Authentic Movement: A dance with the divine

Authentic Movement facilitates a descent into the inner world of the psyche through natural movement. Through the process we are reconnected with deeper instinctual resources and spiritual intelligence that dwell in the molecular structure of the cells, and recover unlived parts of our nature on intrapersonal, interpersonal and transpersonal levels. The practice develops a sense of embodied presence, of being ‘at home’ in the body. During a time when many of the patriarchal power structures that have given meaning to our existence for thousands of years are crumbling, Authentic Movement allows practitioners, within the context of a healing relationship, to discover a new paradigm that offers guidance from an inner source. Physical, psychological, spiritual, social, affective and aesthetic dimensions are included in this holistic practice. Authentic Movement is used in individual and group settings, is effective within the context of psychotherapy, medicine and meditative practices, and is a potent source for artistic expression.     

Healing into wholeness: psychotherapy practice informed by the Discipline of Authentic Movement

In this article I offer personal reflections as a somatic and movement psychotherapist whose practice is profoundly influenced by the Discipline of Authentic Movement. The fundamental elements of the Discipline are discussed: close attention to embodied experience on the part of a mover and a witness; the relational resonance between them; and the rigour of speaking directly from experience. This foundation serves as the core of my therapy practice, whether or not we are working within the movement form itself. Attention is drawn, in particular, to the intersection between psychological processes and experience of utter presence in the moment. At this gateway the concentration on personal embodied history may open out to spaciousness, no longer bounded by the personal, and a knowing that we are whole and complete, just as we are. Here we meet the healing that is inherent in the relational practice of presence.     

社会支持与真实幸福感的关系:希望的中介作用

目的:以往研究探讨社会支持和幸福感之间的中介效应,其效果量均较低.本研究从幸福感的测量和希望这一更重要的中介变量进一步探讨,并进行验证.方法:采用领悟社会支持量表(PSSS)、成人特质希望量表(ADHS)和幸福导向量表(OHS)对四所大学/学院大学生进行调查,收回355份有效问卷.采用偏差校正的非参数百分位Bootstrap方法进行中介效应检验.结果:领悟社会支持、成人特质希望与真实幸福感之间两两成显著正相关;简单中介效应的Bootstrap置信区间大于0,其效果量ab/c为84.4％.结论:希望在领悟社会支持与真实幸福感间起中介作用.     

The effect of visual transformation on bimanual circling movement

In order to examine the effect of visual transformation on bimanual movements of various difficulty, fourteen participants performed bimanual circling tasks in three asymmetric movement modes—90° (the left hand precedes the right hand by 1/4 cycle), 180° (the delay between two hands is 1/2 cycle), and 270° (the left hand precedes the right hand by 3/4 cycle)—under the normal vision condition and the visual transformation condition. In the visual transformation condition, movement of the right hand was transformed so that the required bimanual movement was always presented visually as a symmetric pattern. Additionally, the participants also performed a 0° mode (in-phase symmetric) movement. Results revealed that the visual transformation increased the movement accuracy, with the variability of the right–left difference unchanged. Thus, proper visual transformation can improve the accuracy of a movement task. The 0° mode was performed with higher stability and accuracy than any other movement modes of the visual transformation condition and normal vision conditions. In addition, the constant error associated with the 90° and 270° modes indicated that, in the normal vision condition, the executed movement was shifted to the 180° mode, whereas in the visual transformation condition it stayed around the required mode and was slightly shifted to the 0° mode. This result suggests that visual transformation can change the relationship between the intention to realize the required mode and the intrinsic neuromuscular dynamics. The effect size of visual transformation was larger in the 90° and 270° modes than in the 180° mode. It is thus concluded that the effect of visual transformation depends upon the difficulty of the movement task.     

Treatment modalities and self-expectancy of therapists: Modes,self-efficacy and imagination of clients in dance movement therapy

Body movement is the primary medium in which dance/movement therapists help clients to connect with implicit experience, to tolerate and express emotion, and thereby to continuously re-work, re-weave and integrate embodied experiences of self. This article explores the role of non-verbal vocalisation within the overall movement ecology of the body, and suggests ways that it can support the aforementioned processes in clinical practice. Three existing frameworks for understanding the non-verbal voice are reviewed, from within and outside the realm of psychotherapy, as are several comprehensive theoretical studies of the ‘self’ in dance/movement therapy. The author emphasises that voice is an integral part of the body's cross-modal capacity for expressive movement, and suggests that the non-verbal voice prioritises and gives form to the emotional content of other bodily movement. This article aims to provide a theoretical starting place for integrating the non-verbal voice into dance/movement therapy scholarship and practice.     

