Dance Therapist, Psychologist

Maria Elena is a psychotherapist,  and was a former vice president of the Professional Association of Italian Dance Movement Therapists from 2008 to 2012. She is a member/supervisor of the Spanish Association for DMT and is a member of the faculty of the Masters Program in DMT, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona and on the faculty of the four year Music Therapy course ,Centro di Educazione Permanente della Citadella, Assisi, Italy.  She has conducted courses for the Conservatory of Rome, Frosinone, L’Aquila, l’Università Roma Tre, the Catholic University of Rome, l’Accademia Nazionale di Danza,  and other institutions.   She has held therapeutic groups at the Comunità Reverie, Rome  for psychiatric patients for several years and  presently has a private practice. She has studied and practiced the discipline of Authentic Movement ( AM) 1991-1999 and teaches AM groups in Spain and Italy.  Co – founder of the Creative Movement- method Garcia-Plevin ( 1993).

BC-DMT, NCC

Marcia’s background has taken her from performing artist, choreographer and dance teacher in New York city, to Italy where, she studied to became a board certified dance movement therapist (DMT), an American board certified counselor and Italian psychologist, to pioneering DMT in Italy, Finland and Turkey. Co –founder in 1993 of the training program Creative movement- method Garcia-Plevin, the book  which describes the training, Creative Movement and Dance has been  published in Italian, French and English.  She received DMT training from Art Therapy Italiana in collaboration with Goldsmith College, University of London with a certification of  art psychotherapist.   She is a senior faculty member and supervisor for the Institute of Expressive   Arts Psychotherapy, Art Therapy Italiana.  Clinical practice in the past 20 years has been with patients recovering from substance abuse, adult psychiatric patients and with hemo-oncological unit patients on the pediatric unit of the Vatican children’s hospital.   Authentic Movement teacher and trainer she has begun and followed groups in Italy, Finland and Turkey. Marcia is a recent member of the faculty of Inspirees DMT programs in China.

PhD in Arts Education

Graduate of Creative Movement, trained in Authentic Movement lineage Janet Adler, Rome. French language teacher, Certificate FSEA1, Lausanne, Switzerland.  Degree disabled persons educator, Lausanne, Switzerland, Theater actress for stage director Jacques Gardel, Lausanne, Switzerland, Jazz singer. Theater actress in the Italian company Potlach, Fara Sabina.  Author, stage director and theater actress in the personal creation „En nous rit l’abîme“ for the French cultural center in Cairo, Egypt. Theater actress in the company TPEL, Lausanne, Switzerland.  Currently French language teacher for foreigners, physical education instructor, theatre stage director, Evolene, Valais, Switzerland.

BC-DMT, Psychologist

Dance therapist

Certified Creative Movement Teacher Garcia-Plevin® Method. Teacher on the Creative Movement Program in Italy, Turkey and at the China Inspirees Institute of Creative Arts Therapy.  Member of the board of the Creative Movement Garcia-Plevin® Method Association (Italy).

Certified Dance Movement Therapist trained at Art Therapy Italiana. Member of APID (Italian Association of Dance Movement Therapy). She has worked with Alzheimer’s disease, psychic, cognitive and relational disturbances in the developmental age and medical DMT (pediatric oncology).

Indian Classical dancer and teacher and a member of the Nrityodhaya Dance Accademy Company of Mumbai (India)

Certified Shiatsu Teacher.

CMA, RSMT, RSME

Karen A. Studd, has a Master’s degree in Dance from University of Oregon and is certified in movement analysis through the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS). Studd is also a Master Somatic Movement Educator and Registered Somatic Movement Therapist through ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association). She is a founding member of WholeMovement, a group of movement analysts working to increase the visibility of the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System (LBMS) worldwide. She serves as a Program Coordinator and core faculty member in multiple movement analysis training programs internationally.  She has taught LBMS in the US, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Israel and China. In the USA she has taught for the University of Oregon, the University of Wisconsin, George Washington University, The University of Maryland and George Mason University in its School of Dance, where she was a tenured faculty for over twenty years.

