Word of the Week: Resilience
Resilience: as a character trait, is a person’s ability to recover after facing stress, adversity, or illness.
The word “Resilience” is a particularly applicable word for me right now. After my first three weeks of interning with the MTCCA, I can safely say that it is a characteristic that I am going to need in the profession of music therapy. It is a characteristic that is displayed in music therapy constantly, not only by us as therapists, but by our clients as well. We can see it in a therapist’s ability to always think of the client first, even while going through their own personal troubles. You can also see resilience in the clients, and their ability to keep trying and trying, even when faced with a very difficult task. The start of this internship in general has been a serious test of resilience for me because if the enormous amount of change it brought to my life. Even though I had to leave a large part of my life behind, the excitement of discovering new things and places has kept me very resilient.
Resilience is something that a music therapist incorporates into many aspects of their work; everything from leading several large groups in a row throughout the day, to cleaning up the session room before the next session. After some sessions, I’ve seen the room look like it had been hit by storm of instruments and toys and still be put back together before the start of the next session. If that’s not a display of resilience, then I’m not sure what is. To me, resilience is the ability to look past all of the stress, difficulty and bruises, and continue to love what you do, and the people you do it for.
Best,
Mark McKenna