Ep. 053 | Music Therapy & Politics
Today, we chat with Colby Cumine about why political engagement matters to him as a music therapist.
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 chat with Colby Cumine about why political engagement matters to him as a music therapist. Colby is a board-certified music therapist who is earning his masters degree from Slippery Rock University. He works with children and families who have experienced trauma, and welcomes al who are searching for a place of validation, self-acceptance, and trauma recovery.
Before we get started, here is a brief message from Colby.
Colby: Hi there. Before we jump in, I want to state that this conversation reflects my journey of becoming aware of political systems, and their impacts on music therapy and me. I am not an expert, and neither is Erica, on the systemic issues we discuss in this episode. I also want to acknowledge that I carry immense privilege, as I am a white, middle class, heterosexual, cisgender, neurotypical, enabled man. Thus, some listeners may already be aware of, or familiar, with what I will share and discuss in this episode. In this conversation, I will use queer to refer to LGBTQIA+ communities and identities, BIPOC to refer to Black and indigenous people of color, and identity-first language, such as autistic person, in reference to disability. These choices reflect what I have heard from friends and colleagues who are members of these communities. Thank you for listening and engaging, and taking care of yourself.
[Podcast intro music plays]
Erica: Welcome back to the podcast, Colby.
Colby: Hi, good to be back! It’s been a minute! [Laughs]
Erica: It has! I think it’s been several months, actually since you’ve been on the podcast.
Colby: Yeah.
Erica: Um, usually I ask people how did you get into music therapy. We already know - or maybe listeners don’t know. Do you wanna give like a 10 second synopsis of who are you/how did you get here?
Colby: Sure. It’s pretty unexciting [chuckles]. I really liked music in high school and was thinking about studying psychology, and then heard about this thing called music therapy at like a college fair. And watched some videos about it, and I was like, alright, yeah, I wanna try this thing out. And, fortunately, since then, um still really love it.
Erica: Great. So, the question I wanted to pose to you today to start off with is: now you’re a professional —
Colby: Mmhmm —
Erica: And you have a choice, in terms of like where you wanna work/who you wanna work with. What’s your motivation or reasoning for wanting to work in a nonprofit - one - but then choosing to work specifically for the Music Project?
Colby: Yeah. So, that’s really fun. Because my answer like three years ago is different than my answer now.
Erica: Oh, I’m curious —
Colby: Yeah —
Erica: What’s the difference?
Colby: So like, at the time of taking the job, like, my own personal discomfort of like asking for services lead me to wanna wanna stay at like a nonprofit that was primarily grant-funded, or had some of the like care of that end for me. And I also just really enjoyed the kind of freedom to be able to say like, hey, even if you can’t like afford this thing, that doesn’t prevent me from working with you.
Erica: Mmhmm.
Colby: Uh, especially with the kids that I - where I got to form more of those clinical relationships that were more deep and meaningful, and part of that was like just making sure that I had the time to see them.
Erica: Mmm —
Colby: And it felt like if I were to try to start a private practice or try and find a different organization that really prioritized like people who could like pay, then that created this like kind of weird well, you’re not worth my time if you don’t have the money to be able to pay for me. And that felt bad and classist. Um, there’s a lot of racism that goes into that as well —
Erica: Mmhmmm —
Colby: In the ways that classism and racism have become very intertwined, due to a lot of uh shifting from more overt racial segregation to covert economic policies. Um, things that, on the surface, are truly like just economic - air quotes [chuckles] —
[Erica chuckles]
Colby: But, when you start to like actually unpack it, you’re like, oh wow! SO like, if, you know, schools are impacted by economic policy - and I work primarily in schools, so that means a lot more to me - then like, the relative wealth of the people who are able to gain access to that property influences that.