As a teacher of LBMS, she is focused on both personal and professional development through movement awareness training. Her primary interest is in promoting the understanding of the significance and importance of human movement across all disciplines. Studd is also an author who has contributed to multiple research papers focused on human movement linked to the LBMS.  She is a co-author of EveryBody is a Body, a text on the phenomenon of human movement now in its second edition. She also writes blog posts for the WholeMovement website which can be found at: https://wholemovement.org/blog/

CMA, RSME

Catherine (Cat) Maguire is a movement educator and dance artist. She is a master teacher of the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System (LBMS) and a Certified Movement Analyst (CMA), having taught and co-coordinated movement analysis certification training programs in the US, Europe, Mexico, and China. Maguire is a Master Somatic Movement Educator (MSME) through the International Somatic and Movement Education Association (ISMETA) as well as a faculty member of WholeMovement, a coterie of movement analysts working together to promote movement studies globally. She has co-authored four papers on expressive robotic systems and a paper on movement notation as a cross-cultural tool in movement education taught in translation. She is the co-author with Dr. Amy LaViers of Making Meaning with Machines: Somatic Strategies, Choreographic Technologies and Notational Abstractions through a Laban/Bartenieff Lens (2023) published by MIT Press. She was the founder and artistic director of Offspring Dance Company in New York City and the founder and head of the dance program at Drew University in Madison, NJ as well as assistant professor of dance at Piedmont Virginia Community College, where she developed the associate’s degree program in dance.  She lives in central Virginia where she teaches ongoing movement classes (The Articulate Body) designed to foster self-expression, body connectivity and transformation through movement at McGuffey Art Center, and the company advisor for Deep Water Moves Dance Company, in Charlottesville, VA.

PhD, CMA

Alexandra’s experiences in education include teaching and assessing adult learners on LIMS programmes with Moving Forth (Scotland) and with Agape (Belgium) (2012-16). She has been facilitating LBMS re-patterning and performance consulting in private practice one-to-one, and in group workshops and public classes since 2011. She has taught for Shapes in Motion Movement Academy, Parkour Generations, and for the Laban Guild, and for professional contemporary dance communities at Independent Dance, and Trip Space, London (UK), and for the Michael Douglas Kollectiv (Germany). She has led introduction courses in LBMS in Edinburgh, London (UK, in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and in Belgrade (Serbia). She has taught movement, dance, devising and physical theatre in Universities in the UK including Rose Bruford drama school, Middlesex University, Edge Hill University and Sheffield Hallam University. In 2017, she co-mentored four young choreographers as part of the FIND Festival residency, Cagliari (Italy). She has worked extensively with Barefoot Opera company as a movement coach. Alexandra has worked with actors individually and during production/rehearsal with London-based theatre companies Sharklegs, UNTitled Productions, Molino Group, Hobo Theatre, Theatre Delicatessen, Bread and Goose, and Lab Collective.

CMA, R-DMT, RSMT, RSME

Cheryl Clark, Certified Movement Analyst (CMA), Body-Mind Centering Practitioner, BMC®, Registered Somatic Movement Therapist/Educator, RSMT/E, is a senior teacher and former director of education at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. She currently teaches at College for the Performing Arts at The New School University and Wagner College. She has performed with various New York artists and nationally; she choreographed and taught across many performance modalities dance, theater and opera. Her choreography for Romeo and Juliet was cited in the New York Times as “joyous.” She has taught at numerous institutions either as staff or guest artist. A partial list includes: Marymount Manhattan College, Barnard College, Drew University, Hebrew Union University, Mannes School of Music, The Atlantic Theater Company, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Wagner College and School for Film and Television International teaching/presenting includes: Theaterzwang Festival in Dortmund, Germany. Shanghai, China; she currently teaches the Laban work in Taiwan for the Taiwan Dance Research Society. She completed the Dance Movement Therapy program at Pratt Institute in May 2019 and is finishing her thesis, Moving Space/Moving Mind which explores the relationship between dance movement and plasticity of the mind for persons with dementia.

BC-DMT, NCC

Marcia’s background has taken her from performing artist, choreographer and dance teacher in New York city, to Italy where, she studied to became a board certified dance movement therapist (DMT), an American board certified counselor and Italian psychologist, to pioneering DMT in Italy, Finland and Turkey. Co –founder in 1993 of the training program Creative movement- method Garcia-Plevin, the book  which describes the training, Creative Movement and Dance has been  published in Italian, French and English.  She received DMT training from Art Therapy Italiana in collaboration with Goldsmith College, University of London with a certification of  art psychotherapist.   She is a senior faculty member and supervisor for the Institute of Expressive   Arts Psychotherapy, Art Therapy Italiana.  Clinical practice in the past 20 years has been with patients recovering from substance abuse, adult psychiatric patients and with hemo-oncological unit patients on the pediatric unit of the Vatican children’s hospital.   Authentic Movement teacher and trainer she has begun and followed groups in Italy, Finland and Turkey. Marcia is a recent member of the faculty of Inspirees DMT programs in China.

