E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

Wheeler, Barbara: WMFT Proceedings of the Education Symposium
work out of the program as quickly as possible. Another person said that
they have to do continuous assessment all along, covering many aspects. If
they have been marking as Less than Adequate from the beginning, they
have documented reason for failing them. Another said that they have a
regulation that whatever they write, they summarize at several stages: at
beginning with candidate, after the first year, near the end of the second
year. They summarize and give to students, so they have a copy from the
very beginning. Even those who are not accepted get exact reasons.
Another person said that he doesn’t trust his judgment, he has been wrong
in his assessment of who can succeed and who can fail so many times. He
wonders if we know enough to do this. Also, how do you counsel someone
out without spoiling their career?
Another person spoke of a situation where she had had a problem with a
student who was not well. One thing she did was to to go the board of her
university so they would not be surprised if they student needed to leave
the program. Another person agreed that faculty need to be more “cold,”
but has also found that she is wrong at times.
Someone asked what do with someone who has problems that they didn’t
reveal? A response was that sometimes they are able to work with and help
students through the self-experience, but sometimes this does not help,
they get worse. Also, the faculty start to realize that they are concerned
about a situation when they have problems sending them for clinical
practice.
One person said that the things that scare her the most are the things that
concern her as a therapist - confidentiality – suicide, homicide – and how
she would deal with them. Sometimes she helps people to arrive at their
own understanding that they are not right for this field. But she has more
trouble dealing with people who have no insight and are not meant to be a
therapist.
Another person said that there are some levels of practice that students
with problems can manage. This may be a part of defining what is needed.
The field of music therapy has not determined at what levels people can be
effective.
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