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.     

Body and movement in dynamic psychotherapy: reflections on talking and movement therapies

In recent decades, somatic experiencing has taken a major place in psychoanalytic thinking. Different theories relate to the meaning of the mother’s attunement towards her baby’s body and to the importance of the therapist’s attentiveness to his own somatic sensations, awakened in the encounter with the patient. With the patient in the armchair, psychodynamic therapists think, imagine, feel and wonder about what the patient’s body may wish to express. This article concerns the patient leaving the armchair in order to actively express himself in the space of the room. It includes examples from the work of Winnicott, Balint and Ogden, and describes the use of analytic work in conjunction with the body and movement. It suggests that the patient’s need to ‘dance the soul stories’ during treatment may bring about actual changes in treatment technique, even prior to systematic theoretical conceptualisation that addresses intervention methods incorporating somatic movement.     

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.     

A QUESTION OF ABSENCE

This paper was written in an effort to process rather extreme countertransference reactions to an ‘absent’ patient, i.e. one who attended her twice-weekly psychotherapy only sporadically. At times she did not come for up to several months and consequently a serious debt would accrue. However, it was not so much the amount owing but rather the constant cancellations, with seemingly ‘rational’ excuses about her non-attendance that would provoke an intense frustration accompanied, at times, by furious, almost sadistic countertransference feelings. The patient kept her therapist ‘dangling in uncertainty’ ( Brenman Pick, 2002 ), which the author considered to be a reflection of the patient's inner sado-masochistic object world. The author attempts to make sense of her countertransference in the light of the patient's early relationships and subsequently forms a hypothesis that the absences have been necessary to convey, very powerfully, experiences that may not have been communicated by regular attendance. Finally, the author offers her ‘Afterthoughts’ in the light of developments since the patient has read the paper and given her permission for publication.     

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.     

Launch of Body,Movement & Dance in Psychotherapy

This article explores time-limited dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) with a female offender diagnosed with borderline personality disorder looking particularly at the development of the therapeutic relationship and attachment theory. DMP can help increase the ‘capacity to think’ and provide alternative approaches for managing emotions opposed to ‘acting out’ difficulties in relating. The therapeutic relationship in DMP can provide a containing, holding environment in the absence of healthy attachments, early experiences of deprivation and trauma. Laban Movement Analysis, psychodynamic and mentalisation approaches were used to underpin the assessment, formulation and therapeutic interventions.     

Embodiment of a fictional character during Dance movement therapy with an adolescent ADD patient: Case study

In dance movement therapy, we may work with metaphors that originate from the movement itself, or with symbolic images and situations. What happens, though, if a patient is to choose to embody a random fictional character from their favourite book or film? This case study illustrates the potential of embodiment work with an image of a fictional character, even if this character is not one of the recurrent motifs in literature or mythology and does not bear generally recognised symbolism. The author uses the Emotorics movement analysis system to assess the patient’s body and motion profile transformation. The change of the patient’s movement and behaviour in the course of a year’s long therapy suggests a possibility of therapeutically effective application of the embodiment technique, provided that the choice of the character is based on the patient’s actual challenges and subjective experience.     

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.     

Training and disillusion in Counselling Psychology: A psychoanalytic perspective

In this paper, I argue * that Counselling Psychology's professional identification with pluralism poses significant emotional problems for trainees. An important factor in such problems may be the trainee's sense of disappointment and disillusion that the route to professional and personal self‐transformation will not be achieved via a set of universal theoretical principles and established clinical ‘rules’. I draw on recent psychoanalytic theory to suggest that the task facing trainees involves balancing pluralism, characterized as an ‘external’ third position, with an ‘internal’ third space indexing an awareness of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Maintaining a dialogical‐dialectical perspective on these two positions allows for a creative space in which the trainee may be transformed from lay helper into professional counselling psychologist via a personal engagement with theoretical, clinical and academic material presented during training.     