Waking and dreaming consciousness: neurobiological and functional considerations

This paper presents a theoretical review of rapid eye movement sleep with a special focus on pontine-geniculate-occipital waves and what they might tell us about the functional anatomy of sleep and consciousness. In particular, we review established ideas about the nature and purpose of sleep in terms of protoconsciousness and free energy minimization. By combining these theoretical perspectives, we discover answers to some fundamental questions about sleep: for example, why is homeothermy suspended during sleep? Why is sleep necessary? Why are we not surprised by our dreams? What is the role of synaptic regression in sleep? The imperatives for sleep that emerge also allow us to speculate about the functional role of PGO waves and make some empirical predictions that can, in principle, be tested using recent advances in the modeling of electrophysiological data.     

Extraversion in women with fibromyalgia as a predictor of better prognosis: an intervention model in dance movement therapy

ABSTRACT

This study examined the relationship between extraversion, the ability to identify emotions in observed movement and quality of life (QoL), among women with and without fibromyalgia (FM). The sample was 50 adult women. Participants were asked to fill out Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire, NEO Five Factor Inventory, Short Form 36 Health Survey, Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 and demographic questionnaire, were shown video clips of body movements and were asked to identify the emotion. The results showed that extraversion was positively correlated with the identification of happiness among FM patients and with QoL. A correlation was found between the ability to identify ‘happiness’ and ahigher perceived QoL. FM patients who showed ahigher level of extraversion identified happiness better than those who were not found to be extraverted. It can be assumed that expression of emotion using dance/movement therapy, which activates mirror neurons, will increase empathic abilities. Results led to the building of a therapeutic intervention model based on the practical implications of the findings.     

Embodiment and embedment: integrating dance/movement therapy,body psychotherapy,and ecopsychology

This article presents a vision of an emergent ecosomatic psychology that integrates somatic psychology's theories and practices of embodiment with ecopsychology's insights about embedment. Branches within somatic psychology, dance/movement therapy, and body psychotherapy have honed therapeutic practices for embodying the self, engaging in embodied relationships, and opening up to possibilities of transpersonal experiences through the body and movement. Incorporating ecopsychology's emphasis on the development of an ecological identity, inspired by systems and relational views of health, and drawing from theories of participatory consciousness and reciprocity, an integrative framework of embodied embedment practices are proposed for developing an embodied ecological self.     

Where one cannot speak,there one can dance: a comparative analysis of dance movement therapy and Processwork

The text aims to outline the basic comparison of the theoretical roots, concepts and frameworks, principles, attitudes, typical interventions, phases of development and scope of practical use of dance movement therapy (DMT) and process-oriented psychology (Processwork). The author proposes that mutual benefits and opportunities are at disposal for practitioners from both schools, including the primary and secondary process and ‘edge work’ in Processwork, as well as movement observing techniques, movement profile mapping and the ‘dance-not-done’ approach in DMT. The theme of communication channels and the theme of ‘essence level’ or spiritual experience as approached in both practices is discussed as well.     

Bridging past and present: Embodied intergenerational trauma and the implications for dance/movement therapy

This paper explores the role of the body in intergenerational transmission of trauma using examples of wartime sexual violence (WSV) during World War II in Germany. It is argued that traumatic memory held in the body is transmitted between generations in a similar fashion to how implicit body memory is passed on from body to body. In relationship, the body shapes subjectivity and intersubjectivity and therefore represents a vessel for transmission of trauma on a familial and cultural level. Silence and culture as source of perpetuation of trauma are taken into account. Furthermore, the severe long-term effects of rape, underlying body defences and relational consequences are outlined. Somatic implications for descendents of WSV survivors are unknown and require research. Dance/movement therapy is offered as a body-focused modality to help transform intergenerational trauma caused by WSV. Implications for further research in body-to-body transmission of trauma are highlighted.     

