This past week I read a statistic that stated only 7% of all Americans who have mental health care coverage through their health insurance plan use it. That means 93% of us are skipping out on available mental health care! Let’s think about this– Every year we schedule our annual checkup at the doctor’s office. […]
So how does music therapy help with depression? Do you just listen to sad/happy songs until you feel better? Music therapy involves a lot more than just listening to music! For those times when we’re having a rough day, or things aren’t going well, or we’re just feeling a little down in the dumps– listening […]
In November, I’ll be co-presenting a continuing education course for other music therapists at our national conference. One of the main components of the course is mindfulness, and it’s a topic that I’ve felt is increasingly important in our daily lives. In the past few years, mindfulness and meditation have become more popular—trendy even. Research […]
A few years ago as part of my GIM training program, our class participated in a sweat lodge. Since another woman and I would not be going into the actual lodge during the sweat, we had a bench placed several yards away. It was on the edge of a pond where we could pray and […]
A professional acquaintance of mine always (seriously, *always*) seems to be in a terrific mood– upbeat, friendly, encouraging, supportive. I asked him once if he woke up in a good mood every day, and he replied, “nope, but I choose to have a great day every day!” An increasing amount of research is demonstrating the […]
A couple of weeks ago I asked the followers of my Facebook page for suggestions on what they’d like to read about in future blog posts. One of the first suggestions was medication compliance, so here it is! Medication Compliance Let me start off by saying that this issue is bigger than it initially sounds, […]
The past couple of weeks I’ve been teaching a Lifetime Learning course on music and wellness at the local university. Near the end of last week’s class, one of the participants asked if I could talk to them about how to use music for healing. We had a terrific discussion about it, and I thought […]
After 4 years of post-master’s training and education, I’m now the only person in all of Alabama (and Mississippi for that matter!) who is qualified to practice Guided Imagery and Music (GIM). GIM is a specialty area of music therapy. You can read more about it in some of my other blog posts. So here’s […]
This blogpost is coming to you from my new laptop. The old one was… well, old. And cranky. And starting to forget things. Confession time: I am not good with new technology. I am a creature of habit, so adjusting to new devices or learning new ways to do things I already know how to […]
Ever end up somewhere (a meeting, a volunteer opportunity, stuck in line) and wonder “what’s the point of me being here?” That happened to me last week at a volunteer project. I signed up with the intent of helping and accomplishing a project for a group in need. As is sometimes the case with volunteer […]
