Ep. 035 | An Education in Unlearning

Today, we chat with guest, Dr. Sue Hadley, a professor and board-certified music therapist, about why she designed a music therapy graduate program.

TRANSCRIPT

Erica: Welcome, friends! You’re listening to The Feeling is Musical — as presented by the Snohomish County Music Project. My name is Erica Lee, and today, we are talking about an education in unlearning, with professor and board-certified music therapist, Dr. Sue Hadley.

Sue is the director of music therapy at Slippery Rock University, where she teaches the graduate coursework. Her books include Socio-Cultural Identities in Music Therapy: Examples and Implications, Experiencing Race as a Music Therapist: Personal Narratives, Therapeutic Uses of Rap and Hip-Hop, Feminist Perspectives in Music Therapy, Narrative Identities: Psychologists Engaged in Self-Construction, and Psychodynamic Music Therapy: Case Studies. She has published numerous articles, chapters, and reviews, serves on the editorial review boards of several journals, and is the co-editor and chief of the open access journal, Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.

[Podcast intro music plays]

Erica: Well, welcome to the podcast, Sue. Thanks so much for being here.

Sue: Thank you for having me.

Erica: Absolutely, I’m excited to chat with you. So the first thing - just a basic orientation for everybody listening, how did you originally get interested in becoming a music therapist? What is your story?

Sue: Well, when I was about 15 or 16, up until that point, I just imagined that I was gonna be a doctor. I was very engaged in music at the time. I decided around that time, and I’m not sure what made me think about it, but I thought that I actually might change my mind and become a social worker to work with adolescents who were living on the streets. And I thought that a nice way to sort of connect with um the youth would be through music. So I started talking about that, and it just so happened that I had a really close friend, who was um a musician, who had studied in the United Kingdom and at Julliard - and he said to me, well, in both the United States and the United Kingdom, there’s a graduate program in music therapy that you could do. So I thought, hmm, never heard of it, and it seemed just right for me. SO I thought, okay, well I’ll do music in Australia and then I’ll come to the United States for graduate school. But then, I started talking about that at the age of 16, and my aunt, who’s a social worker, said, there’s a music therapy program in Melbourne. So I was like, oh, well that saves me a whole lot of time —

[Erica and Sue chuckle]

Sue: I can actually do it as an undergraduate degree. So this career that I thought I had invented actually existed, and I didn’t actually have to go overseas to do it - I could do it in the country that I grew up in. And then I eventually came over here afterwards —

Erica: Yeah —

Sue: But that was later in life.

Erica: [Chuckles] Very cool. Um, so now, can you tell us about what your role is currently? And And then a little bit about the program that you facilitate?

Sue: So, I am currently the director of music therapy at Slippery Rock University - of both the undergraduate and the graduate programs. I developed a Masters in Music Therapy degree about 5 years ago, and I’ve been teaching that ever since.

Erica: How did you start creating this graduate degree? What is the focus of your program? Is there anything unique or different about your program versus other graduate programs?

Sue: So, I’d been teaching the undergraduate program, and over the years I had started introducing different theories around issues of diversity. So I started bringing in feminist theory and looking at race in terms of critiquing whiteness - so critical whiteness studies - and I then started bringing in disability studies. As I was doing this with seniors in the undergraduate program, I started wondering whether there was enough I could do in an undergraduate program to really do this kind of work in the depth that it needed to be done.

And then an opportunity came that I could develop a program that could be an online program. At first I was resistant to that, because I love interaction with students, so I had to develop a program that would be true to who I am. And that became important in how I structured the program. But I also didn’t want to just give lip service to the areas that had become really important to me. SO I wanted to integrate that into everything - into all of the program.

A lot of it grew out of my teaching, and my interactions with students, and my life. To be really honest, I thought about leaving the profession - I thought about leaving teaching altogether, because I started to see the ways music therapy was actually an oppressive practice. Um, so I had 2 options: I could just leave the profession altogether, or I could reimagine a way of working that was not reductive and was not oppressive, and I could start teaching that way of being a music therapist. So, I was at a crossroads, and a friend of mine, who had left music therapy uh for feminist reasons, actually talked me into staying. And she said I was in a position where I could actually make change because I was an educator - and that maybe what I should do is actually just try to do that instead of leaving.

Erica: That’s um a neat story —

[Sue chuckles] —

Erica: Um, how does a graduate level education contribute to the overall competency of a music therapist?

Sue: I see graduate education to learn how to think in a way that expands our world views and expands our humanity. It comes from the word ‘educare’ which means to lead out - and so I see it as a time for us to become better humans and more expanded in our ways of understanding ourselves and others and the world. And that, in this expansion, we also become better therapists. I don’t actually try to help people to become necessarily better therapists, but to expand their understanding of their humanity, and humanity as a whole, and their interconnectedness.

