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Kayla
Faculty Advisor:
Hannah Schwadron
Professor of Dance History
Abstract
The purpose of this project was to become educated in the field of the
psychotherapeutic practice of Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) and
implement its techniques into a group within the Tallahassee community.
Specifically, monitoring the group for positive behavioral and emotional
progressions throughout the project. Originally executed as an IDEA Grant
recipient, I conducted the research in two parts: the attendance to a five
day workshop in DMT at Antioch University New England in Keene, New
Hampshire, and, the adaptation of DMT exercises to work with homeless
and at-risk youth at Someplace Else Crisis Shelter in Tallahassee, Florida.
Video and photo evidence was strictly prohibited at the shelter because
the organization acts as a safe haven for a transient community of 1017 year olds with varied living situations. Throughout the project I noted
and analyzed physical, verbal, and emotional responses from the children
before, during, and after the movement exercises. The results of the project
support the growing idea in Psychology that DMT can benefit clients
in ways that typical Psychotherapy (Talk Therapy) cannot offer alone.
Incorporating DMT into Someplace Else Crisis Shelter’s program provided
evidence that movement affinities and conscious interventions within those
affinities can reflect and alter psychological health.
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As defined by the American Dance Therapy Association: “Dance/
Movement Therapy [is] the psychotherapeutic use of movement to
further the emotional, cognitive, physical and social integration of the
individual.”1 To expound on that definition, Dance/Movement Therapy
(DMT), like other professions (Occupational Therapy for example), can
address physical limitations, their possible physical causes, and how to
correct them. That approach often applies to working with the physical
motor developments of infants and toddlers. Otherwise, DMT uses
carefully cultivated movement exercises typically paired with verbal
analyzation, in part, with the client. According to Joan Chodorow, Ph.D.,
former president of the American Dance Therapy Association, and
Jungian Analyst— “There are three aspects of dance/movement in
analysis that we gradually learn to remember: 1) What was the body
doing? 2) What was the associated image? 3) What was the associated
affect or emotional tone?”2 Those three questions provide the platform
for cognitive reflection and growth through discussion.
Chodorow’s paper, “The Body as Symbol: Dance/Movement in
Analysis,” discusses how practitioners often look at DMT as “a form
of active imagination in analysis” and that it calls upon Jungian Depth
Psychology for understanding actions or reactions occurring in the
body.3 Anita Green, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst, and instructor at C.G Jung
Institute, further explains that, “for Jung, matter and spirit, body and
psyche, the intangible and the concrete were not split or disconnected
but always remained interfused with each other.”4 Like Jungian Depth
Psychology, DMT uses the evidence of movement to explore and
understand the unconscious mind.
Insight to the Dance/Movement Therapy Workshop at Antioch
University New England through IDEA Grant Progress Report
The following is an edited progress report required for my 2016
IDEA Grant project. I wrote it immediately after my time at Antioch
University New England to give a brief account of my experience. I
studied with Alice Thayer Scudder, Susan Loman, Danielle Fitzpatrick,
Kim Burden, and Christina Devereaux. Alice Thayer Scudder is an
adjunct faculty member at Antioch University New England and a
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An Explanation of Dance/Movement Therapy
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DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY
senior counselor at Phoenix House in Keene, New Hampshire. Susan
Loman is the Director of Antioch’s Dance/Movement Therapy and
Counseling Program. Loman is also a world renowned Kestenberg
Movement Profile expert. Danielle Fitzpatrick serves as adjunct faculty
at Antioch University New England and is an alumna of the program.
Fitzpatrick has worked with the geriatric population, using DMT, for
over 15 years. Kim Burden is also an adjunct professor, as well as a
Body-Mind Centering Practitioner. Christina Devereaux is the Assistant
Professor and Director of Clinical Training at Antioch University New
England.5
June 5th-June 11th, 2016 at the Antioch University New England
kick-started my project. It was a week equally split between the
exploration,
understanding,
and the application of the
psychotherapeutic benefits of
Dance/Movement Therapy to
various populations. On day
one, my seven peers (all either
practicing
Psychotherapists
or Counselors) and I (an
undergraduate Dance Major)
plunged right into the delicate tactics attached to understanding the
unconscious mind through the revelations the physical body creates.
