Mind Your Body

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Rena Kornblum is the creator of an internationally known bullying and violence prevention curriculum. Rena incorporates movement behavior, body knowledge, multicultural awareness, and creative social skills as interventions and resolutions for violence and bullying in and out of school classrooms. Rena shares challenging and rewarding moments from her work with children that we can all relate and apply to our lives as adults.

Visit www.mindyourbodydmt.com

Rena Kornblum, MCAT, BC-DMT, DTRL, brings over thirty-five years of professional experience as a dance/movement therapist to her therapy and prevention work. Ms. Kornblum obtained a Masters in Creative Arts in Therapy from Hahnemann Medical College (now Drexel University,) is a board certified dance/movement therapist, and is licensed in the state of Wisconsin to practice psychotherapy specifically through the expressive arts therapies. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Dance Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she coordinates an undergraduate certificate program in Dance/Movement Therapy. Ms. Kornblum developed the children and family program at Hancock Center for Dance/Movement Therapy, and co-ordinates Hancock Center’s in-school program in which she provides therapy sessions for children dealing with trauma as well as violence prevention classes for entire classrooms. Rena has written a book called Disarming the Playground, Violence Prevention Through Movement and Pro-Social Skills. Rena received the 2002 Wisconsin Dance Council Research and Journalism Award, the 2005 Distinguished Service Award by the Wisconsin Alliance for Arts Education, the 2009 American Dance Therapy Association Excellence in Education Award, the 2013 Unsung Hero Award by NAMI (National Alliance in Mental Illness, the 2014 Honored Instructor Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the 2016 Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI) /First Wave Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award for supporting student’s overall success, both inside and outside of the classroom. Rena has been doing workshops and trainings on her work around the country and internationally on her work in dance/movement therapy with children in general, with children dealing with trauma, on family therapy, and on her Embodied Violence Prevention and Pro-Social Skills curriculum.

Joan Wittig, MS, BC-DMT, LCAT talks about the significance of using movement in psychotherapy for people struggling with depression. Joan describes movement as a bridge from body to mind that allows people to access deeply held feelings and ultimately gain powerful insights about the origins of their depression.

Joan Wittig began her career as a dance/movement therapist at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, where she worked in inpatient psychiatry for 6 ½ years before becoming the director of the Creative Arts Therapy Department. She left Woodhull to become the director of the Family Health and Support Center at Cumberland Diagnostic and Treatment Center, and eventually left Cumberland to take the position as director of the graduate dance therapy program at Pratt Institute, where she is also a tenured full professor. She also has a private practice in New York City.

Joan was heavily involved in the passage of legislation that licenses creative arts therapy in New York State, serving as liaison from the New York Coalition of Creative Arts Therapies to the Joint Council for Mental Health Services Legislative Coalition for over 10 years. She has served on the New York State Board for Mental Health Practitioners for the past 20 years. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Art Therapy Association, and an Exceptional Service Award and Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Dance Therapy Association.

Currently Joan teaches nationally and internationally. She has presented and taught dance therapy in Canada, Japan, New Zealand, China, and Korea. She developed and implemented the first dance/movement therapy training program in mainland China, through Inspirees International, and continues to serve as Program Director and faculty. She is on the faculty of Dance Therapy New Zealand, and is the founder and director of the New York Center for the Study of Authentic Movement.

Joan is one of the subjects of a film by the New York Chapter of the American Dance Therapy Association, “Moving Stories – Portraits of Dance/Movement Therapy”. She has published several articles and chapters on a variety of subjects, including Authentic Movement, improvisation as therapy, non-verbal communication in groups, and dance therapy as Buddhist practice.