BC-DMT, Psychologist

MS, BC-DMT, LCAT

Joan is an established dance therapist in US. She is currently the Director of Graduate Dance/Movement Therapy Program in the Graduate Creative Arts Therapy Department, at Pratt Institute. Joan has 24 years of clinical experience and 16 years of teaching experience. She served on the Approval Committee of the ADTA from 2005 till 2010. Joan made a significant contribution in the effort to get creative arts therapy as a professional licensed in New York State. Her work has been recognized with an Outstanding Service Award from the ADTA in 2002 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Art Therapy Association in 2003. Since 2010, Joan has been involved with the dance therapy training program development in China with Inspirees, and has travelled often to China to teach in our professional courses as well as many workshops.

PhD, Professor, University of Hertfordshire，R-DMP

Professor Helen Payne, PhD; UKCP; Fellow and Reg. dance movement psychotherapist ADMP UK pioneered DMP in the UK leading the professional association, first post graduate accredited training, research and publications. She is trained in Laban Dance/Movement Analysis, Person-Centered Counselling, Group Analysis, conducts research, supervises PhDs, teaches and examines at doctorate level nationally/internationally. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief for the international peer reviewed journal ‘Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy’ (BMDP) (Taylor & Francis). Trained with Adler in the Discipline of Authentic Movement 1992-2000 she offers it as psychotherapy and as teacher training. She adapted it for supporting people in the health service with medically unexplained symptoms and has conducted extensive research on the model. Current publications include ‘Essentials in dance movement psychotherapy’ and the Routledge Handbook of Dance Movement and Body Psychotherapies’. She is currently compiling a monograph of her publications on authentic movement, the most recent is ‘Nature connectedness and the discipline of authentic movement’ (free to download BMDP). H.L.Payne@herts.ac.uk

PhD, BC-DMT, MFT

Tina Stromsted, Ph.D., MFT, LPCC, BC-DMT, RSME/T is a Jungian psychoanalyst, Board Certified Dance/Movement therapist, Somatic psychotherapist, author and educator. Past co-founder and faculty of the Authentic Movement Institute, she delivers keynotes internationally, teaches and supervises psychotherapists and Authentic Movement practitioners in many parts of the world, and has co-facilitated programs with Joan Chodorow, Janet Adler, and Marion Woodman.

Currently she teaches at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, the Depth Psychology/Somatics Doctoral program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, the Jung Platform, and as a core faculty member for the Marion Woodman Foundation.

Founder and director of Soul’s Body Center®, her work supports the development of embodied consciousness. With 45 years of clinical experience and a background in dance and theatre, her numerous publications and webinars explore the integration of body, psyche, soul, culture, community, and nature in healing and transformation. Her private psychotherapy practice is in San Francisco, with international virtual consultation.

Professor, Program Director

Vivien Speiser is the Co-Director and Professor Emerita of the Institute for Arts and Health in The Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University. She is also a Distinguished Research Associate in the Drama for Life Program at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is a licensed mental health counselor, a dance therapist and an expressive arts therapist and educator. Her work has allowed her unparalleled access to working with groups across the United States, Israel and internationally.

She has used the arts as a way of communicating across borders and across cultures and believes in the power of the arts to create the conditions for personal and social change and transformation. As former founder and director of the Arts Institute Project in Israel, she has been influential in the development of Expressive Arts Therapy in that country. Her current interests are in working with communities under duress,  trauma through the arts,  and cross-cultural conflict transformation. She is a co-editor of The Arts, Education and Social Change: Little Signs of Hope, published by Peter Lang.

Dr Speiser has taught throughout the world and believes in the use of the arts as a way of communicating across borders and across cultures. She believes in the power of the arts to create the conditions for personal and social change and transformation. Her interests and expertise lie in the areas of working with communities under duress through an integrated arts approach. Many of her publications are grounded in her work with trauma and cross-cultural conflict resolution through the arts. In addition, she is an expert in the creation and performance of ‘rites of passage rituals’ and in the use of performance in expressive therapy practice.

