The interviewer: Arabella received her B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University, completed one-year’s M.A. coursework in clinical psychology, and spent many years in business management.  A Buddhist student and practitioner for thirteen years, Arabella has written a book on Buddhist reform that is in its final editing stages.

Arabella: Where and how did your passion for dance – and for dance as therapy – arise?

Christina: First of all, dance has been a part of my life – always. I grew up taking all types of dancing lessons, and I went to college as an undergraduate and studied psychology.  I knew that movement needed to also be a part of my life there, and so I minored in dance. 

My parents used to joke with me and say, “Our daughter’s going to be a dancing therapist!”  Little did they know that there actually was such a thing!

So, I think the passion for movement was always present for me in my life as well as my passion for connection with people.  And I knew I wanted to study to become a therapist.

There was an incident that drew me to this field that I initially didn’t know existed.  Once I knew it existed, I was very excited!

My mother, an instructor in Art History at a community college, took me to the end-of-the-year dance production at her school.  To my surprise, the first piece was not with the trained dancers as I had anticipated, but with developmentally disabled adults that were dancing on the stage.  Initially, I was very disappointed because I had come to see technical dancers doing giant leaps and fantastic turns and I was surprised as to what the piece really was.  However, what I saw on the stage was how the adults transformed and were no longer developmentally disabled adults; they were movers that used imagery and explored relationships and levels, and pathways.  This opened my lens to the healing and transformative aspects of dance.  Also, a modern dance instructor in college was talking to me one day and said “you know there is this ‘thing’ called dance therapy, you might want to check it out.”  Ironically, around this time, I was applying to all kinds of graduate programs, and attended a workshop in Cleveland with Dianne Dulicai, a dance therapist.  When I was there, I hung onto every word she said, my body was buzzing with excitement.  I knew this was the right field for me.

Arabella: Kind of, almost, a transmission.

Christina: Yeah, definitely.  For sure! 

Arabella: What kinds of growth have you seen in clients as a result of dance/movement therapy?

Christina: Well, I work primarily with children now.  And I really love that work.  I’ve seen a lot of growth in their ability to use a modality to express their underlying feelings that is already natural for them.  You know, it’s so easy for kids to run, jump, twist, turn, crawl, leap, burrow, roll, and also it takes them back to a real non-verbal place where sometimes there aren’t any words to express feelings that are going on inside.  I feel like the movement – I’ll use movement interchangeably with dance a lot because I think they’re synonymous – allows the children and the clients to connect on a very different level with the therapist and with another human being…to develop a deeper level of trust.

I’ve seen clients be able to get close to another person, to be able to trust.  I’ve felt them experience an authenticity of expression.  I’ve seen them become more comfortable in their skin, in their bodies.  I’ve seen them make connections with things they weren’t even aware were there. 

I’ve expanded my work with autistic children now, and that’s really different work.  I’m seeing them develop relationships and come out of their isolated worlds – come out of their inner world and connect to the outer world. 

Arabella: Are there some basic exercises that you could suggest to us for how to apply dance/movement toward personal growth?

Christina: I think I’d like to clarify first that dance/movement therapy isn’t about steps and activities and a particular stylized dance.  It’s really about the use of movement and attunement and the space between the therapist and the client that are the healing aspects.  We use movement as an assessment tool and as the primary medium for connection.  So, it’s hard for me to give specific exercises.  But, the more one can experience being in the body – and dance therapy is primarily for increasing expression – the more you can become expressive through your body, I think that in itself is a valuable outlet.  You know, there are times with me where I feel, “Gosh, I really need more structure.  So, I’m going to take a ballet class!”  And that, sort of, lines me up.  Or, I need to be more free, so I might be in a modern class.  Or, I need a little more spunk, so I’ll take a jazz class.  Or, I need some introspection, and yoga supports that. I think that the more one can be expressive in their body, and through movement and dance, I think that allows you to have access to a broader vocabulary and become more verbally expressive. 

Arabella: As Visiting Assistant Professor to the Department of Creative Arts Therapy at Pratt Institute, what are you learning about your most essential tools for teaching?

