Music Therapy Clinician: Supporting reflective clinical practice Volume 1 | Page 24

without being able to see my feet, having an awkward
sense of balance, and while feeling flat out exhausted.
I chose to deal with these issue head on and address
them openly in music therapy sessions. We began
talking about my maternity leave more than a month
before it happened. I discussed my being out for a few
months with my clients. I asked them if my becoming a
mom soon brought up thoughts or feelings for them
about their own mothers. Together, we worked through
issues, such as what motherhood means, what it
means to be taken care of by someone, what it means
to be left by someone. Questions that were important
to my clients were along the lines of: Will you still take
care of me? Do I still matter? Am I being replaced by
an actual baby?
In spite of everything I thought we had worked through,
I wasn’t prepared for the client who only talked to my
belly for the last two months of my pregnancy. I wasn’t
prepared for clients who innocently asked why I was
going on leave (I was nine months pregnant and hadn’t
seen my feet for months).
Something else I hadn’t counted on was how this
would affect the staff. For instance, I wasn’t
emotionally prepared when they informally put me on
light-duty. Nor was I prepared for the overly agitated
feelings I had when well-intentioned co-workers
brought up how huge I was in the middle of music
therapy sessions or wanted to talk about some other
private baby-related matter, also in front of my clients.
I found I needed to spend time reflecting on my own
needs in this process and separate them from the
things my clients and their staff needed. I tried to
welcome these changes and acknowledge that even
the best plans are sometimes completely and utterly
futile. There was, after all, a plan in my head. It
occurred to me that maybe feeling dependent on
others and frustration with a body that didn’t work the
way I wanted it to or move in the way I was accustomed
to was something my client’s felt at times, or even all
the time. I knew I would be returning to regular duty,

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but they live this life forever, day in and day out. I also
realized, while I would have liked to maintain more
clinical boundaries, more of my personal information
was shared than I wanted.
Accepting the “perfect music therapist pregnancy” was
a fantasy was much easier said than done. At some
point, I had to accept I was doing all I could. I may
never have answers to the questions my clients asked.
And I have to admit, when I realized I would have to let
go of the fantasy, I grieved it as a loss. I went through
the known usual stages of grieving because my own
expectations were not being met. I learned to accept
that I truthfully couldn’t have known what was coming
my way until I experienced it.
My own process of letting go of an idealized music
therapy pregnancy made me wonder, in general: How
aware are we of our countertransference while we are
undergoing a major change in life? There are different
types of life-changing events: it could be having a
baby, going through cancer treatment, having
significant surgery that may change our outward
appearance. Does it occur to us that our life-changing
events may affect our clients? Do we think about the
clinical issues it will bring up? Are we, as clinicians,
taking the time to process these changes with our
clients as they arise repeatedly?
Although I’ve returned from maternity leave, I knew
there were strong feelings, I‘ve been surprised at how
the client feelings were still being enacted in therapy
after I returned from maternity leave. We are still
processing my clients’ feelings and probably will be for
quite a while. After going and returning from vacation,
I realized we weren’t done yet and we worked through
this again. I have learned to accept the multitude of
curveballs and may have even developed an
appreciation for them. I have accepted that I couldn’t
have possibly known how this was going to go. While
some of these central issues may never be resolved, it
may be my job is to have the patience to continue
onward with them through this journey.