Her contributions to the field have made her an international leader in dance and expressive therapy, and most recently earned her Fulbright Scholar Awards in 2020 and 2023 as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Journal of Applied Arts and Health in 2019. Other awards include the 2014 Distinguished Fellows Award from the Global Alliance for Arts and Health and a 2015 Honorary Fellow Lifetime Achievement award from the Israeli Expressive and Creative Arts Therapy Association (ICET).

PhD, REAT, BC-RDT

Dr. Philip Speiser is an expressive arts educator/therapist, drama therapist, and psychodramatist who has developed and implemented integrated arts therapy and educational programs for children, adolescents and families for over four decades. He is currently Director of Parkside Arts and Health Associates in Boston Massachusetts.

He has served as director at the Arbour Counseling Partial Hospitalization Program in Norwell, MA and also the founding director of the arts therapy department at Whittier Street Health Center, Boston. He has worked and developed programs with individuals and groups in conflict around the globe.

After 9/11 he developed and implemented the Healing Arts Program, an arts-based ‘trauma recovery/prevention’ program in Boston and New York City.

In the early 1990’s he was a founding member of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association and served as co-chair. During the 1980’s he lived in Sweden and did pioneering work in the field of Expressive Arts & Expressive Arts Therapy throughout Scandinavia. Phil is a senior lecturer at Lesley University, Cambridge MA & research associate at Drama For Life, University of the Witwatersrand, SA.  He has taught at numerous colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. He has worked extensively within the fields of mental health, special education, arts and medicine/health/disabilities and conflict transformation.

PhD, LCAT, CMFT

Dr. Michal Lev is a board-certified art therapist, supervisor, and a certified family psychotherapist. Her clinical practice included inpatient and outpatient treatments for adults with mental health issues. In her established private practice for couples and families Michal incorporates expressive therapies to deal with intimacy issues and promote wellbeing.

Michal is a faculty lecturer at the graduate art therapy program at Ono Academic College–ASA in Israel, advising students in their seminar thesis and promoting art-based pedagogy and research. Her published research and presentations focus on intimacy, art-based research, and creative process-oriented pedagogy.

Dr. Lev is the head of the approval committee for YAHAT – the Expressive Therapies Organization in Israel since 2016, supporting public legislation for expressive therapies. As a social activist, artist, and entrepreneur, she maintains artmaking for innovation, inquiry and knowledge within business environments.

PhD, REAT

Keren Barzilay-Shechter is an expressive therapist specializing in psychodrama. For more than 25 years Keren has worked with children, adolescents, adults and elderly in different settings, such as community clinics, schools and mental hospitals. She is part of the “Artsbridge institute” where she is working with Israeli and Palestinian youth on the mission of fostering understanding of the lived experience of “the other”. In her doctoral studies she was researching the role of the defenses in the Israeli psyche within the context of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. Keren is an adjunct faculty at the Expressive Therapies program at Lesley University where she teaches grad students different courses including Principles and Practices of Expressive Therapy, Theory and Practice of Group Work, Arts and Human Development, Symbolic Process in Psychotherapy and Power, Privilege and Oppression in Clinical Practice. She also teaches at Williams James College and at Cambridge College.

PhD, REAT

Associate Professor in the Counseling Department.  Dr. AlAjarma earned his Ph.D. in Expressive Therapies Lesley University, Cambridge, MA.  He has been a counselor educator at William James College since 2010. Dr. AlAjarma’s approach to teaching and advising facilitates the development of a counselor identity for students, and he continues to mentor and collaborate with students upon graduation from the program. Dr.AlAjarma is a registered Expressive Arts Therapist and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. His areas of professional interest include the application of arts to teaching and to psychotherapy practice, resilience and trauma, family and couples therapy, and conflict transformation. In addition, he worked as an Expressive Arts Therapist and a Mental Health counselor with many trauma survivors in Palestine and has held positions with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, Les Médicins du Monde (Doctors of the World), the Palestinian Ministry of Education and many other NGOs. For the last four years Dr.AlAjarma has been providing pro bono mental health counseling services to the Muslim and the Arab community in the Boston Area. Dr.AlAjarma is a member of the American Counseling Association. He is also the Executive co-chair of the  Board of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association now.