Confidentiality and Consent Issues in Psychotherapy Case Reports: The Wolf Man,Gloria and Jeremy

In this article I explore the issues surrounding confidentiality and consent in the writing of psychotherapy case reports. An important theme is the challenge of protecting a patient's privacy while furthering knowledge in the field through publication. I discuss some of the complexities as well as the relevance of present day requirements for informed consent, including a consideration of the provisions within the Declaration of Helsinki (1964, last revised 2013). To illustrate the difficulties inherent in writing about our work I give examples of three cases: Freud's patient Sergei Pankejeff (the ‘Wolf Man’), Gloria (the patient in the ‘Gloria Films’), and a contemporary patient, ‘Jeremy’, whose therapist published an account of her work with him. The writing of case material is complex and resists easy solutions; there can be no ‘one‐size‐fits‐all’ approach but instead the therapist writer's careful consideration on a case by case basis of his or her motivations for writing, what the patient is really consenting to, whether patient consent can ever be truly informed, and how writing and publishing a case might impact on the safety and well‐being of the patient (including others connected to the patient), as well as on the therapeutic relationship itself.     

Orientating myself: A gay dance movement psychotherapist’s gender experience in training and practice

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a subjective account of the struggles and pleasures of being a gay dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) lecturer and therapist. The author shares stories of how this individual reality is informed by his life experience as a gay child and man. This gay intersubjective perspective of embodied therapeutic relationships posits a queer theory outlook that deviates from other DMP and embodied perspectives. The intention is to invite more critical reflection on diverse sexual and gender experience and relationships in the training and therapy space, in the hope of opening the door to more transparency with sexual orientation and gender diversity in the body, movement and dance in psychotherapy professions.     

Healing through the martial way: Incorporating karate training into counselling and psychotherapy

This research paper describes lived experiences in dance therapeutic processes in the case of a woman called Asta. Rather than claiming results from therapeutic processes, the paper enlightens change processes through narratives about both Asta's bodily movement expressions and inner experiences. The paper focuses furthermore on illustrating the possibilities of using body language, movement and an energetic approach to therapy in Asta's case with the dance therapy form Dansergia. Asta moves through a shell of anxiety and into the dance of a gypsy, from an inner experienced black ring and hedgehog to a woman accepting difficult experiences in the past and new possibilities in the present. Asta's processes are analysed and interpreted in an energy-based theoretical framework, and are then reflected upon in terms of impact possibilities in a broader dance therapeutic and research oriented context.     

The Wish to Never End: Grappling with the Termination of an Infant observation And its Relevance to Clinical Work

This paper uses a psychoanalytic infant observation to highlight the significance of grappling with endings. It describes the termination of a two-year relationship with a child and his mother, who were observed weekly by the author. The content of the ending process is extrapolated to apply to infant observations in general, with implications for termination of psychoanalytic psychotherapy treatments with patients of any age as well as personal relationships. Transference and countertransference reactions and enactments evoked during the prelude to termination are considered. Vignettes from the infant observations illuminate important crossroads during the termination process. The paper also illustrates the resilient capacity that a child (and by extension the child part of an adult) can have to experience, process and bear the ending of a relationship, as well as to continue to hold that relationship internally. This glimpse into one child's, one mother's and one observer's experience of separating from each other demonstrates the ways primitive aspects of the psyche may be activated during a termination. Finally, Donald Meltzer's concept of three-dimensional interior space and Bion's idea of open-ended reality are applied, indicating how relationships that have ended may be contained within one's psyche, enduring beyond their ending.     

CAN WE BE BRIEF?

The author explores the subjective and objective nature of time in relation to brief psychotherapy, the contemporary contexts for this work and the impact of research on the changing culture of provision of counselling/psychotherapy. She describes clinical treatment using a brief Dynamic Relational approach with a traumatized patient in primary care who presents with panic and depression. Through this case she illustrates the most significant points of technique in her interpretation of this approach: assessment through interactional aspects of the first and second meetings, further assessment through history-taking and the development of narrative, forming a collaborative focus based on a maladaptive relational pattern, selective inattention and benign neglect, interpretative ‘action’, termination and the collaborative therapeutic summary and use of other attachment figures available in the primary care team setting, particularly during the termination phase. The patient's unconscious and conscious internalization processes enable brief treatment to be durable, and it is argued that depth can be achieved. The author contends that brief therapy requires specific techniques but also makes connections with long-term analytic work, for example, the parallel between Bion's concept of the ‘selected fact’ and the ‘focus’ in brief therapy.     

