Essentials of Dance Movement Psychotherapy

International Perspectives on Theory, Research, and Practice

Helen Payne, Helen Payne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315452838
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

Essentials of Dance Movement Psychotherapy contributes to the global interest in embodiment approaches to psychotherapy and to the field of dance movement psychotherapy specifically. It includes recent research, innovative theories and case studies of practice providing an inclusive overview of this ever growing field. As well as original UK contributions, offerings from other nations are incorporated, making it more accessible to the dance movement psychotherapy community of practice worldwide.

Helen Payne brings together well-known, experienced global experts along with rising stars from the field to offer the reader a valuable insight into the theory, research and practice of dance movement psychotherapy. The contributions reflect the breadth of developing approaches, covering subjects including:

• combining dance movement psychotherapy with music therapy;

• trauma and dance movement psychotherapy;

• the neuroscience of dance movement psychotherapy;

• the use of touch in dance movement psychotherapy;

• dance movement psychotherapy and autism;

• relational dance movement psychotherapy.

Essentials of Dance Movement Psychotherapy will be a treasured source for anyone wishing to learn more about the psychotherapeutic use of creative movement and dance. It will be of great value to students and practitioners in the arts therapies, psychotherapy, counselling and other health and social care professions.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Experiencing inter-corporeality and professional learning

Helen Payne

Introduction

Welcome to this volume of Essentials of Dance Movement Psychotherapy: International Perspectives on Theory, Research and Practice, which contains new and previously unpublished material. It follows two previous volumes, the first being Dance Movement Therapy: Theory and Practice, which was published in 1992 (Payne, 2004) reflecting UK dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) practice solely, reprinted five times and translated into several languages. The second volume, first published in 2006 (Payne, 2008a), comprising entirely new and original contributions throughout, was also reprinted several times and translated into various languages. This third volume reflects still further the growing edges in the theory, research and practice of the DMP community of practice, significantly not only in the UK but globally, differentiating it from the earlier books. All the chapters are new from authors experienced and/or scholarly, or emerging practitioners at an earlier stage in their DMP careers. This ground-breaking book takes DMP into the next era of knowledge, understanding and application from the perspectives of theory, research and clinical practice. It has been divided into those aspects in three sections of theory, research and practice for easier reader access.

This volume is timely, since over the last ten years DMP has developed substantially in the UK, continental Europe, the USA and elsewhere. Thus, the book provides the reader with a far-reaching and global understanding of how DMP is conceived and practised through the fourteen chapters, documenting DMP from several countries. Examples of developments include the founding of a European Association for Dance Movement Therapy (EADMT); the founding of the international peer-reviewed journal, Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy published by Taylor and Francis, now well established in its eleventh year; and the many more post-graduate training courses, for example at the universities of Riga, Latvia and St Petersburg. Other countries such as Germany, China, India, Argentina and South Korea now have professional associations and/or centres for DMP professional membership, training and education respectively.

In the UK there has been a transformation. For example, the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy (ADMP UK) has changed its name to dance movement ‘psychotherapy’ (as opposed to the previous term dance movement ‘therapy’) which is the term used by UK authors in this book. Of particular note, in connection with the change in terminology, is that ADMP UK has successfully become an organisational member of the overarching United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), in the Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy College, enabling suitably qualified members of ADMP UK to be registered as UKCP psychotherapists. The attention being given to the arts in health is a driver for promoting DMP in health care (both mental and physical). For example, the Royal Society for Public Health in the UK has a special section for alerting the health service and the public about projects that aim to bring the arts into health care in its widest form, including the arts therapies.

Worldwide, more doctoral successes in DMP have resulted in a greater degree of appreciation for the important role research has to play in the professional development of the field. Research has implications for guidelines and policies, and is connected to society. As well as quantitative, qualitative and mixed methodologies in DMP (Payne, 1993a) and practitioner-researcher approaches (Payne, 1993b) there are newly emerging methodologies such as artistic enquiry documented by, for example, Wadsworth-Hervey (2000), McNiff (2008), and Knowles and Cole (2008), and practice-led research (for example Barrett and Bolt, 2007). The presentations at the annual American Dance Therapy Association conferences and the bi-annual European Association conference programmes illustrate this extremely well. Consequently, there is a section in this book (as in Payne, 2004, 2006) devoted to research.