Christina: Hmmm.  Well, I have a beautiful, a really wonderful opportunity in the course that I’m teaching.  I’m teaching Supervision – and supporting the students in integrating their coursework into their clinical internship. So, I get to have a unique relationship with my students and play an important role in the formative years of their clinical training.  I work with material emerging for them in their clinical internships, as well as what’s coming up for them personally, as the teaching tool. 

I think, essentially, my skills as a therapist, my wonderful teachers and mentors that I’ve had above me, have really taught me how to listen with a third ear.  You know, to really hear what’s happening underneath what the clients are sharing with the students.  But also helping them to expand their own lens and looking deeper within themselves and how they are relating!

I really loved the work that we did at SBGI with attachment and intersubjective literature, as an underlying philosophy and base.  The teaching there has been very valuable to me in helping students understand their relationships in working with the clients.

I think, though, that my most important tool that I’m using is myself, and my ability to just drop and be.  It is the essence of attunement. I’m learning a lot from the students in experiencing how to guide them with blinders on.  I’m teaching Supervision, but my students are distance learners.  So, they’re all over the country, which means that a lot of my teaching happens over the phone and on the internet!  That has been a new experience for me, to develop a relationship with a student that you haven’t met!  You’re hearing their voice and you have to work with their energy!  You’re having to really form a relationship via technology and that’s challenging!  But it often parallels the work that they’re doing with clients, which is a nonverbal relationship.

Arabella: Do you find any movement within the verbal communication?

Christina: Oh, absolutely.  Absolutely.  When I’m talking with students, I’ll have flashes of images.  Sometimes I’ll say, “You know, what you’re saying to me is reminding me of…” I have a tendency to always see the movement and images in the communication.

I had one student who was really struggling with diving in and getting started with her internship.  She was having a lot of ambivalence about her internship and her experience – and we talked about swimming.  What does she like to do?  Does she dive right in, does she sink her toe in slowly and go in, does she jump in feet first?  So, I said, “Go to the pool.  And I want you to experience different ways of entry.”

And it was so valuable for me to just listen to her, and I hear the movement underneath the struggle. So we used the image to create the action. 

Arabella: You are also on the Board of Directors of the American Dance Therapy Association.  What visions do you have for that organization?

Christina: We just did a whole week, in October actually, on visioning.  Boy, I just love that field so much.  There’s so much in the psychology world right now that’s buzzing about the body and how valuable the body is in therapy.  And we, as dance therapists, have certainly known this for years!  So, it’s beautiful to see it exploding and how science is really validating the work!  So, I envision for the organization that we ride the train and become leaders and pioneers and are in the public eye so that it’s a little more understood.  There’s a lot of misconception with the field.  People think dance/movement therapy means ballet solves your problems!  And it’s not at all that!  So, there’s a lot of education that goes along with it.

Arabella: What’s your most concise way of describing dance/movement therapy?

Christina:  Good question.  It is a form of psychotherapy that uses dance and movement – structured and unstructured – as the tool for healing.  

Arabella: Great! 

The Andrea Rizzo Foundation is another organization that has caught your interest.  Could you tell us about the work of its members?

Christina: Well, it’s a beautiful story, actually.  It’s an organization that was founded by a mother who lost her daughter, Andrea Rizzo, who was killed by a drunk driver.  Andrea was a special education teacher who worked with special needs children and she was a childhood survivor of cancer.  She had dreamed of becoming a dance therapist and bringing dance to children with special needs and with cancer.  She started taking courses at N.Y.U. but was prematurely killed before she could bring her dream to life. 

Her mother, Susan Rizzo Vincent – an amazing, powerful, and wonderful woman who I love – created this Foundation in memory of her daughter.  She has single handedly brought dance/movement therapy into the world renowned research hospital, Memorial-Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City – working with children with cancer – as well as brought dance/movement therapy into public schools with children who have special needs.

I’m so fortunate to be a part of her daughter’s dream.  I’m working in a public school, in special education classrooms with children with autism.  And it’s been a phenomenal experience for me.  I’m growing as a dance therapist and as a human being!  It’s really powerful!  And also, I’m being a part of the vision that Susan had for her daughter. 