Um, that is part of the reasons that would play into my answer now, is: specifically at the Music Project, knowing that we’re an anti-oppressive nonprofit, where we like really center um this like political quote unquote ideology of not being cool with oppression, and actually wanting to go against it. That like really informs my decision now to like stay here, and to be such a like [chuckling] fanboy of our organization in a lot of ways —
[Erica laughs]
Colby: Of that I really appreciate the ways that we, as an organization, understand these much deeper, long-lasting impacts, that are often glossed over in like nonprofit creation - and like all of the um - just like everything that goes into making a nonprofit. Like the decisions of like can we see people by, you know, charging money/not charging money - can we get primarily grant funding - like, who are our grant funders? This is also not to be like a rah rah rah! We’re so great! Like, obviously there are areas where we are trying to grow, and I’m sure there are a lot of areas where we are not aware —
Erica: Yeah —
Colby: That we’re upholding oppressive systems. Um, but to give credit to, you know, the actual effort that this organization’s trying to make, and part of what’s keeping me around here, as opposed to trying to find maybe other organizations that maybe, I don’t know, have uh like better wages or other like blah blah blah things that would incentivize like an individual therapist —
Erica: Mmm —
Colby: To go there - those deeply impact my like ethical considerations. And like, those things also like - I don’t know, they all like clash in on each other of like ethics and politics and therapeutic orientation. And —
Erica: And getting your personal needs met, and —
Colby: Yeah [chuckles] —
Erica: Paying your bills, and yeah.
Colby: Mmhmm.
Erica: Because, like we talked about in the Community Mental Health episode - and we say this a lot at the Music Project: like, all of who you are matters. So —
Colby: Mmhmm —
Erica: What your decisions are about the ethics of the work that you do doesn’t negate or minimize the fact that you have bills, and need free time, and —
Colby: Right —
Erica: All these other things.
Colby: Yeah, yeah yeah. And the ways like even that, in itself, is a way to be anti-oppressive - to prioritize being a human over working and producing a product - in our case, like the very strange idea that an improved person is a product that we’re working to make. Um, these systems that are ever-present, um impact every aspect of our work.
Erica: Mmhmm.
Colby: And, kinda in that way, I really like the phrase of like, everything is political. Because there’s really no escaping or like finding a - uh - uh - place where you can be apolitical, ‘cause even in the like idea of being apolitical is political. The idea that we can be like, oh yeah, this is something free of politics, is really more like, yeah, this is a space in which nothing’s being challenged - including the oppressive forces that are at play.
Erica: Um, why does being political matter to you? Like, how does that impact your work? Or how does that um intermingle with your work - does that make sense?
Colby: Mmhmm, yeah. I think it really ties back to like kinda like that ethical piece, and my therapeutic orientation, and the ways of like, my whole duty is to help the client. And if I - I will say: I have a lot of clients who are like in the foster care system, or come from poverty, or are a darker skin tone than I am. If I am not looking at what happens in politics, and trying to be like, oh, this kid just like has trouble not hitting other kids, and I’m ignoring that, you know, they’ve been moving homes for the last couple of years, so they haven’t had a sense of stability and safety - which is taught as, you know, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - that we need to feel safe in order to do literally anything else - and that comes from an inaccessibility to housing, or from low wages, um or from, you know, a child protective system that really cracks down much harder on families of color than it does on white families - then I’m doing a disservice to my client from, you know, this perspective. That there is more i can do to help them and their situation, and I am not doing that because I am choosing to maintain my own like blissful ignorance about issues in society, because those things actively benefit me.
Because I come from a white family background, like generational wealth plays a big part in the how I could even seek an undergraduate degree in music therapy, afford to do a 6 month internship - unpaid, and then start off as, you know, a field that that doesn’t have a particularly high like salary. That all comes from, you know, these systems that were designed to benefit people who are like me.
Erica: Mmhmm.
Colby: It is worth saying that those systems also harm me, right, just in less obvious ways. Like, for example, like disconnection from culture is a big part of my whiteness. Where, like there wasn’t that much named and celebrated beyond like the 4th of July and Christmas. And even my like immigrant father, who came from Australia, like there was some like, yeah Boxing Day! But not a whole lot much added to it. ‘Cause that’s also a colonized um culture. And I find out at like 21 that I’m Mexican, and there’s a connection we have to Mexico —
Erica: Mmm —
Colby: And that culture and heritage. But it was erased, almost entirely, in like two generations, um because we took on the moniker of white ‘cause it helped benefit us. So, yes, to - to also I guess provide a a more holistic perspective of like, these systems that um I could choose to ignore - and kinda swim with the current in that way - could benefit me. But A: ‘cause my clients a lot of harm, and make my therapy work with them uh relatively ineffective. Like, I can only do so much, in terms of I don’t know, coping strategies um or redirecting aggression, but if the root problem still is never addressed - of this child is bouncing around from home to home - then like, they’re not going to quote unquote get better. They’re gonna continue to struggle with these things, and if anything, I have helped them to survive in their trauma better. And it’s not even necessarily like surviving the like traumatic environments they’re in. It’s like surviving in the mainstream institutions that expect them to act like there’s no trauma outside of where they’re at.