When psyche meets soma: The question of incarnation

The body has been a latent presence in psychoanalysis from the time Freud cited Oedipus. The Sphinx tested Oedipus with a riddle about the body. Still today, psychotherapists and neuroscientists pursue the riddle of the relationship between mind and body, psyche and soma. Jung examined this question through his idea of the psychoid. Dreams can reflect the state of the body, just as the body can manifest a psychic state.     

Perceptual coupling in rhythmic movement coordination: stable perception leads to stable action

Rhythmic movement coordination exhibits characteristic patterns of stability, specifically that movements at 0 degrees mean relative phase are maximally stable, 180 degrees is stable but less so than 0 degrees, and other coordinations are unstable without training. Recent research has demonstrated a role for perception in creating this pattern; perceptual variability judgments covary with movement variability results. This suggests that the movement results could be due in part to differential perceptual resolution of the target movement coordinations. The current study used a paradigm that enabled simultaneous access to both perception (between-trial) and movement (within-trial) stability measures. A visually specified 0 degrees target mean relative phase enabled participants to produce stable movements when the movements were at a non-0 degrees relationship to the target being tracked. Strong relationships were found between within-trial stability (the traditional movement measure) and between-trial stability (the traditional perceptual judgment measure), suggestive of a role for perception in producing coordination stability phenomena. The stabilization was incomplete, however, indicating that visual perception was not the sole determinant of movement stability. Rhythmic movement coordination is intrinsically a perception/action system.     

The cultural responsibility of dance movement therapy: philosophical considerations

This paper examines the cultural situation and special responsibility of dance movement therapy, delineating certain philosophical and cultural-theoretical interpretations of the ‘corporeal turn’ and ‘therapeutic turn’ of contemporary culture. It aims to show how dance movement therapy’s theoretical horizon is inseparable from the body-mind integration of contemporary philosophies, and how corporeal turn is present in consumer culture, including some of its destructive forms of idealisation and malign regression. The question of how DMT is able to turn malignant regression to the body into benign regression is addressed, and an analysis of the correlating postmodern idea of resilience is offered. Finally, DMT groups are interpreted as social microcosms, and the way Hungarian psychodynamic movement and dance therapists apply their group therapeutic method for the development of democratic culture in the Civil Group Project is described.     

The misclassification of blinks as saccades: implications for investigations of eye movement dysfunction in schizophrenia

It is important to have a simple. accurate method for recording eye movements. Of the two popular approaches commonly adopted, electro-oculography (EOG) and infrared oculography (IROG), IROG is often accepted as the more accurate, and it is the method that is currently used most frequently to examine eye movements in schizophrenia. This study investigated whether the misclassification of blinks as saccades affects saccade rates when the presence of a blink is determined using only IROG recordings of eye position. Both vertical electro-oculography (VEOG), which can be used to objectively identify blinks, and IROG were recorded while 17 schizophrenia patients and 19 healthy controls were presented with sinusoidal stimuli. Of the blinks identified with the VEOG for the total group of participants, a substantial number (37%) were misclassified as catch-up and anticipatory saccades when only the IROG was used. Furthermore, in the schizophrenia group, but not in the healthy control group, the use of the IROG led to a significant misclassification of blinks as anticipatory saccades. Therefore, when IROG alone is used to identify blinks, the misclassification of blinks as saccades is likely to introduce measurement error into estimates of saccade rates, particularly estimates of anticipatory saccade rates in schizophrenia patients.     

Short latency compensatory eye movement responses to transient linear head acceleration: a specific function of the otolith-ocular reflex

Summary Normal subjects were exposed to 0.26 g linear acceleration steps along the inter-aural axis whilst they fixated an earth stationary target at 110 cm distance. The stimulus evoked slow phase eye movements at a mean latency of 34 ms which attained the relative target velocity in 113 ms. In contrast, visual following with head fixed, of identical relative target motion, had significantly longer latencies and time to match target velocity. The short latency responses to linear acceleration were absent in an alabyrinthine subject. It is concluded that the otolith-ocular reflex is responsible for the short latency responses to linear head movement and functions to stabilise vision during sudden head movement before visually guided compensatory eye movements take effect.     

