Student perspectives on working with assistants on placement during vocational music therapy training

Warner, Catherine

Abstract

As a trainer of music therapists and also a clinical supervisor for new and experienced practitioners I have been struck how often time in supervision is taken up with thinking about other people in the room; not the client but a teaching assistant or perhaps an assistant occupational therapist. Increasingly it seems to me that trainees are required to work on placement with an extra support worker actually within the therapeutic space. This is perhaps to do with increasing emphasis on or anxiety around safeguarding in schools and for vulnerable adults. Whatever the reasons may be it is clear that a trainee is quite likely to have their early work watched and sometimes mediated by someone other than their placement supervisor who is also in the therapy space.

I am interested in many questions that arise from this. How might the presence and the intervention of others affect the trainee’s work? Could it have an effect on the confidence of the trainee and quite possibly their development of identity as a therapist? How would it be helpful to learn from music therapists about their training experiences through their retrospective stories?

This chapter presents perspectives from the stories of three practising music therapists. The extracts from these three narratives are taken from an ongoing narrative inquiry research study which involves twelve music therapists and music therapy trainees. This broader study has recruited women and men from eight UK music therapy training courses, past and present. The ethics of confidentiality and anonymity of this study are not straightforward: although all participants are adults who are able to understand the implications of involvement in the inquiry I am conducting interviews with the interviewees as co-researchers and some are currently in training. My own position as a programme leader means that I bring complex agendas to the research process, and could hold influence, real and imagined, for some of the participants, particularly if they are still training. The three participants in this chapter have read and commented on transcripts of the extracts selected here and there are aspects of both telling and retelling the stories as a consequence.

• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 5, 2018
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: N/A
• Pages: 54-70
• Book Title: Collaboration and Assistance in Music Therapy Practice - Roles, Relationships, Challenges
• ISBN: 9781849057028
• Keywords: music therapy, training, student perspectives, assistance
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/903972
• Publisher URL: https://www.jkp.com/uk/collaboration-and-assistance-in-music-therapy-practice-34522.html
• Contract Date: Mar 5, 2018