Erica: Mmm.
Colby: Thinking of like, yeah being able to behave well in schools - I have air quotes again around that.
[Erica chuckles]
Colby: [Chuckles] Um, like but, you know, what if punching and hitting keeps you safe when you are at home, or living outside of a - a house or a shelter? Like, why am I now like demonizing that and working really hard to fix that, so that at school they can take a test that they can’t focus on ‘cause they’re hungry?
Erica: Yeah —
Colby: But, if I do like continue to support political agendas and ideologies that are like, hey, so let’s provide housing, then that can help reduce um anxiety and risk for the people that I work with. And then they can see an actual like change and improvement, and are able to like fit into society a little bit better? Which, even then, like I don’t want that to be the goal, but is kinda ends up being what happens. ‘Cause society is built in such a way that it’s like you’re expected to have housing, and access to food, and all these other things that like the elite of our nation have access to and can take for very granted.
Erica: How did you arrive at the point that you are at today? Like - ‘cause you didn’t just be born and then this is how you thought [laughs]
Colby: [Chuckling] Mmhmm.
Erica: And so, can you just like talk a little bit about —
Colby: Yeah —
Erica: What your journey? Like, what was the cataylst to get you started thinking about this kinda stuff and …
Colby: Mmhmm. It’s largely through the love and labor of marginalized folx that I know or have seen in the media. So, movements like Black Lives Matter, uh protests and just general social movement, um having close friends who are part of the queer community - disabled communities - um BIPOC communities. The work that they’ve done to kinda help reveal those things - I’ve mostly just listened and learned from them. I am someone who, coming from a very privileged background, has had a lot of work put into, um and from that, I’ve been able to learn and grow and understand these things such that I am also passionate about these different, you know,, axes of oppression and these different uh issues with our society. And - addition to that, there are like some cool [chuckles] TikToks and Instagram posts, and like, social media, honestly, is such a great tool for bite size educational bits. But yeah, I - I have to give credit where credit’s absolutely due - of being benefited by systems of oppression, it’s hard for me to be able to see beyond that, because it’s so insular. And just, shoop, tries to send you up the tube and has you not question anything, and then, when you have people who care about you from outside the tube saying, hey! We’re outside the tube. And you’re like, what? And you look and are like, oh my god! This is wrong! This is not the way I want things to be. That is how I’ve come to [chuckles] where I’m at now, in terms of like why I’m so politically-minded, and why I feel that has a deep deep impact on my therapy practice.
Erica: Mmhmm. You’ve been talking a lot about how politics like impacts your clinical practice, but then something that I’m thinking about is how politics impacts our administrative practice.
Colby: Mmm.
Erica: So for me, like - specifically thinking about like social media work that I do, I have to spend a lot of time looking at photos. And that’s been a long learning curve, of it’s not just like what you see in the photo, but it’s also like all the connotations and sometimes stigmas that might arise from what’s happening in the photo. And if I’m not paying attention to politics, I will miss something that will cause harm to somebody, or can - more often it just unintentionally causes harm, but it still causes harm. But all those parts matter. So, thinking about music therapy more generally, and the different settings that music therapists work in, it matters for like private practice. Because you’re gonna put photos on your website, um you likely have 1 or 2 social media accounts, so how. So how - how are you considering other people’s perspectives, and honoring other people —
Colby: Mmhmm —
Erica: And what you’re putting up? How are you considering the harm that you’re doing? Because harm doesn’t end when you leave the therapy room
Colby: Mmhmm. Also, harm doesn’t not happen just because you didn’t intend to.
Erica: Exactly, yeah!
Colby: So like, just because you were unaware of this thing - you’re like, oh man, uh, I didn’t mean for that to happen. And then we get some of those BS apologies like, I’m so sorry you felt that way, or you were offended or hurt by this post - I didn’t mean to hurt you. Where like, we’re still centering and protecting the person who did the harm. And um, something that like has really stuck out to me is just the idea that like you don’t get to name if you’ve harmed someone or not.
Erica: Mmm.
Colby: If you’ve harmed someone, you’ve harmed them. Regardless of your intention. And so, the path forward is like not doubling back to defend yourself, it’s moving forward to ensure your future self either doesn’t enact that harm again, or like learns from this experience, and finds ways to collaboratively like prevent said harm.
