Development and implementation of self-care strategies in undergraduate music therapy students: A qualitative thematic analysis

Introduction: Music therapy students may encounter a variety of stressors throughout their undergraduate careers and require self-care strategies to maintain their health and wellbeing. To date, there is a dearth of literature regarding self-care strategies for undergraduate music therapy students. Understanding the development and implementation of self-care strategies in undergraduate music therapy students may enable students, their peers, professors, and institutions to better support students throughout their academic careers. Therefore, the purpose of this interpretivist study was to understand how undergraduate music therapy students in the United States of America develop and implement self-care strategies. Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with nine undergraduate music therapy students at public universities geographically located in four regions of the American Music Therapy Association. Results: We used an inductive approach to thematic analysis to analyze data and identified six themes: (a) Recognizing the need to shift to intentional self-care; (b) Developing an awareness of how and when to use self-care strategies; (c) Identifying specific strategies to support the self-care journey; (d) Circumstances impacting self-care; (e) Adjusting music as a self-care strategy; and (f) Advice for music therapy students and professors. We developed a model to depict the sequence of and relationships among themes. Discussion: This study provides an understanding of the processes and products of undergraduate music therapy students’ self-care strategies. We recommend integrating self-care into the music therapy curriculum as early as possible and empowering students with agency and autonomy to determine the best proactive and reactive strategies to maintain their health and wellbeing.