jersey, but all over
the United States, legislators now
seem to know we exist. It’s an exciting
time for our field. I suspect this is, at
least in part, due to the significant
changes in the way information is
shared.
When
something
new
happens in the music therapy
community, it can easily be posted,
tweeted, or simply forwarded by email
to a wide network of people, including
our elected officials. This wasn’t nearly
as possible even ten years ago.
The role of the state association
newsletter has also changed. This type
of publication used to be the main
means by which we communicated
state-related information to the music
therapy community. Now, with email
blasts and social media, people are
aware of employment opportunities,
and they are immediately invited to
take part in Calls to Action arriving
electronically.
Enter the journal-zine.
The journal-zine is a clinically-focused,
online, open-access publication to
reflect (on the experiences we have
when we work), to listen (to
conversations
between
music
therapists), to share (the music created
in connection with the clinical work we
do), and to pose questions (the ones
that have come up as we engage with
our clients). In a way, we aim to
recreate the intimacy of a music
therapy session in terms of how
information is presented.
And so, we’re calling this journal-zine:
Music Therapy Clinician.
Because you, in your role as a music
therapy clinician, are our focus. We
want
to
know
what
you’re
experiencing, discovering, surprised
by, frustrated by, and curious about.
Who have you become? How has your
music changed? What are you
learning? What have you been
listening to, playing, writing, reading, or
thinking about?
And we invite you here to say it out
loud!
Contact Roia
[email protected]