Music Therapy Clinician: Supporting reflective clinical practice Volume 1 | Page 18

2. Professional development:
At the postpartum visit, both parents were wonderfully bonded with their baby.
Neither parent displayed any postpartum mood disorder markers. When I told
the Mom we had five minutes remaining in the session, she looked directly at
me and asked “What do you think I should do about the trauma I experienced
during his birth”? My heart dropped in my chest. I felt embarrassed and
shocked. Was it something I did (or didn’t do)? I struggled to think quickly
about how to respond. When I offered to meet with her again to provide
trauma processing, she dismissed me with trite answers about “therapy.” She
did not return any of my subsequent phone calls or emails. I felt angry,
frustrated, betrayed, helpless, and worried about my client.

During several supervision sessions we both shared examples of how our
clients’ postpartum needs caught us by surprise. We realized we need to be
able to provide clinical support for perinatal mood disorders and birth-related
post-traumatic stress. We also agreed that music therapists working in this
specialty area could benefit from additional training in this particular area.
3. Clinical competencies
She welcomed her baby peacefully into the world in the comfort of her bedroom. I was
sitting near her head as the midwives started Mom’s afterbirth care. She sang a lullaby
to her baby while I hummed along to musically support the postpartum bonding process.
Suddenly, the calm environment turned chaotic as the midwives discovered the mother’s
body would not stop bleeding. As she began to lose consciousness and the midwives
tried to stop her hemorrhage, I found myself kneeling above her on the bed, holding her
head, watching as she became pale. I felt like I was watching the life drain out of her
with each breath she took. I had stopped humming and instead calmly repeated her
name in an effort to keep her conscious. Although I wasn't singing, the repetition of her
name felt comforting to me. I feared she might die.

I experienced an unanticipated flood of emotions while relaying this story during
supervision. I was able to express the grief I felt when I was afraid the mother would
die. As we processed this difficult birth, I shared a piece of art I had created that helped
me become even more aware of some underlying feelings of grief relating to a personal
loss. The supervision process also helped me realize I had reacted swiftly, likely out of
the instincts I developed as a hospice music therapist. Together, we considered how I
might react musically should this scenario ever occur again.

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