* This is the first book that discusses the medically ill baby's embodied experience, manifest in the child's behaviors and the family dynamics from the perspective of nonverbal interactional and relational experiences
* Dr. Suzi Tortora is a Laban nonverbal movement analyst and dance/movement therapist who has pioneered dance/movement therapy with infants, young children and families, and Dr. Miri Keren, a clinical assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry, Tel-Aviv University Sackler Medical School, is one of the co-authors of the newly revised DC- 0 - 5 (TM): Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood
* This book fills this gap in the literature bringing a variety of fields together including infant mental health; infant and child psychiatry; nonverbal movement analysis; and the creative arts therapies
Suzi Tortora, Ed.D, BC-DMT, LCAT, a board-certified dance/movement therapist and specialist in the field of infant mental health and development, has a private dance/movement psychotherapy practice in New York City and Cold Spring, New York. She is the International Medical Creative Arts Spokesperson for the Andrea Rizzo Foundation and senior dance/movement therapist at Integrative Medicine Service Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NYC.
Miri Keren, M.D., a child and adolescent psychiatrist, is the Clinical Assistant Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University, a clinical and research consultant at the Early Childhood Outpatient clinic of Ziv Bar Ilan University, Beit Izi Shapira Center for disabled infants and toddlers, and at the Failure to Thrive unit of the Schneider Hospital for Sick Children. She is the former president of the World Association for Infant Mental Health and Chair of the World Psychiatric Association Perinatal Section.
Title: Dance/Movement Therapy for Infants and Young Children with Medical Illness: Treating Somatic and Psychic Distress (DMT with Infants, Children, Teens and Families)
Author: Tortora, Suzi,Keren, Miri
ISBN: 9780367352608
Binding:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publication Date: 2022-12-30
Number of Pages: 224
Weight: 0.2901 kg
Integrating their shared experiences, the authors, Miri Kiren as an infant psychiatrist and Suzi Tortora as a dance/movement therapist, have put together an extraordinarily valuable text focused on the impact of serious medical illnesses on the development of very young children. Particularly important is the emphasis throughout the book on how very young children's development, both healthy and/or dysfunctional, is fundamentally shaped by non-verbally based physiological, sensory-motor, and affective interchanges between infants and their caregivers, interchanges that are internalized and become deeply embodied in the child's psyche. Building on this fundamental aspect of early development, the authors provide detailed descriptions of the mechanisms underlying young children's vulnerability to medical procedures and the potential immediate and long-term effects, the ways in which parents and medical personnel can help to reduce these potential traumatic effects, and rich descriptions of clinically effective non-verbal dance-movement techniques involving both child and caregiver. This richness of material will apply not only in work with seriously ill young children but with any young child who has experienced trauma. A special treat for every reader, not just those who work with the medically ill but any caregiver of very young children, will be the tables and appendices that describe the huge range of nonverbally based observations that caregivers can utilize to read young children's physical, mental, and emotional states.
Theodore Gaensbauer, MD tgaensbauer@comcast.net
Clinical Professor, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Aurora, Colorado.
Drs. Tortora and Keren offer a very accessible volume here, contributing to the maturation of medical dance/movement therapy (DMT) with specialized applications for this population. The authors' vivid descriptions of clinical sessions are a fabulous introduction to DMT for the reader unfamiliar with this mind-body integrated creative arts therapy discipline. Professional clinicians and graduate students will get close-up insights to how seasoned, intuitive, and expert therapists go about this sensitive, essential work on a moment-to-moment basis. Educators will appreciate how each well-referenced chapter can stand on its own. Theoretically rooted in development, trauma, embodiment, intersubjectivity, and regulation theories and research, integrated with practical models for pediatrics and DMT, the book exemplifies the interdisciplinarity that potentiates all medical DMT and indeed, all good health care delivery.
Sherry Goodill, Ph.D., BC-DMT, NCC, LPC sg35@drexel.edu
Clinical Professor, Department of Creative Arts Therapies, College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University
To begin to understand how significant illness affects infants and children is quite daunting - this work by Dr. Tortora and Dr. Keren is excellent in exploring the intersection of experience and development with the added important insight of how dance/movement therapy can be used to intervene in these situations. I'm glad to know this work now exists, strengthening our understanding of the power of dance and movement.
Nirupa Raghunathan, MD raghunan@mskcc.org
Director, Pediatric Integrative Medicine, Integrative Medicine Service Department of Medicine Memorial Sloan Kettering Center NY, NY
