What’s movement got to do, got to do with it?
Yes, my blog posts are likely to have music-related puns. Enjoy!
By far the #1 question I get as a dance and movement therapist is “Um, what is it?” While we have heaps of examples in books, movies, and social media about what modern western therapy supposedly looks like, you can probably search for “dance/movement therapist” on TikTok and count the results on one hand. I was flabbergasted when I learned a full decade after my Masters in Education for counseling that dance/movement and body psychotherapy was even a thing. As a newly minted therapist, I was told over and over that bodies are sacrosanct… not to be touched, discussed, or otherwise approached. As a dancer, though, I had an innate sense of how healing dance was for me, but I had no context for how that could be used in an evidence-based way to provide therapy and work toward “non-dance” goals.
Picture a young woman on a busy subway ride or a child running through a field. There are feelings associated with those postures and movements. Already your brain is likely conjuring a story. Is the woman shrinking in on herself, nervous about the intentions of the people around her? Is the child running toward or away from something as their breath heaves gustily in and out? Movement conveys meaning, and as moving creatures, we are not immune to this meaning-making on both conscious and unconscious levels. Many communities have known this for as long as they have existed. However, current proscribed and regimented movement systems are largely devoid of emotion… think ballet and physical therapy. And yet even babies as young as 6 weeks can begin to recognize the common nonverbal movement based on seemingly universal facial expressions (ala Daniel Stern’s “still-face” experiments).
Intrigued? Try this experiment. Watch some people. It can be a video on Youtube or next time you’re at the airport. Now mimic someone. I’m not inviting an offensive game of charades, but rather practicing embodied observation of something as simple as the way a person walks. You can physically try to re-create their gesture or walk with your own body, although the science of mirror neurons tells us your brain will light up in the same areas just by watching too! Notice how it feels to move in this way. Allow your mind to wander and tell a story about how your life might be different if this was your new reality. Do any sensations or feelings arise? This is Acting 101 for learning how to physically embody another character and “become” someone else. The deeper therapeutic work comes by learning to notice your own movement patterns and decide which are serving you well, and which are perhaps leftover coping skills that are now maintaining stress, anxiety, or reliving trauma.
What dance/movement therapy in particular is trying to get at, as a method of western counseling, is how those nonverbal communications affect and shape our relationships and well-being and how we can take action, using the body as the site of transformation, to create change. How might that imaginary young woman on the subway feel different if she felt safe enough to take up as much space as she desired? How might that running child carry this movement forward into everyday interactions with other people they meet as an adult. How we push others away, reach for what we want, stand our ground, lengthen our spine, and yes, how we breathe, can influence our attitude and consequently how we are treated in response.
In a movement psychotherapy or coaching session, this can look like anything (or nothing!) because we are always moving whether we want to or not. To explore relationships, we might do a series of movements involving the aforementioned reach and push to learn more about how we approach others. To process trauma, we might sit quietly listening to music and simply swaying to see what arises. Body psychotherapy with kids often involves more physical activities like crawling and roaring like a tiger, practicing breathing techniques to calm the body, or actual dancing to work on pro-social behaviors like leading and following. The invitation to move will always be that— an invitation. There is no demand for change, and in my practice, we move at the speed of trust.
Still curious? Why wait? Connect to me here on my blog or contact me today to tiptoe, chasse, or sprint into your first somatic therapy session.