In the general population there is an emergent awareness of alternative health (for example, mind–body methodologies) and thus the role the body plays in healing and transformation. Counselling/psychotherapy and life coaching are more integrated into society, the former being less stigmatised nowadays. Western society has become more complex and pressurised, and simultaneously there appears to be a greater recognition for the need to be psychologically fit; consequently, the public are seeking choice in methods of support for personal and professional development. Embodied approaches such as DMP alongside the other arts therapies provide further opportunities.

Why read this book?

Whatever your background you will find gems of wisdom throughout and be enlightened by the ever present depth and cutting-edge thinking that have gone into each of these chapters.

Specifically, professional practitioners in DMP will gain a greater insight about the field from across the globe. Many chapters provide much needed evidence for policy-makers, employers and funders. In addition, your understanding of the practice of DMP can be enhanced from the theoretical, research and clinical vignettes offered. Reading this volume will increase your confidence in your work, extend your professional learning, raise questions and take you to edges that previously you had not imagined there were.

Those involved in the education and training of dance movement psychotherapists will find the resources in this book invaluable. It is considered a mandatory reference book for post-graduate and introductory courses in DMP, like its predecessors. The theoretical discourses, critical reviews, practice illustrations, supervision, methods and processes, as well as the research, will provide a further platform for programme content as courses are honed and developed each year.

Researchers in DMP will appreciate the studies examined in this book. There is no doubt that without research the profession will not grow. Researchers can consider ideas for their research, for example, in selecting a methodology. Questions arising from the chapters might kindle some passion for a new, much-needed study.

Students of DMP will gain professional learning as they engage with the concepts and develop more understanding of the foundations that are unique to DMP. Furthermore, they will receive the benefits of the authors’ reflections on their practice from the case illustrations so carefully provided.

Clients will also find this book of interest, since all the chapters offer rich pickings in terms of the underlying principles of the processes involved when engaging in DMP for personal therapy and development.

Other arts therapists can benefit from reading this book in order to appreciate more fully the unique nature of DMP and how, if working with dance movement psychotherapists, they can complement the team to the benefit of clients. When contemplating referrals in the arts therapies this book will give a greater knowledge and understanding of DMP to enhance the rationale behind any referral made to DMP, whatever the setting and when considering the nature of the best intervention for a particular client.

For mental health professionals, such as nurses, social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists the above message about referrals is just as important. Within the education system head teachers and special education/inclusion leaders would also benefit from an increased awareness of the benefits and theoretical background in DMP when making referrals. Similarly, this would apply to professionals and policy-makers in the community: for example in residential homes, day centres, out-reach programmes etc.

Setting the scene

Dance movement psychotherapy is defined as: ‘the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance through which a person can engage creatively in a process to further their emotional, cognitive, physical and social integration’ (ADMP UK, 2002: 1).

Dance movement psychotherapy employs the creative use of movement and dance (Payne, 2013), which play a fundamental role within the therapeutic alliance. It is practised with groups and individuals in education, health and social care settings, as well as private practice. Dance as a healing art is ancient. In historical genres the expression of feelings and emotions is common. However, nowadays DMP is informed by contemporary psychological theory and research, psychotherapeutic theory and practice, multicultural trends in dance, spiritual developments and body psychotherapy. Neuropsychology research, where sensory perception is closely linked to affective and cognitive processes in a kind of kinaesthetic thinking (Damasio, 2000; Palley, 2000; Gerhardt, 2004; Schore, 2003a, 2003b; Panksepp, 2004, 2006a, 2006b), also contributes to DMP theory, research and practice, as do the developments in body psychotherapy from this perspective (Carroll, 2006).

