The mothers: Life and death in dance therapeutic processes in Dansergia

This research paper is based on embodied, phenomenological and narrative methodologies and is a movement psychological narrative about Clara's and Asta's dance therapeutic processes in the dance therapy form Dansergia1 1.?The article includes a word that is or is asserted to be a proprietary term or trademark. Its inclusion does not imply it has acquired a non-proprietary or general significance for legal purposes, nor is any other judgment implied concerning its legal status. ,2 2.?Dansergia is an energy-based dance and body psychotherapeutic method developed during the past 30 years by Stèphano Sabetti and colleagues. Dansergia is accredited by the EABP (European Association of Body Psychotherapy). . As fate would have it, they are both currently preparing themselves to say goodbye to their mothers. Asta meets love behind the hard realities of life, while Clara, by accepting her mother's approaching death process, opens up for new life energy beyond stiffness in her own body which has lasted for years. The theme of the article is how birth and death, taking leave and new beginnings are woven together in rhythmic wave movements which affect all human movement processes. In a societal context, the article may be regarded as a critical voice. It points to the division between fast-paced, youth-fixated western society's often hidden death processes on the one hand, and Clara's and Asta's existential processes on the other. In the dance therapeutic space, there is room to look at both death and life.     

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.     

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.     

Kinaesthetic narratives: Interpretations for children's dance movement therapy process

The present case study was aimed at producing research-based information on developmental dance movement therapy (DMT) in Finland. The hypothesis was that DMT enables non-verbal and verbal expression in children at risk of social displacement and long-term learning disabilities. A dance movement therapist and a preschool teacher co-led a year long, weekly DMT group for six preschool children of whom five had recently immigrated to Finland. The theory and practical methods were founded in DMT, attachment theory and solution focused therapy. The sessions used creative movement, movement observation, kinesthetic attunement and mirroring. The evaluation of the group process was based on participant observation, body memory and children's drawings. Bodily dialogue and supportive holding became integral parts of each session. The themes observed in children's drawings suggested developmental changes and externalisation of emotional experiences. The conclusion was that DMT supported the development of group dynamics and movement as a form of interaction.     

A psychoanalytic perspective of endings in therapy: A dance movement psychotherapy case study

This paper is an account of time-limited dance movement psychotherapy in an inner-city London school during my final year of training for an MA in Dance Movement Psychotherapy. I describe the treatment of a traumatised 9-year-old boy using psychoanalytic theories, in particular Winnicott's ideas. This patient suffered at an early age from the drastic separation of his father and, when he was 6 years of age, various dramatic events led to the hospitalisation of his mother due to psychiatric problems. The impending ending of the therapy and the trainee's repetition of a ‘neglectful transference’ triggered powerful memories of traumatic past separations, which aroused deep-seated anxieties in the patient and trainee alike. The work towards a ‘good enough’ ending in the new therapeutic relationship was of great value to the patient's recovery. Parallels are drawn with the trainee's feelings of ending her dance movement psychotherapy course.     

Psychodynamic Movement and Dance Therapy (PMDT) in Hungary

The emergence of dance therapy in Hungary has been a long and organic process from the 1980s onwards. In those years, psychiatrist and psychotherapist Márta Merényi developed Psychodynamic Movement and Dance Therapy (PMDT), a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapeutic method, based on the body-mind work, the movement improvisation and the psychodynamic working through of movement experiences and relations in the group. This article offers insight into the Hungarian PMDT: its history, theoretical roots, therapeutic practice, applications, training and organisation, with an outline of the special characteristics of body-mind work, the interpersonal dynamics, leader instructions, and the creative movement and verbalism in PMDT.     