Professor, REAT

Mitchell Kossak is a professor in the Expressive Therapies program at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has worked as an expressive arts therapist since 1983 and has been a licensed clinical counselor,since 1994. He was the President/Executive Co-Chair for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association and is the Associate Editor of The Journal of Applied Arts and Health. Dr. Kossak is also a professional musician performing for over 30 years in the Boston area. He is the author of Attunement in Expressive Arts Therapy: Toward an understanding of embodied empathy.

Associate Professor

Professor, BC-DMT

Linda Cao is board certified dance movement therapist, Licensed clinical professional counselor, working as professor and deputy director of Creative Arts Therapy Center for School of Arts & Communication, Beijing Normal University. Prior to her current position, Linda worked as director of center for expressive therapy, Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital. With background of growing up and teaching in China, Linda has researched and applied traditional Chinese healing approach in DMT practice for many years. Linda has presented in many conferences and written book “Entering Dance Movement Therapy ” in Chinese language published by China People University Press in 2019.

Professor, PhD

Dr Irle Goldman has teaching and examination experience in a wide variety of clinical teaching courses including psychopathology, developmental psychology, arts and human development, group and individual supervison, and theories of psychotherapy. As a licensed clinical psychologist he has practiced in the field for nearly 45 years and has considerable understanding of developmental psychology and childhood psychopathology and this expertise will be brought to bear upon the developmental theory which will be expounded upon in the thesis. In addition he has the clinical expertise to evaluate the clinical aspects of any proposed clinical intervention.

PhD, EMDR

Giselle Ruzany Ph.D. is a Brazilian American artist, choreographer, and psychotherapist. She is currently working as a full-time dance professor at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design. She has a master in Somatic Psychology with a concentration in Dance/Movement Therapy from Naropa University, advanced post-graduate certifications in Gestalt Therapy and EMDR, and a Ph.D. in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley University. She works through embodied movement research and is interested in how the somatic world informs psychology and dance. She is a published writer and has presented workshops and performed dance works all over the world. Her personal mission is to co-create embodied relational connection through artistic collaboration, promoting equanimity and inclusivity, and being an ally to all nationalities, race, gender, sexual orientation, body ability, and divergence.

Professor, BC-DMT, REAT, CMA, CGP

Prof Rainbow T. H. Ho, PhD, BC-DMT, REAT, AThR, RSMT, CMA, CGP, is the Professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, and Director of the Centre on Behavioral Health, the University of Hong Kong. She holds degrees in Biology, Anatomy, Social Work and Social Administration, professional diplomas in performing arts and movement analysis, dance teaching and somatic movement therapy. She has been working as a researcher, psychotherapist, teacher and artist for many years and received many international academic and research awards.

Program Director

DAVID LEVENTHAL (Program Director and founding teacher) leads classes for people with Parkinson’s disease around the world and trains other teachers in the Dance for PD® approach. Since 2007, he has trained more than 1,500 teachers in the Dance for PD® approach in 25 cities around the world. He’s co-produced three volumes of a successful At Home DVD series for the program and has been instrumental in initiating and designing innovative projects involving live streaming and Moving Through Glass, a dance-based Google Glass App for people with Parkinson’s. He received the 2018 Martha Hill Mid-Career Award, the 2016 World Parkinson Congress Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Parkinson’s Community and was a co-recipient, with Olie Westheimer, of the 2013 Alan Bonander Humanitarian Award from the Parkinson’s Unity Walk. He has written about dance and Parkinson’s for such publications as Dance Gazette and Room 217, and has a chapters about the program in Moving Ideas: Multimodal Learning in Communities and Schools (Peter Lang), and Creating Dance: A Traveler’s Guide (Hampton Press). He is in demand as a speaker at international conferences and symposiums, and has spoken about the intersection of dance, Parkinson’s and health at the Lincoln Center Global Exchange, Edinburgh International Culture Summit, University of Michigan, Rutgers, Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Brown, Stanford, Columbia, Georgetown, Tufts, and Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège (Belgium), among others. He serves on the boards of the Davis Phinney Foundation and the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Arts and Humanities Program, as well as the Dance & Creative Wellness Foundation. He’s participated in the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Emerging Leaders Boot Camp and the American Express Leadership Academy. Leventhal designed and currently teaches a pioneering dance-based elective course that is part of the Narrative Medicine curriculum at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons; he teaches a similar course at NYU School of Medicine. He’s featured in the award-winning 2014 documentary Capturing Grace directed by Dave Iverson. As a dancer, he performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group from 1997-2011, appearing in principal roles in Mark Morris’ The Hard Nut, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare. He received a 2010 Bessie (New York Dance and Performance Award) for his performing career with Mark Morris. He graduated from Brown University with honors in English Literature.