Evil,Imagination and the Unrepressed Unconscious: The Value of William Blake's Satanic ‘Error’ for Clinical Practice

The images and writings of William Blake offer profound insights for the clinician in a form that clearly reveals his visionary ability regarding the unrepressed unconscious. He is particularly helpful with the work of imagination and the presence of evil concerning unconscious process. This paper explores the creative value of Blake's contribution when working with certain patients in the consulting room and for the purposes of psychotherapeutic research: he has inspired many psychoanalytic and Jungian papers in the past. However, in the world of psychotherapy, Blake's complicated but illuminating mythology has been somewhat neglected in favour of interpreting him through the lens of analytic thought. While setting this paper within an analytic frame, the writer aims to offer an overview of Blake's central concepts – particularly those concerning Satan and the state of ‘Error’ – that are revealed in their most refined form in his celebrated ‘Illustrations of the Book of Job’. A number of Blake's paintings and etchings illustrate this paper, providing an additional and vital avenue of communication through image. Clinical vignettes related to psychotic levels of the psyche illustrate the central theme.     

WHAT REMAINS OF OEDIPUS? PART OBJECTS BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

ABSTRACT Lacan's understanding of the death drive as an effect of the symbolic chain raises the possibility of a symbolic death (connoting narrative ending) before the subject's biological death. The dying Oedipus in Sophocles’Oedipus at Colonus might be thought of as occupying such a position. Lacan asks us to consider what, when his life has completely passed over into destiny, remains of Oedipus? Nietzsche's‘untimely meditations’ invite, anticipate and sanction future textual interpretations that Nietzsche himself could not have predicted; similar textual strategies exist in the work of Beckett. Such strategies offer an approach to overcoming the impossibility of adequately narrating a life. The psychoanalytic concept‘part object’ can be extended to model the way parallel processes are at work in psychoanalysis. Beckett's own retelling of the Oedipus story is considered to show how it attempts to answer the question ‘what remains of Oedipus?’     

ABDICATION OF A FATHER: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE FREUD–JUNG CORRESPONDENCE1

abstract This paper explores one dimension of the complex relationship linking Freud and Jung as revealed in their correspondence between 1906 and 1912. It focuses on Freud's adoption of Jung as his heir, particularly in terms of his repeated proposal to Jung ‘to continue and complete my work by applying to psychoses what I have begun with neuroses’. The paper tracks the fate of this proposal in the words of these two men and suggests that the ambivalence of both can be seen as an expression of an unconscious dynamic portrayed in Shakespeare's King Lear, a dynamic characterized by the author as the developmental task of ‘heriting’. Emma Jung captured the heart of the dilemma of ‘heriting’ in her question to Freud: ‘Doesn't one often give much because one wants to keep much?’ Although the trajectory of the heritage Freud sought for his ‘adopted eldest son’, ‘crown prince’ and ‘successor’ was not the same as that of the tragedy of Lear, it was no less poignant in its tensions and disappointments – even for a time in its reversal of the ‘heriting’– and finally in the disintegration of the relationship.     

Integrative dance/movement psychotherapy and the aging process

The objectives of the investigation was reasoning and developing a strategy of implementation of integrative dance/movement psychotherapy in order to improve the life quality and psychosomatic adaptation of an aging person. 25 males and 25 females with some age-related emotional and psychological problems but with no marked mental disorders were examined. Clinical-psychopathological and experimental-psychological methods were used. Target symptoms for integrative dance/movement psychotherapy were determined. A repeated investigation was carried out in three months. The investigation findings show common and distinctive features of female and male psychosomatic state at the climacteric and partial androgenic deficiency period. The model of integrated experiences described elucidates the notion of age-related dissociation, which is a source of the aging persons’ inner conflict leading to the development and/or aggravation of their psychosomatic and social disadaptation. The integrative dance/movement psychotherapy course described results in the considerable improvement of aging persons’ psychophysiological dynamics, social adaptation and life quality.