Erica: Mmm.

Sue: And expanding their ways of thinking. I think a lot of our lives, we learn to reduce people and fix their identities into ways that we find understandable. And so so - just recently I’d been talking about the program as not a place where we learn, but a place where we unlearn. So, I almost see it as a process of unlearning ways of fixing people into reductions of who they really are.

Erica: Mmm.

Sue: And I think, by doing that - by becoming more expanded in the ways in which we think, understand, relate - that we, in fact, become better therapists because we don’t feel the need to control others, fix others - but we’re there to support them in their - in their growth.

Erica: Mmm.

Sue: I also think it’s a time for us to reimagine what music therapy is. Because I think often, we think that music therapy is about fixing somebody more into what we believe they could be, right. And I - I think we’ve also become an industry for working with disabled people. And many disabled people actually don’t need therapy. And so, we’ve got this industry where we think, okay, this person’s disabled, therefore they can benefit from music therapy - which is a really oppressive viewpoint to come from.

Erica: Mmm.

Sue: So, you know, those are some of the ways that I try to trouble even how we understand what music therapy is - what our role is - what the therapeutic relationship is - and start to think about it in more complex ways.

Erica: Mmm. It’s really interesting to me. I’ve never heard somebody describe an education program, where we intimately tie the word learning to education, but then really call it unlearning. I don’t even actually have a lot of words about it - it’s just something I’ve never encountered before. And I, personally, kinda feel steeped in the world of education, because pretty much my whole family is in education - not at the university level necessarily, but I know a lot of teachers. But I’ve never heard anybody talk about it quite like that —

Sue: Well, I - I also come from a long line of teachers. My siblings, parents, and - and grandparent um are all teachers —

Erica: Mmhmm —

Sue: Or all educators - and all in K through 12 —

Erica: Mmhmm —

Sue: Education. And I always swore I’d never be a teacher. Uh —

Erica: Me too.

[Erica and Sue laugh]

Sue: And, I think that we often - well, in our society, we think of education as somebody who’s an expert, right, giving you information that you need to take. And I don’t - I don’t see education like that anymore. I’ve been very influenced by people in critical pedagogy - so, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, people like that. But I think of it as um - not as a place where I’m the expert and I’m providing information, but that we’re all bringing in our perspectives - we’re all learning from other people’s perspectives, by reading and engaging with all kinds of different materials - and that, in the process of doing that, we’re learning that there are so many different ways in which people —

Erica: Mmhmm —

Sue: Understand the same things. And by - by learning and sharing and coming with our own perspectives, everyone in the classroom space is - is a learner and an educator, because they’re all sharing information that - from their space, and we’re all receiving it. So we’re all actually expanding. And um, while there may be some areas that I’ve gained a bit more information about, there are many areas that I have less information. SO this program actually has been giving me life, because of how much I’ve been growing in it, and how much I’ve been learning from the people who are designated as students in the program.

Erica: Yeah.

Sue: Yeah.

Erica: That’s cool. In creating this program, what are the challenges in forming and designing curriculum in a way that gives the program shape for what you’re wanting people to learn, or —

Sue: Yeah —

Erica: TO learn, to unlearn, to explore?

Sue: SO there are a few challenges. One of them is finding resources within music therapy that don’t reinforce oppressive discourses - that don’t reinforce um reducing humans to these fixed kind of entities. I also want to be making sure that I’m very intentional about what I share with the students, and that it comes from diverse perspectives. I think a lot of our stuff comes from the same authors - so if it’s all coming from white authors, or if the majority of it’s coming from cis men, then there are ways in which their perspectives are shaping everybody’s perspectives. And so I want to bring in authors that are from a variety of genders, a variety of races, a variety of geographical locations, a variety of world views - so that we don’t get too narrow in our understanding. Um, I try to bring in things from other professions that help to expand ours. I would love to get to a point where I’m actually not the person deciding what we read and - and what we cover in a course - that would be a really lovely space to get into - to co-create what we decide to learn within that.

Another difficulty with online learning is that you can miss out on the interpersonal contact —

Erica: Mmm —

Sue: And so, I’m concerned about that - especially when we’re working with issues that are around social issues and justice. Because I think that interpersonal dialogues - the interpersonal connections - are really key —

Erica: Mmm —

Sue: For all of that. And to do that in isolation um isn’t as beneficial. SO I actually spend a lot of time working out how to make it work with everybody’s schedules and time zones and everything else, so that we can meet every week - so that the learning can happen in community.

Erica: Mmm.