Program Director, DfPD Australia

Erica Rose Jeffrey believes in the power of movement connected to positive social change. Involved in multiple communities, she has worked internationally as a performer, choreographer, educator, arts leader, facilitator and guest speaker. Erica Rose has taught for the San Francisco Ballet, Luna Dance Institute and directed Marin Dance Theatre’s Let’s All Dance! Outreach program. In addition to performing, she co-directed the dance company COUNTERPOINTE. The first dancer to be selected as a Rotary World Peace Fellow, she completed a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland. Erica Rose continues to investigate the connections of dance, empathy and peace as a PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology. As a Director of Peace and Conflict Studies Institute Australia (PaCSIA), she is currently engaged in community level peacebuilding projects in Australia and internationally. Erica Rose is also the Director for Dance for Parkinson’s Australia and through working in collaboration with the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dance for PD® program, she was instrumental in bringing Dance for Parkinson’s to Australia and launching classes nationwide.

Engagement Manager

Maria is Dance for PD’s Programs and Engagement Manager and has supported the New York City based flagship program since 2011. She created a Volunteer Training Program, and has co-facilitated Introductory Training and Professional Development workshops for dance teachers, movement experts, and medical professionals, and developed Theater Movement for PD for the Brooklyn Parkinson Group community. Maria acted as production assistant for three volumes of a successful At Home DVD series for Dance for PD, and has been instrumental in supporting innovative projects involving live-streaming and Moving Through Glass, a dance-based Google Glass App for people with Parkinson’s. She has represented the program at various panels and events, including Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health Arts in Aging, the Lincoln Center Global Exchange, and the World Parkinson Congress, and was invited to co-facilitate an art and entrepreneurial residency with The Amahoro Dance Troupe of Gisenyi, Rwanda. She is a former dancer with the Louisville Ballet, Susana B. Williams Modern Dance Company, and Ballet Español, and has performed as an actor with Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, among others. In collaboration with The Bushwick Starr, where she worked as General Manager for four years, she co-created classroom curriculum for Big Green Theater, their environmental education initiative. Maria holds a BFA from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Medgar Evers College. She was selected by the New York Foundation for the Arts as an Emerging Leader, and is pursuing an MA in Disability Studies from CUNY School of Professional Studies.

PBSP Program Director

Michael Bachg, Certified PBSP Therapist, Supervisor, & Trainer. PBSP-Trainer and Coordinator for PBSP-Trainings,  Institut für Fort- und Weiterbildung in PBSP und feeling-seen. Diplom-Psychologe, Psychologischer Psychotherapeut und Kinder- und Jugendlichenpsychotherapeut. Diplom-Psychologe, Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster.

Michael offers and teaches PBSP in his private practice, the PBSP Institute and in other institutions. As a humanistic based method it helps him to assist Individuals, groups and organizations in the ongoing process of growing and developing. He appreciates the basic assumption that accurate interaction with the outside world is the foundation of the development of the true self. By that, personal development is always embedded into the world of interpersonal relationships to other human beings. That leads to a mature form of autonomy in which we see and experience our self as one among others, brothers and sisters, who share responsibility for the integrity of creation. By integrating PBSP into his work with children and families, which he has for more than 25 years, Michael created a complete new form of body-oriented child and family therapy which he called Feeling-Seen. His special interests and expertise are leading workshops and training groups in PBSP and Feeling-Seen, research,  and creating new products.

PBSP Senior Trainer

Gus Kaufman, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, has lectured and taught around the world. He is a senior trainer (since the late 1970’s) in Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor therapy, a powerful, gentle, body-based method of emotional re-education and healing (see Ch. 18 of The Body Keeps the Score.) Gus has used this in work with groups as various as teens in trouble at a residential school in Massachusetts, people in chronic pain and other therapists seeking personal growth.

Gus sees individuals, groups, couples and families and trains other therapists. A lover of nature and people, Gus has co-founded five non-profit organizations and published many chapters and articles on abuse, healing via body-based interventions, gender and sexual orientation, and other topics.