Hi there! Thanks for joining me for another blog post. Today I would like to reflect on my experience as an intern during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully this will be valuable to any students about to start internship while the pandemic is still a threat or others who might be curious about the experience.
I began my internship in January 2020 and my learning experience was going smoothly until about March 13th when COVID-19 became prominent in the United States. News of the pandemic effecting U.S. cities began circulating and we noticed COVID-19 could become a major threat not only to the health and safety of our immune-compromised clients but also our entire community. Rhythm Garden Music’s (RGM) owner and director, Morgan Sparks, acted immediately and began the process of moving most, if not all, sessions to telehealth on a video chat telemedicine platform.
This was a whole new world for the music therapists at RGM and me. We didn’t have any classes or experiences in undergrad addressing how to conduct a music therapy session through a video phone call. Due to the real-time creative process and interactive nature of music therapy, I could not imagine clients being successful through telehealth, but it was the reality we had to accept – at least for the time being.
I followed the lead of my supervisors and did my very best to adjust to lag, keep the music going if clients were not in sync, and help them cope with this new experience. Many applications I learned or developed over my first two months of internship were difficult to transfer to telehealth since many of them included playing instruments that most clients no longer had access to. For the first few weeks, most client goals were considered secondary to simply helping clients cope with their current situations like having to stay home, not being able to see friends or family, and any other changes happening rapidly to keep them safe. Many people, including me, thought these changes due to the pandemic would only last a few weeks, our officials and scientists would find a solution, and we would be back to normal.
It is now June and we are adjusting to a “new normal” both in our daily lives and in the music therapy world. The RGM team has begun planning how we can see clients in person safely with masks, gloves, and social distancing in the clinic. For some clients, it is best to stay on telehealth due to poor immune systems, difficulty tolerating a mask, and other factors.
While I am excited to see clients in-person, I do look back and think about how telehealth isn’t all that bad. I have discussed the value of my experience in internship with my supervisors at RGM and advisor from college. Telehealth continues to be relevant in music therapy for many clients and might become prominent again due to a second wave of COVID-19 in the fall or expanding possibilities in the music therapy profession to best serve our communities. This has become a marketable skill for my job search after internship, and I can highlight my learning experiences during this unforeseen time. The world-wide pandemic has certainly challenged me as a music therapy intern, but I can look back and see how I’ve grown into the budding professional I am.
What I’ve learned through telehealth music therapy experiences:
- I am resilient – I have managed rapid change into unknown territory in the profession during my clinical training. I have built skills to adjust quickly to change that will be helpful transitioning into professional life.
- Building rapport through telehealth is difficult but not impossible – I only met many of the clients I’ve worked with in the past two months once in person. I’ve had to build a clinical relationship and learn clients’ unique verbal and non-verbal expressions through a screen. It took some time, but I now feel confident and comfortable while supporting them via telehealth.
- Telehealth often requires more focus – It’s easy to withdraw when a client is not physically with you and with the preview window of yourself, I caught myself paying attention to how I presented on screen half the time I was treating a client. I discussed my difficulty with focus with my supervisors and simply being aware of my withdraw helped me catch myself. Additionally, a discussion with one supervisor led me to try closing the preview window of myself during sessions. I can’t watch myself during in-person sessions, so why do I need to during telehealth sessions? This solution worked well for me and after a couple weeks I forgot to remove my own feed, but realized I no longer looked over at it.
- Telehealth may not be an ideal music therapy setting but it has great potential – Clients have been able to continue enjoying music-making and reaching their goals through telehealth sessions. While I cannot wait to see clients in-person again, I have realized that this experience opened new possibilities for music therapy. My profession may transform through the next few years to expand access to music therapy to those who do not have a music therapist in their area, those who cannot risk exposure to people outside their home during flu season, and others who might thrive with telehealth sessions.
Written by Sarah Hopkins, RGM Intern