Sue: And, you know, pre-COVID we also got together a couple of times a semester in person - with COVID we can’t do that. But we still wanna find ways of making those interpersonal connections, because you need to know who you’re working with, and whether you feel that you can open up and share, and you know —

Erica: Yeah —

Sue: That can be quite difficult.

Erica: Yeah, those interpersonal relationships are what’s developing trust to have those big conversations.

Sue: Yeah.

Erica: Um, this could be graduate-specific, or just all of the current education experiences you’ve had, but how do you practice trauma-informed care as an educator?

Sue: This is like a really good question. I have to really think about that. Because, so often, people think of trauma-informed care in terms of therapy and not necessarily in terms of education. And I - I don’t think I’ve been consciously thinking about it, but I thin I do practice with that lens.

Erica: Mmhmm.

Sue: So, I think that, for me, I acknowledge and more than acknowledge - understand - that trauma can affect students’ responses, and behavior, and needs. And that, while I don’t necessarily create safe spaces - if that means not talking about certain things - I wanna create spaces that aren’t harmful - so they may be uncomfortable, they may be challenging - and sometimes, you know, with the best intentions, they may, in fact, be harmful. And so I try to really understand and support when people need a break, when people might need to um shut off their video, when people might need more flexibility in responding to the material because of what they’re integrating. And so, I think that’s how I respond to it - is by bringing my whole self into the space, and being as authentic as I can, and letting them know that I understand that life is messy - it’s difficult - some people have been harmed in very, very different ways. And I believe them when they tell me —

Erica: Mmm —

Sue: You know and I think that’s a really important part of it: is first believing, and then just allowing space when people need it. Because most people know what they need, and I think supporting their resources and their knowledge of what they need um is probably the most important. I’m not saying that i don’t make a lot of mistakes with that, but that’s certainly where I’m coming from with it.

Erica: Sure, that makes sense. In wrapping up - this has been a really great conversation but because we’re running out of time - what do you hope for the future of music therapy education?

Sue: I hope that we can understand our role, understand the clients that we work with, and understand the therapeutic relationship that move away from discourses that position people in problematic ways. It would take a radical reshaping of music therapy education, so I’m not sure that we would ever get there —

Erica: Mmm —

Sue: But that’s what I would love to see. I would love to see a real intentional focus on ways that we reduce and other people unintentionally - and the ways in which we try to see ourselves as really good. And I think we can’t change anything if we always understand - or if we try to always understand ourselves as really good. And I think we need to understand ourselves as not isolated - so, for music therapy to change, it’s not to see individuals, it’s to see how intimately we’re connected with everyone else in the - in the world, but certainly around us. And so that everything that we do, and everything that we don’t do, impacts people - and sometimes in ways that we of course don’t intend —

Erica: Mmm —

Sue: But, if what we don’t do is impacting people as much as what we do, um then we need to really look at all of it. And we’re so intent on being recognize and validated for our roles - we feel so worried about whether  people want to acknowledge us as a valid profession - that we start doing things in ways that then are lifting us up, while at the same time keeping other people down. And - and I think that’s a problem.

Erica: Mmm.

Sue: I will also say, I have a lot of hope in music therapy, and I - I mean, I wouldn’t be an educator if I didn’t think that —

Erica: Yeah —

Sue: I’m not trying to paint a negative picture, but a realistic one. I think that we can still grow, and we can still be much more than we are right now.

Erica: Yeah. I think that’s fair - you can have hope and feel other feelings about how things are going at the same time, yeah.

[Sue chuckles]

Erica: For listeners that would like to know more about your programs at Slippery Rock, how can they - where can they find you?

Sue: Well, they can probably just Google Master of Music Therapy at Slippery Rock University. They can email me any time—

Erica: Okay —

Sue: Which is at Susan dot Hadley at s r [repeats with rhotic R] u dot edu (susan.hadley@sru.edu). [Chuckling] You might have to write that down. But um, yeah - either way and —

Erica: Awesome —

Sue: I can - I can send information on.

Erica: Very cool. So, if you would like to find all this information, it will be on our website - we have a transcript of every episode on our website. I will put the information that Sue’s included in the episode notes, etc. Our website is S as in sam C as in cat music project dot org (scmusicproject.org). You’re welcome and encouraged to connect with us on social media - you get the regular updates when new podcasts come out.

Thank you, Sue, so much, for your time and joining me today. And thank you for like all the work that you do. I know that there’s hours and nights and weekends that don’t get seen, but we - still appreciated.

Sue: Thank you for having me.

Erica: Absolutely. Thank you, listeners, for listening. And we’ll talk to you next time.

[Podcast outro music plays]