After losing several family members, and husband within a short period of time, I was referred to Upstate Music Therapy by York Wellness and Rehab (WRI) clinic at Nazareth. I had previously tried a bereavement group and social work, have always loved music, dance and art and thought I would see Amy, to see if music/creative art therapy would help give me some new coping strategies. And I was hoping to find joy again, in my new life without my best friend, my husband.

I liked that Amy was a licensed, certified creative art therapist and was curious about trying another kind of therapeutic strategy for coping.

I felt an instant connection with Amy. She is warm, friendly and a great listener. During the course of our meetings, she introduced me to new creative strategies for thinking about my issues that were customized for me, based on her intuitive and expert observations. We also shared a connection in faith, which was very important to me. Also, because of my interest and background in music, dance and art we explored a variety of visual, music and movement based exercises, that helped raise my awareness of certain blocks and triggers that were keeping me stuck, and ultimately led to further healing. I am grateful for the self-discoveries and support I received at Upstate Music Therapy Center and highly recommend them.

Our 10 year old son had struggled to manage his ADHD/ADD and as a result, it affected many parts of his life.  It affected him socially and academically plus he was experiencing extreme nightmares.  After one of his middle of the night episodes we decided to reach out for help.  We were referred to Amy by a family friend who is also a therapist.  Having had experience and success with EMDR ourselves, we felt that would be a good option to try and help our son.  Amy is qualified for that treatment but we found out very quickly that she was extremely versatile with the techniques she used incorporating many creative strategies. She allowed our son to steer the therapy and adapted to what worked for him.  Amy did a wonderful job connecting with him quickly, earning his trust, and empowering him to gain control of himself.  We were concerned about our son’s willingness to buy in to therapy especially at his age, but she helped him feel comfortable and accept the support.  After several months of working with Amy, the nightmares have been eliminated, the ADHD symptoms have been decreased to a manageable level and a number of past trauma events that were hidden and unmanaged have been resolved.  Upstate Music Therapy Center helped our son in so many ways. He is a much more confident, happy, and well equipped young man today. We would highly recommend them.