Erica: Yeah.
Colby: I did kinda wanna talk - since you mentioned - we talked a lot about like clinical practice and how politics effects that, and I’m realizing we talked a lot about it’s defining a lot of where I work and how the clinical practice influenced my politics —
Erica: Mmhmm –
Colby: Um, of, you know, what sort of policies I support and and ideas that I hold. But I also wanted to like talk about the inverse, of how it’s been changing the way I do like nitty gritty - like, my therapeutic orientation, how I practice, or even how I like take document notes and things like that.
Erica: Oh sure. Yeah, how does it change like how you take document notes?
[Colby chuckles]
Erica: I’ve never thought about that.
Colby: Yeah. No, it’s something that - again, shout outs to our therapy team,. Starting to reimagine just like the language you use and the way you phrase things, and remembering that all of that comes from your perspective when you’re taking notes. So, intern Colby might have been like, oh yeah, this child, you know, shouted angrily, because, they, you know, increased their volume and used a swear word. But that’s also my perception of that, right? Like, giving that angry label - especially if it’s gonna be, you know, a kid of color - um, that has a lot of connotations in the way another clinician might read that could lead to them thinking about, you know, things being a certain way: this kid has anger issues, or this kid like needs to be better controlled quote unquote? I hate that. Anyways, but like, now thinking about like, hey, someone shouting and like swearing doesn’t have to necessarily come from a place of anger. That’s like my cultural bias coming into that to trying and either reflect more of what I see happen, or like separating my personal thoughts - and also evaluating why I’m having these reactions and thoughts to what a client does.
In addition, things - we talked about - a lot of like using client abbreviations or some client names or nicknames, and the ways that can like further dehumanize the person you’re working with. Like, if I’m thinking about them outside the session as, you know, client 1, versus like who they actually are, or a nickname I have for them, there’s this - I don’t know, there’s a very subconscious aspect to the relationship that gets altered fundamentally. I think of them as, you know, a client with a number with. A problem that needs to be solved, as opposed to a whole person who is coming in because they need support, and they need someone to share time and space with. Just because of the ways that like therapy is conceived of - and medical information n general is perceived of - like yes, there’s a great importance to privacy, and of course we’re not gonna like - on this podcast start sharing the names of people that I work with.
Erica: Yeah —
Colby: But also, it’s like, oh yeah, you have to use as minimal stuff as possible, where like, we’re trying to find ways that we can recognize these people. And if we come down to like ID numbers… I mean, I’m just t thinking like, there’s so much dystopian literature about people being recognized as ID numbers - there is historical literature about people being recognized as ID numbers —
Erica: Yeah —
Colby: And how, you know, that’s never really a good thing. Um, and it does a lot to like who who I am and who that person is. And even like, using my name in the notes, or using first-person pronouns - there’s so much professional -like professionalism - I can have air quotes going. Um, like in western psychology, like, oh like, you need to keep things to the objective 3r d person, because we think there’s some like objective like truth of reality we’re documenting - instead of acknowledging any personal biases we may bring in - into our notes. We try and be like, no, the therapist said this this and this, which also denotes like that position of power, right. Like, I am the person in charge.
Erica: Yeah.
Colby: The therapist, versus, you know, the client or the patient. Just all of that reinforces kind of these dynamics that I personally want to reduce. Um, because power systems have been so harmful to a lot of people that I work with, trying to help reduce those and rebalance - like, no matter what, they’re going to be there. Especially since I work with kids like adult to child power dynamics will always be a thing.
Erica: Yeah.
Colby: Um, but being able to be like, yeah, here, I’m gonna trust you to like lead the session. Or recently - like in Zoom in tele-land, you can be the host - you can have total control over the breakout rooms, you can do polls, if I get put into the waiting room for like a minute and then brought back in - like showing that that trust of power can be done, not only in the session, but also in the note taking. Um, there are even some other thoughts I’ve heard, that I haven’t tried yet, of like taking notes with your clients.
Erica: Oh!
