Our Bodies Speak! Bridging Psyche and Soma Using the Creative Arts Therapies (CAT) to Support Mental Health Challenges and Heal Trauma in Children
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
12-1:30 PM
Location:
Live Online course. Students will receive a Zoom link when registered
Course Description:
It is not just what you say but how you say it - with your body - that counts. We communicate with babies, and each other nonverbally before we even say a word. Babies also talk to us right from the beginning through their facial expressions, body actions, the quality of their vocalizations and even the way they look at us. The embodied experiential nature of our interactions affect how we relate to others and how we process our own experiences.
Please join us to discuss this importance topic with Dr. Suzi Tortora, Founder & Director of Dancing Dialogue and Dr. Miri Keren, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist.
Infancy research states that early perception is registered through the baby’s bodily-felt engagement with the surroundings, perceived through multisensory experiences and informed by secure interactions with primary caregivers. Trauma research explains that early memory is multisensory, somatic and kinesthetic, and can be triggered by experiences reminiscent of elements of the original event and creates a wide variety of emotional experiences that are felt but difficult to verbalize. Therapeutic approaches for early trauma advocate the importance of creating a cohesive narrative to support healing. But what happens when words cannot fully explain the experience? The creative arts therapies provide a path to healing when words hurt, and the traumatic experience is unspeakable.
Bridging the fields of infant mental health; infant and child psychiatry; nonverbal analysis; and creative arts therapies, this workshop demonstrates how to help babies and young children bring a voice to their experiences by using their nonverbal cues to create an embodied cohesive narrative that addresses the “felt-sense” experience. Participants will learn how to use creative arts activities including movement, music, art, and dance to support the developing attachment relationship with families and children with challenges including early medical illness, attachment issues, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and other challenges during these vulnerable times. When and why to choose a creative arts therapy approach or traditional caregiver-child psychotherapy word-focused intervention, such as Wait, Watch and Wonder (WWW) or Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) will be highlighted.
By the End of This Webinar Participants Will be Able to:
1. Understanding the strong link between parent-infant relationship and Infant Mental Health
2. Learn how creative arts therapies are used to create an embodied coherent narrative, facilitating psychobehavioral change3. Reflect on when and how to choose a creative arts therapy or a traditional word-focused caregiver-child therapeutic approach.
About the Instructor
Suzi Tortora, EdD, BC-DMT, CMA, LCAT, LMHC has a full-time private practice in Cold Spring, New York and NYC, specializing in parent- infant/child and family therapy; trauma; medical illness; and adult chronic pain. She is the International Medical Creative Arts Spokesperson for the Andréa Rizzo Foundation, having created and continuing to be the senior dance/movement therapist for pediatric patients at Integrative Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, NYC, since 2003. She received the 2010 Marian Chace Distinguished Dance Therapist award from the ADTA. She teaches in Europe, South America, New Zealand, Israel and Asia; holds faculty positions in the USA, The Netherlands, Chech Republic, Argentina and China; offers the Ways of Seeing International Webinar Training Program for dance/movement therapists and allied professionals; has published numerous papers about her work; and her book, The Dancing Dialogue: Using the communicative power of movement with young children is used extensively in dance/movement therapy training programs internationally.
Miri Keren, MD is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, Assistant Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv Sackler Medical School, past president of the World Association for Infant Mental Health, founder and past director of Geha Infant Mental Health Unit, founder and supervisor of 6 units of Infant Psychiatry across Israel. Currently in the position of Clinical and Research Consultant at the Bar Ilan University Azrieli Medical School and at the Schneider Hospital for Sick Children (in process of becoming Clinical Associate Professor). She received the Leibovici WAIMH Award in June 2021.