"Chris, What exactly do you do?"... (part 1)
(and what are all those letters after your name?)
Uh oh...If people are asking this question, I realize: 1. I'm getting people's attention (ok, that's good), but 2. I need to get CLEAR about my purpose, passions and my vision for my business! Hopefully this blog post will be a good start toward this end, and I invite you to leave comments, "like" and share posts if you like'em. I'm also very interested if you have suggestions, want to know more about anything shared here.Ok, so this is me: For the past 15 years, I've worked as a Dance/Movement Therapist. In college, I was a psychology and sociology major with a dance minor. A few years later, I attended graduate school for Dance/Movement Therapy. My particular graduate program had a strong mental health counseling component. Therefore, we were trained in both verbal and nonverbal modes of assessment, diagnosis, and intervention with the client populations that we serve. Here is the definition from the American Dance Therapy Association Website:
Dance/movement therapists focus on movement behavior as it emerges in the therapeutic relationship. Expressive, communicative, and adaptive behaviors are used for group and individual treatment.
Body movement, as the core component of dance, simultaneously provides the means of assessment and the mode of intervention for dance/movement therapy.
BC-DMT:
For the last 10 years, I've been a BC-ADTR, or a Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT), which is the advanced level of dance/movement therapy practice. The BC-DMT signifies both the second level of competence for the profession and the individual’s preparedness to provide training and supervision in dance/movement therapy and engage in private practice.
LCAT, LMHC:
About 6 or 7 years ago, New York State licensed Creative Arts Therapists, Marriage and Family Therapists, Psychoanalysts, and Mental Health Counselors. Since 2005, I am a licensed provider in both Creative Arts Therapy and Mental Health Counseling. To learn more about these licensed professions and to verify a license go to: http://www.op.nysed.gov/prof/mhp/catbroch.htm
I currently work in private practice in Syracuse, NY @ Creative Arts Counseling and Consulting and @ Centre Syracuse--a partial hospital setting for eating disordered clients. Creative Arts Counseling and Consulting offers individual, group, parent/child creative arts therapy and mental health counseling. I also offer workshops on a variety of mental health topics, and my website will explain these services in detail: http://www.christinematteson.com
Ok, so what is "Creating Your Health"?
"Creating Your Health" is the name of my blog, and business. Creative Arts Counseling and Consulting (my private psychotherapy practice) is one leg of my business.
I started this blog a few years ago, after I had a serious health crisis, as a way to communicate about my process of healing. I posted a bit about this experience in previous blog posts.
Some of the main components involved in creating my health after this crisis were:
1. yoga and meditation
2. my knowledge and use of creative arts therapy as a modality for transformation and healing.
3. reading "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom" by Dr. Christiane Northrup and becoming a member of Team Northrup.
4. Learning about USANA Health Sciences, using their superior quality nutritional products, and then becoming an independent distributor for the company.
5. Reading and studying several books on mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, and Deepak Chopra (to name a few). Continuing to study the mind/body/spirit connection with regards to stress management and healing from physical illness.
So, besides the blog, what are the services, products offered by "Creating Your Health"? Creating Your Health offers the following products, services:
... stay turned for "Chris, What exactly do you do?"... (part 2)
