This workshop was facilitated by Molly Lannon Kenny, the founder of IMT. One of the many great things about Molly is that she was a speech-language pathologist before turning her passion into a yoga-based therapy. In addition, she also has a lot of experience with children diagnosed on the autism spectrum.

Having been clinically trained as a speech language pathologist, it has always been my passion to see and articulate the specific effects of different yogic practices, bridging the clinical/yoga divide with common language and sound principles.

– Molly Lannon Kenny

The IMT framework Molly created incorporates “step-wise criteria for a therapeutic mode as a clinician, and also speaks to my heart as a yogini, starting from the perspective that we are all perfect and whole as we are.” In addition to studying the six core principles of Integrated Movement Therapy, we learned how to create schedules that incorporate yoga into goals and objectives created for each child. Yoga freeze, Yoga Bowling, Yoga Transformer, Obstacle Course and Shavasana are a few of the techniques we’ll be incorporating into our sessions. The skills that are being developed during these techniques are intended to positively impact a child’s life during the session and our time together, but outside our sessions as well.

Learning about these techniques at this time is particularly inspiring and exciting as The Global Music Therapy Project prepares for our next International trip to Nepal and India at the end of April. We’re scheduled to meet music therapists and observe their work within these countries and look forward to sharing what we discover.

Our music therapy groups for March are on the 5th and 19th. In between these two groups, Kate and I will be in Boise, Idaho, at our Western Region’s Chapter of the American Music Therapy Association conference, where we’ll attend sessions on the latest innovations and concepts in music therapy. This will be a month full of new approaches and ideas within our clinic!

Angie Kopshy, MM, MT-BC, is a board-certified music therapist and founder of Big Sky Music Therapy. Upon completion of her Master’s in Music from Boise State University, Angie returned to Portland to study music therapy. Before moving to Montana, her work included a private practice that incorporated neurologic music therapy techniques, the supervision of practicum students and interns and a teaching position at Pacific University. Angie is also a singer/songwriter with the band, Stoneface Honey.