Unconscious seduction: Desire and disability in dance/movement therapy

ABSTRACT

Sexuality is typically avoided in therapeutic training and studies of disability; therefore therapy with people living with disabilities is inclined to become problematic when desire emerges. What happens when the therapist unconsciously crosses the imaginary line between being a therapist and being a woman, with all the sensual and sexual implications that might bring? Through four case studies of clients with intellectual disabilities, this therapist investigates sensual touch between clients, clients touching therapists, and therapists touching clients, and contrasts therapeutic touching with sexual misconduct as an ethical concern. The varying evocations of dance, music, touch and flow are problematised in the therapeutic context of dance/movement therapy. Interrogating and theorising an instant of authentic relating in which a boundary seems to be transgressed, this article illustrates the (after)effects of an unconscious slippage of the therapeutic role.     

Somatic soulmates

The author compares and contrasts a method of body-oriented psychotherapy, the Rubenfeld Synergy® method (RSM), with a method of dance/movement therapy, Authentic Movement (AM). She examines parallels in the development of authentic movement and body psychotherapy and discusses similarities in theory and practice. She makes a case for integration of dance/movement therapy and body-psychotherapy under the umbrella of somatic therapies. She uses her personal history, Ilana Rubenfeld's history, and case examples to illustrate her points.     

Embodied attunement: a dance/movement therapy approach to working with couples

ABSTRACT

Attachment theory is well-recognised for understanding and treating adult love relationships. Neuroscientific research highlights the implicit process of attachment and the unconscious, nonverbal, bodily-based, and affect-regulating interactions of the right brain hemispheres in attachment development. Effective couple therapy ought to consider the implicit processes between infants and caregivers as a model to develop secure attachment in romantic partners, which makes dance/movement therapy (D/MT) a valuable treatment modality. Mirroring is a staple D/MT intervention that involves imitation of a client’s movement by the therapist to enhance attunement and empathy. In this paper, the author explores the overlap between attachment theory, neuroscience, dance/movement therapy, and couple therapy. A theoretical model is proposed for the use of mirroring with couples to foster secure attachment by means of attunement on a bodily-based level. Future research is suggested in order to measure the effectiveness of mirroring on couples’ attachment.     

Authentic movement: The body's path to consciousness

This reflective piece portrays a very personal journey into the transformational processes of a woman entering the second half of her life. After encountering a spiritual presence while performing craniasacaral therapy treatments, the author developed an intense yearning to become united with this spiritual essence. From this yearning emerged a spiritual guide named Awananoah. This name means “the desire to know and the fear of knowing.” Awananoa became the author's transcendent function by revealing through images the chasm between her human self and her spiritual self. The longing to resolve this existential conflict, manifested in left and right sides of her body led to repeated authentic movement experiences. During these experiences, the author enters a Jungian jungle of trapped and cavorting creatures who emerge from her subconscious, not only to re-integrate portions of her human self, but to escort her to the next level of her transcendent self.     

The use of metaphors in dance movement therapy

This text focuses on the specific structure of metaphors in terms of movement processes. The processing of symbolic movement material through structures derived from dance as an art form is investigated. Metaphors that support nonverbal attunement between patient and therapist, and how the use of metaphors and creative processes help establish the inter-subjective relation in dance movement therapy are described.     

Discourse: Trudi Schoop and Vaslav Nijinsky,and dance as healer

Conceived as an entrée to discourse, this paper explores the phenomenon of dance as healer, to evoke rather than to answer questions. The intention has been to examine dance in its capacity of healer, scrutinising it in the absence of a formal intermediary intervention such as dance/movement therapy or other somatic models. The early lives of two former luminaries of the dance world are profiled: the first, Trudi Schoop, famed comic mime and early pioneer in dance/movement therapy; the other, Vaslav Nijinsky, renowned dancer and choreographer in the world of ballet. Disparate heritages and life circumstances carried them along radically divergent paths, although both struggled to overcome serious psychiatric issues. Schoop overcame her difficulties vis-à-vis obsessive-compulsive behaviours; Nijinsky's accumulated problems led, ultimately, to chronic schizophrenia. They shared, in common, an overriding passion for and commitment to dance. The discourse focuses on the role of dance, as healer, in their existential journeys.     

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.     

