Complexity is exciting

Description of sub-theme

Participants often emphasised the complexity of tasks undertaken in the descriptions of the content of projects that they had chosen but did so in animated ways (including interest and detail and tone of voice). They mentioned the multiple layers and rewards together, and it seemed as if the complexity was what intrigued them and kept them involved. It also seemed to be a particularly significant aspect of the choice of topic or project for participants.

I found it compelling and stimulating to observe that perhaps paradoxically for particular members of the staff team at Site KT and at Site FV it was (at least in part) the complexity that really intrigued them about the music therapy discipline and particularly their attitudes and approaches to research. There was so much to find out about and there would always be a place to contribute to knowledge. The passion that was captured here also related this theme back to the content of Chapter 4 ‘Being on Fire’. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, one Site KT researcher-lecturer said with both intense seriousness and pleasure: “…what we do is so complex that we barely understand it…” and this created a huge focussed imperative for the discipline as a whole: “to at least explain why you think

you’re doing what you’re doing.” (Bella 489-491)

I think this latter idea is the heart of the chapter’s theme. Trying to negotiate our responsibility around this essential feature and ‘predicament’ of the discipline, both as individual members of a profession, and as mentors for students, remains the central puzzle of my thesis.

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What I find inspiring about the journey of this research is that there are all manner of creative solutions to the mosaic of complex strands, and teachers find ways that are suitable for particular students for particular client groups, for particular institutions, and build strategies that work to steer a path through the jungle. The other data sources (focus groups/site visit one) have alternative solutions equally plausible. (RJ 2nd June 2012) One very experienced lecturer participant at Site KT described in a specially animated way the in- depth complex full-time study of her first student internship (three months intensively on a long term ward and three months in a therapeutic community), and her delight at coming to music therapy through a research interest, (Beatrice 62-65). Another clinical teacher at Site KT, who anticipated she would be undertaking a PhD study in the future said with relish “… it’s got to be a really humdinger

question”and one that “really engages me on a lot of levels” (Helena 492). It was important that it

would be thoroughly absorbing and so she would wait to find the right topic. With a similar spirit in mind, a lecturer at Site FV reflected on her own project and her tendency to go for challenging issues, as that was what she has found stimulating.

If something’s difficult and it’s a challenge then I do tend to get a bit hooked into that. So I

was quite excited at the idea of looking at whether non-verbal people could also directly influence the research. Or the complexity around that…(Anna 180-183)

I sensed that there was a strong creative drive for these experienced professionals, they were not just giving themselves a hard time, but genuinely inspired by the unsolved questions, the challenging topic and the uncovering of something new. Two other clinical supervisor/lecturers at Site FV also

emphasised a similar sense of tenacity and involvement in their research experiences. One (also referred to in 4.2.3) recounted the value of being ‘stretched’ to her limits and managing something that took all of her focus as being a very stimulating experience for her and the other relished her sense of ‘enjoyment of a challenge’.

Researcher Eddie in Group-E linked his own excited devouring of reading material and input about a new and stimulating research topic as a young researcher with his account of the animated unfolding of pioneers’ work in the music therapy field, developing and documenting practice. It seemed that there was a connecting drive (for pioneers and for himself) to explore the theory in conjunction with the practice, and I sensed from him a regret that perhaps the strands could easily get separated in the current evolution of the discipline. The role of researcher-educators, in Eddie’s perspective, could be to model the two strands and to keep them in close connection.

Site FV lecturer-researcher Anna spoke in a vibrant way about revealing to students the excitement of their multi-levelled thinking. She was discussing more mature students who don’t necessarily have much confidence in their academic capabilities, - their attention was focussed on the placement

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documentation, “where their intelligence is very focused and it’s not particularly conscious or worked

out” and she observed that, with supervisor support, they find this exciting way to embrace theoretical

and conceptual work.

So in a way, maybe with both clinical supervision and research –teaching it’s trying to make people aware of the value of the complexity of their thoughts, and that they can actually break them down and articulate them. And integrate – not necessarily break the original sense down (41:46) um either do that and bring them back together again, re-integrate them, or just find

a way of showing the different levels of understanding that they’re working with. So I think

it’s often there in the person. (Anna 377-382)