Arabella: Your degree is in prenatal and perinatal psychology and not somatic psychology. 

Christina:  Ah ha!  I knew that would be a question!

Arabella: From your dance, I would have thought somatics! 

Christina: Right!

Arabella: But, you have also worked quite a bit with children.  So, what is the connection between prenatal and perinatal psychology and dance therapy, or how have you linked them?

Christina: Well, the reason that I was drawn to Pre- and Perinatal – initially, I was thinking of going into the Somatic Program – was that I had a client that I worked with, at a former job, who was born prenatally exposed to cocaine.  What I noticed in his body, when we would move together, was that he couldn’t allow himself to become passive and mold and shape his body in another way or into an object.  It was as if he was always in a startle response. 

During our work together he would crawl under giant piles of pillows, and he would stuff himself in these pillows, and he would stay there for a long period of time – almost to the point where I thought, “Hmmm, I wonder if he’s asleep?!”  So, I’d sit beside him when he was under these pillows and just be with him and then comment “I wonder what is going to happen next.”  Then I would sit, and wait, and wait.  Then all of a sudden, he would pop out – very quickly and very rapidly…just POP!  What I noticed, after he did this over and over and over, was that something was happening for him energetically in his body that happened in an area that I couldn’t explain from my training.  I saw that I needed to expand my lens.  I had a sense that something had happened to him pre-verbally, that it wasn’t safe for him in the womb and it wasn’t safe for him out of the womb.  When he was born, he went into convulsions. 

So, that drew me to exploring the earlier period.  My work with him organically emerged into working with this prenatal wonderment. We worked on rolling up against soft, containing edges; we created a warm, cozy environment that allowed him to crawl in and out.  We worked with transitions from the inner environment to the outer environment, slowing the pace down so that the experience appeared to become less abrupt and more integrated.

It was my work with this client that catapulted me into looking at the prenatal world.  I felt very comfortable in my dance therapy training, and that wasn’t an area that I wanted to expand as much.  I really wanted to expand my lens in the non-verbal world and how the early experiences and imprints shape us.  So, I feel like I’ve been able to do that!

Also, when I felt torn between both programs, I had a conversation with SBGI’s Dr. Marti Glenn.  She said, very simply, “Well, read through the coursework of each program and pay attention to how your body feels.”  I thought, “If that is how they approach learning, then that makes me feel very comfortable!”  So I followed this advice and when I read through the courses and the course descriptions, my body buzzed when I was reading the prenatal and perinatal coursework.

Arabella: Did your studies at SBGI help you to clarify your direction?

Christina: Yeah, I feel like I’ve expanded my lens, which is what I wanted.  I’m continuing to work as a dance/movement therapist – which is what I love – but I’m looking at things with an expanded lens.  I’m looking at how even our earliest moments of our life – even the energy of conception – has made an impact.  I don’t think a lot of therapists consider this at all!  When I do bring it to their attention, it’s as though they’d never thought of it before!

Arabella: What do you do as a child witness counselor – helping those who were victims of, or witnesses to, domestic violence – and what has it taught you?

Christina: My title is child witness counselor because this is a program in a domestic violence agency that services women, children, and families that are in domestic violence situations however, I provide dance/movement therapy in my sessions.  I work primarily with children and families and even with some mother-child dyads. This has been practically exciting as I support their attachment relationship through the movement modality.  I’m supporting them in processing their experiences of being in an unsafe environment, in trusting other adults, in facing fears and challenges that come up with living in a domestic violence situation – and along with these situations there is a lot of trauma. Domestic violence, to me, is a symptom of trauma. 

I’ve been in transition for this year, since I moved from California to New York, so I’m creating space for myself again.  I’ve got my office set up in a way that allows the children to feel comfortable and provides me a space to work with them in a way that meets their needs.  I’ve enjoyed this agency, as the environment feels very healthy and supported, and the staff is so open to learning new ways of knowing, about the integration of the body as well as how even our earliest prenatal experiences have shaped our being.