Author ORCID Identifier
Date Available
5-20-2022
Year of Publication
2022
Degree Name
Master of Music (MM)
Document Type
Master's Thesis
College
Fine Arts
Department/School/Program
Music
First Advisor
Dr. Alaine Reschke-Hernandez
Abstract
Within and outside of the music therapy field, there has been a recent push for more conversations and literature on social justice. However, disability has been largely left out of this dialogue. Disabled individuals have unique worldviews, and their voices as individuals and practitioners should be an integral part of social justice within music therapy. This study examined disabled music therapists' supervision experiences. All music therapists receive supervision during their education and clinical training, and many go on to supervise. Supervision therefore presents an opportunity to advance the profession by striving to understand disabled music therapists’ perspectives. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the supervision experiences of disabled music therapists in the United States. A purposive sample of 10 participants completed this study. Each participant engaged in a single semi-structured interview with the researcher. Interview data was examined through the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies framework (Ratts et al., 2016) and the Minority Stress Model (Meyer, 2003) following phenomenological microanalysis (McFerran & Grocke, 2007). This analysis revealed six concepts that impacted disabled music therapists' supervision experiences: a) disclosing, b) supervisor response to disabled supervisee, c) the supervision relationship, d) the supervision environment, e) professors in supervisor roles, and f) past supervision experiences impact on personal supervision styles. Each participant experienced a different relationship with each concept. While each participant could identify and describe at least one positive supervision experience, this study revealed that disabled music therapists' supervisory needs are generally not met within music therapy supervisory relationships. Such findings carry implications for developing supervisory training in the profession that is built on the voices of disabled music therapists.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2022.192
Recommended Citation
Martin, Emma, "The Lived Supervision Experiences of Disabled Music Therapists" (2022). Theses and Dissertations--Music. 203.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/music_etds/203
