Music Therapy Clinician: Supporting reflective clinical practice Volume 1 | Page 17

To understand the specific issues we discovered in supervision, we’ve listed the
six main categories below and provided case examples of how these issues played out
in supervision sessions. Take a walk with us through the maze of pre and perinatal
music therapy:
1. Personal awareness
During our prenatal visit, I was stunned as I listened to the stories of infant and
pregnancy loss this Mom had experienced. I too have lost many babies. And so, I very
deeply identified with these stories. But, to whatever extent I identified with the horrible
experience of losing a wanted pregnancy, I still had a responsibility to remain clinically
focused and present in order to help the Mom move forward emotionally and physically
in her current pregnancy. I needed to evaluate whether or not this was becoming an
issue that was out of balance and therefore potentially harmful to the client, so I brought
it to supervision.

In our supervision session, I felt embarrassed about being so emotionally moved that I
doubted whether or not my clinical skills were ‘up to par’. At the same time, I wanted to
shout from the rooftops, “IT IS UNFAIR that anyone loses a baby they’ve been longing
for!” Paying attention to those physical and emotional urges during supervision enabled
me to take a deeper look at this issue. I later created a piano improvisation (after our
supervision session) that helped me explore the feelings that kept coming up for me in
clinical work. It helped me think about how to keep them separate from work with clients
and maintain greater clinical clarity in future pregnancy or infant loss situations.
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