Widening our lens: The implications of resilience for the professional identity and practice of dance movement therapists

The construct of resilience in psychology has an optimistic character that has been attracting interest due to the paradigmatic change proposed by positive psychology. On the other hand, resilience has different meanings or nuances attributed to it, mainly due to the different focus of researchers and/or their frame of reference: there are scholars who concentrate on developmental issues, others on clinical questions. It is a relatively new construct for dance movement therapists, and due to its subtleties, resilience deserves a theoretical introduction and presentation of its complexities. A discussion of the relevance of this construct for DMT follows after the theoretical outline. This section presents the taxonomy of levels of prevention that expands the possibilities of professional interventions focusing on mental health. It implies widening our lens. Finally, some interventions reported and tested by dance movement therapists will be presented and others will be suggested.     

The neuroscience of human relationships: Attachment and the developing social brain

This article explores the background of Elsa Gindler, in the early part of the twentieth century in Berlin, and whom she influenced in the 1930s and later, both in body psychotherapy and in other disciplines. It particularly explores the connection with Wilhelm Reich and Gindler's indirect influence on the development of his Vegetotherapy.     

Prenatal behavior of the C57BL/6J mouse: a promising model for human fetal movement during early to mid-gestation

The study of fetal neurobehavioral development in genetically altered mice promises a significant advance in our understanding of the prenatal origins of developmental disabilities in humans. Despite their importance, little is known about fetal neurobehavioral development in mice. In this study, we observed prenatal behavioral patterns of the C57BL/6J mouse, a common background strain for genetically altered mice, and report their similarity to those observed in the early to mid-gestation human fetus. Fetal offspring from pregnant C57BL/6J dams were observed on the day before birth (E18 of a 19-day gestation). Scoring and analysis of fetal movement included Prechtl's Method for Qualitative Assessment, Interlimb Movement Synchrony, a measure of the temporal relationship between movements of limb pairs, and Behavioral State, quantified through detailed analysis of high and low amplitude limb movements. With the exception of fetal breathing movements, all categories and patterns of behavior typically reported in the early to mid-gestation human fetus were observed in the C57BL/6J mouse fetus. Our results suggest that behavioral analysis of fetal C57BL/6J mice may yield important new insights into early to mid-gestation human behavioral development.     

The impact of visual movement on auditory cortical responses: a magnetoencephalographic study

We developed a visual 3D model of a space module and analyzed whether activity in the auditory cortex is influenced by rotating the image using magnetoencephalography. We presented 1,000 Hz pure tone as an auditory stimulus in four different visual conditions: (1) RR: a virtual image rotated around the center, (2) VR: images rotated vertically, (3) HR: images rotated horizontally and (4) ST: the images did not rotate. We compared the difference in the auditory evoked component among the conditions. The dipoles were estimated to lie in Heschl’s gyrus. The dipole moment was significantly larger for RR and VR than for ST in the right hemisphere. Investigating the inter-hemispheric differences in each visual condition, the dipole moments for RR and VR were significantly larger in the right hemisphere than the left hemisphere. Auditory activity was influenced by visual movement inducing self-motion perception and the effect of such visual movement on the auditory cortex was right-dominant.     

Confidence in one-self and confidence in one's own body: The revival of an old paradigm for anorexia nervosa

Impaired interoceptive function represents an important variable in the psychopathology of anorexia nervosa (AN) and is thought to be influenced by maladaptive schemas grounded on early intimate interactions. However, the role of the different psychological processes involved in the interoceptive function has been poorly assessed in AN. We aimed to investigate the associations between adult insecure attachment, interoceptive processes, and psychopathology. One hundred and fifty participants with AN completed self-report questionnaires: the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness, which measures interoception dimensions; the Attachment Style Questionnaire, assessing adult attachment styles, and the Eating Disorder Inventory-2, exploring eating-related core symptoms. Pearson's correlations were employed to assess the relationships between MAIA and EDI-2 subscores. Structural equation models (SEM) were performed to investigate the relationships between insecure attachment dimensions, interoception, and AN core symptoms as latent variables. Body listening, self-regulating, and trusting were interoceptive dimensions associated with eating psychopathology. As confirmed by an exploratory factor analysis, these interoceptive dimensions are included in a latent variable which points to “confidence” in body sensations. SEM showed that insecure, in particular anxious, attachment predicts body “confidence” and, in turn, AN core symptoms. Confidence in body sensations as a trustworthy source of knowledge represents the specific interoceptive dimension associated with psychopathology in AN. In accordance with Bruch's model of AN, insecure attachment patterns may promote a need to validate inner experiences by external sources conferring vulnerability to symptomatology. These psychopathological pathways could be addressed in clinical interventions.