Online Supervision for Music Therapists
Being a music therapist can be rewarding and joyful work. It can also be challenging and isolating. We all sometimes need to process our professional experiences with someone who gets it, can hold the space, and provide us with a new perspective. I integrate music directly into your supervision process in meaningful ways. We talk about what’s going on and process this through music, to your comfort level.
How can you benefit?
As music therapists, music is our primary mode of communicating with clients. It’s helpful and effective to process our work using music, the same language that we work within. To do this, I offer the option of integrating music directly into the supervision process.
My goal is to help you become the music therapist that you are excited to be, whatever that means to you. I work with music therapists who align with all models and approaches. To meet your needs, I draw on my extensive supervision experience, scholarly work and foundational understanding of all major music therapy models and approaches.
What can I help with?
Who can benefit?
If this sounds like a fit, please feel free to be in touch to book an appointment or a complimentary consultation.
What happens during an online music therapy supervision session?
We meet on a secure video call. What happens in the session depends upon your supervision goals.
Sometimes, we might address your concern using a talk-music-talk model where we would first talk about the challenge you’re bringing in and then address the challenge in music.
I work with you to co-create a supportive musical experience to address your concerns. For example, we might workshop a clinical-musical intervention/experience that you would like to bring to your client. We would then talk about that musical experience and how you might adapt it for your clinical work.
At other times, we might begin the session with music-making. For example, we might engage in a referential improvisation about a particular client or play freely as a way of uncovering material that might be useful to bring to the session. We would then talk about the music and use it to guide the next steps in the supervision process.
We take our time and check in often to be sure that we are moving at a pace that is comfortable for you.
Individual sessions are 50-minutes long.
A bit more about my experience in this field.
As a supervisor, I view it as a privilege to hold space for challenging situations; to listen well and offer unconditional positive regard. I know what it is to feel isolated and alone, to be someone who feels things deeply and yet doesn’t feel like they “fit in”. To be someone who feels at home around artistic practices and people. I am familiar with common and not-so-common concerns and I know how to listen and help.
I bring my extensive clinical supervision experience over the past 12 years to these sessions. I have supervised over 100 undergraduate and graduate students as part of counselling psychology, music therapy, and creative arts therapies programs at Wilfrid Laurier University, Concordia University, and Yorkville University. I have also been providing professional supervision for the past 10 years to psychotherapists and other mental health professionals. I hold space for the most challenging cases and am here to help you get to the heart of the issue and address your needs safely and effectively.
I will support you using a blend of theoretical orientations, including psychotherapy and clinical counselling sensibilities with an emphasis on person-centered (Rogerian), music psychotherapy, and mindful self-compassion work. My approach is further contextualized by social justice perspectives including eco therapy, intersectional feminist therapy, and queer therapy. I am also trained in Aesthetic Music Therapy and draw on that approach for those who desire it. I am a recognized scholar of music therapy improvisation and my original research has been published in international journals.
Seabrook Music Therapy operates on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, which includes Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. This land is also Treaty territory of the Williams Treaties and is now home to many First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. I am grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and play on this land.