Faculty: In Their Own Words – Lee-Anne Dowsett
Lee-Anne Dowsett, Assistant Professor of Music Therapy, has taught at CMU since January 2016.
What do you love about your work here?
I absolutely love our students. We have amazing, incredible, talented, and passionate students. I love working with my colleagues in the School of Music. I also really like getting to know faculty across the university in different disciplines that I haven't interacted with before.
What are you teaching right now that you're most excited about?
I'm teaching the practicum courses for all the music therapy students and the intro to music therapy course. I love getting a chance to introduce music therapy to people who maybe have heard of it before, but don't really know what it is. I love giving them the chance to try some of these things hands on.
What are you researching and writing?
In my clinical work, I'm really interested in attachment and parent-child relationships. This past spring, I did two conference presentations related to that. I'm also doing training in guided imagery in music. It's an advanced music therapy technique that involves leading people through a guided relaxation. I play a program of classical music for them while they are in a relaxed, deepened state, and then they have images while they're listening to the music which I transcribe. Afterward, we talk about what insights they might have gleaned from their images.
What are you reading for enjoyment?
In my family, bedtime stories are a really important part of our routine. We just finished reading Anne of Green Gables, and now we're deep in the middle of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This is my first time reading the Harry Potter series, and I'm really enjoying it.
Where or how do students give you hope?
I can only do so much in my clinical work, so one thing that gives me hope is sending our students out into the field and seeing them touch other people's lives with their gifts, skills, and passion for helping. Last year, we had a student who started a choir for people who have Parkinson's. It's been really well received, and they're hoping to turn it into an ongoing thing. That's something that wouldn't have started without our students in the field, looking for placements.
What saying or motto inspires you?
From Leonard Cohen: "There's a crack, a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in."
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