Oct
9
to Oct 10

American Dance Therapy Association Conference | The Many Applications of Laban Movement Analysis, DMT Social Skills Groups (Portland, OR)

Suzi Tortora presented with
Nancy Beardall, Stacy Hurst, Sherry Goodill, Catherine McCoubrey
Lecture: 
A Dialogue: The Many Applications of Laban Movement Analysis

Suzi Tortora presented
Lecture:
Come Play with Me!
DMT Social Skills Groups – Nineth Early Childhood Forum

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Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service Presents Continuing Education Courses in Creative Art Therapies Creative Arts Therapy Day: Dance, Music and Poetry Therapy Workshop (New York, NY)
Oct
4

Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service Presents Continuing Education Courses in Creative Art Therapies Creative Arts Therapy Day: Dance, Music and Poetry Therapy Workshop (New York, NY)

This unique, half-day creative seminar in group therapy will introduce participants to music, dance, and poetry as therapeutic techniques. Participants from the first CAT workshop will deepen their skills and learn new techniques.

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Jun
18

Emotions in Motion – Focus on Autism (Arlington Heights, IL)

Dr. Suzi Tortora
Emotions In Motion – Focus on Autism:
Using Movement and Nonverbal Cues to Support Development

  • Identify intervention strategies to help children use their own unique internal structures to cope, adapt and respond to the environment.
  • Understand the role movements and gestures play in interactions
  • Explore Dr. Tortora's method, the Way of Seeing, with one of your own families

Dance movement psychotherapy is an effective treatment modality for the observation, assessment and treatment of infants and children with developmental difficulties and delays in all areas. The initial goal is to broaden children's social and communicative base by first helping children experience their movements as communications, enabling exchange and interaction with others. Embedded in this process are sensory integration activities which enable the child to experience and learn about regulating and organizing their sensory system.

Dr. Tortora's approach regards the child's nonverbal behaviors as a form of communication portraying their experiences and sense of self. The interaction between self and spatial environment, observable in personal characteristic movement patterns, displays how children relate, adapt and respond to their environment. In this way children, becomes the catalyst of the therapeutic intervention.

Through the therapeutic process, Dr. Tortora's seeks to uncover and integrate the child's felt-sense memories, concerns and action-based representations of their experiences by translating them into multilevel expressible understandings for the child. As the child receives recognition for their efforts and expressions, then they become receptive to engage in expanded movement exchanges. This mutual sharing of experiences provides a safe environment to explore alternative communicative methods while simultaneously encouraging growth in physical, emotional, and cognitive development.

Register EARLY Seating is Limited! Deadline: Monday 6/1/09

Event Flyer and Registration Form PDF

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Zero to Three | The Mind-Body Connection in the World of the Young Child: From Development to Intervention (New York, NY)
May
15

Zero to Three | The Mind-Body Connection in the World of the Young Child: From Development to Intervention (New York, NY)

Development and experience are rooted in the body, shaping how we feel, think, move, and communicate. In this conference, we will explore how these phenomena occur and the implications of these mind-body connections for both young children and their caregivers.

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Mar
29

Dance Movement Psychotherapy Workshop (New York, NY)

Spring One Day Workshop

Suzi Tortora, Ed.D., ADTR, CMA, LCAT, LMHC
Dance Movement Psychotherapy:
Infants and Young Children

Sensitize yourself to the ways young children communicate, learn and express themselves through their movement and senses. Gain hands-on experience information that is useful for all professionals and parents of young children, with or without special needs. Learn about Dr. Suzi Tortora's Ways of Seeing dance movement psychotherapy program through exploring nonverbal cues expressed by infants and young children and experiencing movement activities that support early attachment relationships and social, emotional, and cognitive development. For parents, caregivers, and professionals, these activities can be used with families or in groups and in dyadic and individual therapeutic, hospital, preventative and childcare settings.

Cost: $75 plus reg. fee
Call 212 415-5500

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Feb
21
to Mar 1

Coming Back to Self Authentic Movement Workshop (Cold Spring)

Teacher – Suzi Tortora
Ed.D, BC-DMT, LCAT, LMHC, CMA
An inner focusing movement meditation practice involving listening to your body & allowing your body to move you

Authentic Movement is a type of mediation that occurs by closing your eyes and listening to your body – as you listen to your body with this inward focus, you will find a natural state – through an unfolding process that can be active, taking you through the room; or deeply internal, where you may not be moving in any perceivable way to your outside observer. This observer is called the witness. The experience occurs in pairs. One person moves while another person witnesses, from a place of respect and attunement. The witness stays attuned to his/ her inner experiences & reactions to your movements. It is an active place of observing. After your movement experience you both have the opportunity to process and share your experiences, through art work, writing and talking. Verbal sharing is done in a very particular way, respecting that you always have the options to not share your experience. The witness never assumes s/he knows what your experience is for you, but rather explains the images and sensations that have come up for her or him. As you listen, you attend to your reactions, to see if any of these images resonate with your experience. Then you switch, with your witness moving and you witnessing.

Experienced in a group setting, the witnesses sit in a circle around a clear open space in which the movers move. Several movers are moving simultaneously, with their respective witnesses attending to them personally. All moving together with eyes closed or inwardly focused, can be quite a profound process. Unknowingly movers will often pick up on each others actions, moving in synchrony and harmony. Often, as you stay attuned to yourself,  sub-conscious and unconscious material will rise to your consciousness through your felt-sense. It is a very respectful and insightful process that involves deeply listening & allowing you to be "seen" by another.