In DMP, feelings, as expressed through the client/patient’s movement, provide content and a framework that influence the direction of the therapy rather than direction being taken from the therapist’s agenda. The therapist supports and challenges the client, engaging with her expressions. Movement is creative and improvisational, embodying the imagination whereby the body becomes the vehicle for self-expression and a bridge between emotion and motion for integration and healing.

Dance movement psychotherapy is an animate, active form of embodied communication, or inter-corporeality, which can be understood as the vehicle for the co-creation of the therapeutic alliance whereby there is an interplay between embodiment and relationship. According to Gallese (2016: 7), inter-corporeality is the ‘primordial source of knowledge that we have of others’. Sensory experience, rhythm and creativity are central to the process that combines body and mind to support the psychological growth of the individual client. Cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind have been challenging the individualist, cognitivist approaches to social interaction, and are acknowledging the importance of the body and of interaction processes between embodied subjects (Reddy and Morris, 2004; Gallagher, 2005; Ratcliffe, 2007; De Jaegher and Di Paolo, 2007; Schilbach et al., 2013). Intuitions previously found in DMP literature about communication and the co-creation of meaning are now reframed by authors such as Delafield-Butt and Trevarthen (2015) or De Jaegher, Peräkylä and Stevanovic (2016). It appears that previously embodied knowing in DMP is being reflected in these new embodied and situated explanations of what is happening in studies of social understanding. This has implications for how we understand, for example, the therapeutic alliance in DMP.

Dance movement psychotherapy supports people whereby spontaneous movement is seen as symbolic of unconscious processes. It increases self-awareness and self-esteem, providing for growth, change and healing within a therapeutic relationship. Dance, improvisation, empathic embodiment (Cooper, 2001), change and the self are in constant interaction in much DMP practice. It is a hybrid (Payne, 2006) comprising the theory and practice of psychological therapy and dance.

There is a fast-growing interest in embodiment. The relationship between neuroscience and embodied approaches to psychotherapy is still embryonic, although insights are developing on the interaction between body and mind and the relevance to psychotherapy (now termed neuro-psychotherapy). Core mammalian emotional processes have been found to underpin specific neurophysiological pathways and there is theoretical discourse on how interventions sensitive to such a physiology can support patients towards an increased capacity for self-regulation (Beauregard, 2007; Gilbert, 2015). Additionally, there is a mounting appreciation of affective phenomena as the locus of behaviour change prompted by neuroscience research showing bottom-up, left-hemisphere neural processes as reinforcing behaviour, confirming affectively focused clinical practices (Dahlitz, 2015). The role of relationships in the development of the nervous system and the aetiology of affect dysregulation in terms of neurobiological deficits is becoming clearer. Emotion plays a part in the overall regulation of the body and we are more aware of the risk of adverse experiences to health and wellbeing, relationship and emotional development.

Advances in neurosciences, attachment research and information processing demonstrate that the brain is shaped by experience that, if overwhelming as in trauma, can alter the capacity for self-regulation, attention, memory etc., with resultant changes in the unconscious. Trauma is imprinted as bodily states and action patterns that are manifested as a recurrence of the past in the present as they are automatically triggered. The unspeakable, unknown, intolerable, unacceptable trauma is rarely touched by words, insight or intellectual understanding. The physical experience of the self as hopeless, incapacitated, disempowered and terrified needs to be included in any solutions for recovery. The defensive elements exercised when needing to survive trauma need addressing through the physicality of the body.

There is an explosion of studies in the field of social cognition, especially on the dynamics of embodied interactions. Neuroscience (Dumas et al., 2011; Di Paolo, Rohde and De Jaegher, 2010) and psychotherapy (Beebe and Lachmann, 1998; Stern, 2004; Watzlawick et al., 2011) recognise that the body has an important role in connecting people and in how we understand each other. In all forms of psychotherapy engagement on a personal level is imperative: the (inter-) subjective is the enabler for close communication and connection. Empathy, as central to understanding the client, is itself the embodiment of experience. Research by, for example, Gallese (2016) in embodied cognition shows that action, sensation, emotion all compose the experience we have interpersonally. He claims (302) that ‘The motor simulati...