Colby: Because like, there’s a certain power differential of whatever I write down becomes like what is trusted by other clinicians, court cases, um, there are a lot of implications to the way I interpret things and record them. So if I want to try and, you know, make that more egalitarian/or reflective of my clients’ inner experience - asking them to provide feedback, or write notes with them, or have them write notes and then I write stuff too. Like, again, the thing that I have not tried yet, so again, not an expert. But, again, an idea for folx to kind of mill around with, of like yeah, especially if you’re working with other adults, or people where that power differential is not that far off, like that can help really just bring some more of that authentic personal interconnection. And be transparent about like, yeah, this is a clinical setting, where we’re like working towards like a specified like goal - if that is more the focus of your practice. Um, because I know that for the last [snorts] 20 minutes I’ve been ranting about how some of these things are really oppressive, but also they can be helpful, depending on the situation and circumstance, um and the transparency of it all.
Erica: Yeah.
Colby: It can be done ethically.
Erica: It is interesting to think about how HIPAA impacts that. Not HIPAA the law itself, but I think - because I’m the one that does the HIPAA trainings —
Colby: Mmhmm —
Erica: And like does all of our HIPAA compliance - the way that I talk about HIPAA, how that might impact that. And then thinking about ways that I could change - we could reexamine the ways that like that is influencing other aspects of administrative processes. Where, if stuff is in somebody’s health record, use their name, like that’s not —
Colby: Yeah —
Erica: That’s not against HIPAA.
Colby: Or like, yeah, all our internal note taking and things like that —
Erica: Yeah —
Colby: Where it’s only people with permission are seeing it, regardless.
Erica: Yeah.
Colby: Yeah.
Erica: Hmm. See, I learned something!
Colby: Yeah. We’re reflecting.
[Erica laughs]
Colby: That’s all this conversation is [chuckling] is an invitation to reflect. ‘Cause um, I don’t know jack. I’ve been taught, and I’ve listened, and I’m hoping that y’all will listen to what I’ve listened too, and think, and then um ask actual experts about this stuff.
Erica: Yeah. When I go to therapy, I know my therapist writes down stuff - she has to —
Colby: Yeah.
Erica: It’s part of her job. But I don’t know what she’s writing down.
Colby: Yeah. Isn’t that a little bit weird if you think about it too long?
Erica: Yeah. I mean, I am now —
[Colby chuckles]
Erica: Now that I’m saying it. I’ll be like, hey, can you - what are you writing down? How do you know what to write down?
Colby: Yeah.
Erica: Yeah.
Colby: And I also think there’s so much like defensiveness amongst therapists - especially music therapist, because there’s been such a long history of like struggling to be perceived as a quote unquote real profession. Um that like there’s almost this insecurity of like, well, no I don’t want you looking at what I wrote down, because maybe you’ll see that it’s like not good enough? Or some other like of - our own insecurity projected out onto being defensive of our work. Where it’s like, honestly, getting clients’ feedback might be really cool and helpful.
Erica: Yeah.
Colby: Yeah, to also acknowledge that: again, these systems are in literally every aspect of our being. And so, as much as we try and like personally move against them, we may come up against barriers that keep us beholden to them. Um, which doesn’t make you a bad person. And also is something to explore of like, am I comfortable having to continue doing things in this way?
Erica: Yeah. How do we close this out? Do we just like end it? Because like, there’s no like way to tie this up. This isn’t over —
Colby: Mmhmm —
Erica: And —
Colby: Yeah —
Erica: We’re gonna keep talking about it.
Colby: I do think kinda the point of this conversation is that it doesn’t tie up nicely. So I think we have to kinda like find a certain point where it’s like, alright, this is what we had time to talk about today. And like, listeners , if you have like more things you want to talk about, let us know. Or, if you are a listener who actually is an expert in a thing we talked about, let us know [chuckles]. And —
Erica: yeah —
Colby: We can continue this conversation uh in the future. But for now, we’ve gotta say bye.
Erica: You did that so well! Can that just be the ending?
[Erica and Colby laugh]
Colby: Yeah.
Erica: Okay. Well, we are running out of time. So, thanks, Colby, for chatting ,and talking, and diving into all of this.
Colby: Yeah, my pleasure.
Erica: If you’d like to know more about the Music Project, please visit our website at S as in Sam - C as in Cat - Music Project dot org (SCMusicProject.org). On our website, you can also find transcripts for every podcast episode. We encourage you to connect with us on social media - never miss notifications for new episodes and other projects.
Thank you, Colby, for being here today. Thank you, listeners, for listening. And we’ll talk to you next time.
[Podcast outro music plays]