This Coming Back to Self workshop series invites both experienced and new explorers of movement meditation to dialogue with their "sensational voice" as it unfolds their life story. Processing elements include breath awareness, journaling, music, poetry and art media.

Fee: $40 for 1 session; $70 for both sessions
Call or e-mail: questions - register - directions

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92Y Harkness Dance Center | Dance Therapy and Focusing (New York)
Jan
31
to Feb 1

92Y Harkness Dance Center | Dance Therapy and Focusing (New York)

Dear colleagues and friends,

  • This movement improvisation and experiential focusing intensive course (3 five-hour sessions) should interest people from a variety of orientations
  • Dancers, movers and dance movement therapists
  • Focusers who integrate focusing into their work and focusing oriented therapists
  • Researchers studying nonverbal systems
  • Psychotherapists and psychoanalysts interested in the study of mutual regulation, attunement,  improvisation and the implicit
  • Child Therapists and educators working with children of all ages
  • What Winnicott called "nonverbalists" of all kinds-that means all of us

The experiential/didactic course will offer an introduction to two modalities:  dance movement improvisation and Eugene Gendlin's methodology and philosophy of experiential focusing. Each modality provides us with a different perspective on the concepts of attunement, mutual regulation, improvisation and the realm of the implicit. If your approach is through the world of movement and dance, you will find Experiential Focusing to be an extraordinary link between the nonverbal and the creative use of language. If your approach is through Focusing, you will see how bodily felt sensing is actualized through movement improvisation. If you are a  psychotherapist you will find direct applications and theory to enrich your work and orientation. These creative processes can help us to appreciate what is beautiful in our unique ways of being in the world. They also inspire us to use that uniqueness to create therapeutic relationships that make a real difference in the lives of our clients. We hope you can join us!

Sincerely yours,
Joan Lavender, Psy D.,
Suzi Tortora, EdD., ADTR, LCAT, CMA, LMHC
Miriam Roskin Berger, PhD., ADTR

Joan Lavender, PsyD;  Miriam Roskin Berger, ADTR;
Suzi Tortora, Ed.D., ADTR, CMA, LCAT, LMHC
Dance Therapy and Focusing

Gendlin's Experiential Focusing is a bodily-centered therapy process which gives you access to a deep level of knowing, leading to inner transformation you can feel immediately and apply to your life.  While most approaches to therapy are based on the assumption that it is good to be more "in touch" with yourself, Focusing teaches you how to do this. Focusing is a highly-regarded and well-researched process that has been shown to correlate with positive life change, enhanced self-esteem, and the experience of integration and wholeness. This workshop will explore the relationship from the dimension of Focusing to the world of movement and dance improvisation. Identify felt senses (as distinct from emotions) in your body. Enable the felt sense to communicate its message to you, from the edge of your awareness. Use dance movement improvisation and felt sensing together for healing.

3 sessions – $250
Call to register 212 415-5500

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92Y Harkness Dance Center | Dance Therapy and Focusing (New York, NY)
Jan
31
to Feb 7

92Y Harkness Dance Center | Dance Therapy and Focusing (New York, NY)

Spring Weekend Workshop

Dance Therapy and Focusing

With Dr. Miriam Roskin Berger, ADTR and Dr. Joan Lavender, PsyD

When: Jan 31, Feb 1, Feb 7, 2009 from 1 – 6pm

Cost: $250 plus reg. fee (save 50% on reg. fee by registering online) 

Where: 92nd Street Y 1395 Lexington Ave, NY, NY 10128 call 212.415.5500

Gendlin's Experiential Focusing is a bodily-centered therapy process which gives you access to a deep level of knowing, leading to inner transformation you can feel immediately and apply to your life. While most approaches to therapy are based on the assumption that it is good to be more "in touch" with yourself, Focusing teaches you how to do this. Focusing is a highly-regarded and well-researched process that has been shown to correlate with positive life change, enhanced self-esteem, and the experience of integration and wholeness. This workshop will explore the relationship from the dimension of Focusing to the world of movement and dance improvisation. Identify felt senses (as distinct from emotions) in your body. Enable the felt sense to communicate its message to you, from the edge of your awareness. Use dance movement improvisation and felt sensing together for healing. Eligible for ADTA CEUs.

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Jan
11

Creative Arts Therapy Day (New York, NY)

This unique, one-day creative seminar in group therapy will be taught by five professional arts therapists.  Experientially and didactically, participants will be introduced to the use of art, music, dance, poetry and psychodrama as therapeutic techniques.

Dance Therapy –
Dr. Suzi Tortora, Ed.D, ADTR, CMA, LCAT, LMHC, KMP
Suzi Tortora is a nationally known certified dance therapist, specializing in pediatrics. She is a private practitioner, author and senior dance therapist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Psychodrama –
Gay French-Ottaviani is a certified psychodramatist, group therapist and licensed clinical social worker with a private practice in Pound Ridge, New York.

Art Therapy –
Ker Beckley, a clinical art therapist and artist in her own right, is the Director of Art Therapy at Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in Katonah, NY.

Poetry and Journal Therapy –
Nancy Scherlong is a registered poetry therapist as well as a clinical social worker in a private practice, an EMDR practitioner, a certified hypnotist, an AMRC disaster mental health clinician and an internal family systems practitioner.

Music Therapy –
Karen Popkin provides music therapy services within the Integrative Medicine Service at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Fee: MSW students, $80
Fordham MSW alumni, $90
Community, $100.
Contact Jane Edwards, Associate Dean of Social Work Program, Fordham
Westchester Campus, jedwards@fordham.edu to sign up. There is a limited number spaces for participants, so sign up now.
We will be accepting people on a first come first serve basis.
Registration requested by December 15.

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