Opposites attract: holistic emotional regulation using dance/movement therapy and the doshas in Ayurveda

This model presents a collaborative and holistic perspective on dance/movement therapy (D/MT) and Ayurveda. This approach suggests that the dance/movement therapist takes into account all range and manner of an individual’s movement repertoire and uses these observations to construct therapeutic interventions that build upon body types and movement preferences represented in Ayurveda. Both D/MT and Ayurveda share the value of achieving a sense of regulation through the use of opposite qualities of movement, which will be explored in depth through the lenses of Laban Movement Analysis and the Kestenberg Movement Profile. Several examples of interventions the therapist might utilise are provided. Further considerations exploring the growth of this model in the future and limitations are also included in this article.     

Dance/movement therapy and shamanic healing ritual: natural intelligence of body and spirit

This paper offers a model for integrating a dance/movement therapy practice with some of the themes that show up in literature on shamanic healing ritual. The proposed model is based on literature on shamanism and within the field of dance/movement therapy. It is intended as a first step in an exploration between intersections of the two fields. The model proposes cultivating a sacred container as a holding environment for the therapeutic process, within which the themes of natural intelligence, surrender, and nervous system regulation will be woven together, and the potential for sequencing greater healing energy will be discussed. Applications, limitations, and suggestions for further research will also be considered.     

Belly dance and its links to body psychotherapy

This paper describes the therapeutic use of belly dance therapy (BDT) for women, context and process, on its own and in relation to body psychotherapy and the Chakra system. It gives a brief history of belly dance, references the author’s personal journey and describes a case study. It illustrates how BDT can empower women to serve themselves in their pleasure and pain by awakening the dissociated, traumatised parts of the body and non-verbal body memories through sensing and feeling the body and verbally articulating this.     

Maintaining the Tension Between the Classic Seduction Theory and the Role of Unconscious Fantasies: A Contemporary Reconsideration

This article describes the long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy of a young woman who had experienced trauma during her childhood. The details of the trauma were unknown, as all memory of the trauma had been repressed. Past trauma is analysable through a prism of transference, dreaming and dreams, mental states and thinking processes that offer an opportunity to explore and analyse the influence of both reality and fantasy on the patient. The presented case describes a therapeutic process that strives to discover hidden meanings through the unconscious system and illustrates the movement from unconscious to conscious during exploration of the patient's personal trauma in treatment. The author discusses the importance of classical and contemporary psychoanalytic models of childhood sexual trauma through the discovery of manifest and latent content, unconscious fantasies and actual events of trauma. It is suggested that the complexity of trauma is clarified by the tension between these models and by the inclusion of aspects of both of them for a complete understanding.     

Dance as a treatment for neurological disorders

Dance has been explored as a therapeutic intervention because of its unique combination of exercise, music and cognitive engagement. Dance therapy is a specific form of dance-based treatment that focuses on how movement correlates with psychological aspects such as self-awareness, expression and coordination, which culminate in a mind–body treatment. In recent years, dance-based programmes have been used as an intervention to improve symptoms of neurological diseases/disorders. Positive results have been shown for patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease, dementia and depression. The neurological adaptations such as improved neural activity and neurogenesis are induced by the combination of coordinated movement strategies, exercise, musical arrangements and social interactions (partnering). With the continued growth of dance therapy, the purpose of this review is to explain the recently proposed theories of how neural changes are mediated through dance, and discuss the positive effects on those suffering from neurological disorders.     

A dance/movement therapy group as a community outreach for intercultural women in Tokyo

The paper describes a dance/movement therapy (DMT) based community outreach project for the women in the international community of Tokyo. The potential of DMT is explained through its impact on the core-self and body image. The interactive nature of DMT is discussed in the context of trans-culturality and communication. The outreach, which was carried out in a non-profit mental health organization (TELL), is described with the emphasis on the preparation of the project and on its content in terms of movement themes. This project showed a DMT group can foster attentiveness to body and to body sensations in various movement situations and thus help connecting to oneself. This may positively support the person's function in her daily relationships in personal and professional life.