Our guide for the day, professor Alice Thayer Scudder, instilled in us the
need to begin each exercise with the promotion of mindfulness, selfcompassion, and the tolerance of/moving through discomforts. The
exercises that we learned, participated in, and discussed afterwards
focused mostly around the effects the exercises could have on clients
battling substance abuse and those that had undergone any trauma.
Every day that followed stuck to a similar, intuitive process that not only
gave insight to diverse groups of people, but also created intense selfreflection that promoted empathy within our group of eight. We truly
put ourselves in both pairs of shoes—the practitioners’ and the clients.’
Day two with Susan Loman was all about working developmentally with
children from the ages of 0-6 years old. This included children on the
Autism spectrum and children with anything from physical disabilities,
to attachment issues, to intellectual uniqueness. Day three shed light on
“ We truly put ourselves in
both pairs of shoes - the
practitioners’ and the
clients’ ”
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Why I Chose to Work with the Youths at Someplace Else Crisis
Shelter
As I have grown older, my awareness of the homeless population
has grown, as well as the numerous causes, choices, and effects regarding
hopelessness. As a person who has not been a stranger to economic
instability or the feeling of not belonging, I desired to share tools with
others that could assist them in finding a home within themselves and
could catalyze a supportive community. I felt the need to work in my
own community—Tallahassee, Florida. It seemed most appropriate to
me to focus more on the children or youths, especially when it came to
homelessness because they have the most to lose developmentally—
physically and psychologically. The 2015 Annual Report Council on
Homelessness led me to discover that, “nationally nearly one-third of
all homeless people are children and youths; Florida school districts
identified 71,446 children and youths who were homeless or unstably
housed.”7 The count of Homeless Students was 702 for Leon County
in 2014. Thus, I contacted Someplace Else Crisis Shelter because I
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the vast amount of people that Dance/Movement Therapy can assist,
as Danielle Fitzpatrick took us through her experiences with clients
throughout the entire lifespan, infants to geriatrics. Day four reiterated
the necessity of bodily awareness in order to be attuned with one’s
mind and emotions. Kim Burden took us through the practices of BodyMind Centering and Authentic Movement and we found for ourselves
the fierce emotions and mental connections that occur within each
practice. On day five, Christina Devereaux wrapped up the program by
taking us through a review of each day (both through the movement
exercises and through discussion) and opened the floor to any questions
that needed refreshed answers. The questions included clarification on
the application of movement exercises, things to look for/be cautious
of, and options for tracking data and progress. Throughout the week,
my peers and I continued to relate the information back to the different
populations we each served. Since then, I have been organizing
everything that I recorded in my notebook during the workshop into the
following categories—Populations, Exercises, Causes/Effects, Personal
Insights.6
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DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY
admired and wanted to assist them in their, “providing [of] a safe…open
and homelike environment.”8
At Someplace Else Crisis Shelter, youths ranged from the age
of 10 to 17 years old. The facility can house up to 18 youths; the age
and numbers of the youths fluctuated from week to week. The part of
my project at the organization occurred once a week for five weeks in
the facility’s approximately 25 x 15-foot lunchroom. The lunchroom
provided a larger space than their multi-purpose room because the lunch
tables could be easily moved to fully clear the room. Two employees
remained with me during every session. During the duration of the study,
the number of youths
remained
between
10-13. There were a
consistent 4 youths
throughout the study;
others remained for
2-3 weeks at a time,
while some were only
present for one week.
The inconsistency in age and quantity was not the most ideal
for this project. However, I chose Someplace Else Crisis Shelter for
this project because the opportunity to benefit its community through
DMT seemed plausible. While Someplace Else Crisis Shelter facilitated
extensive arts and event programming throughout the year, at the time,
the organization did not yet offer anything along the lines of Dance/
Movement Therapy. In support of the organization’s “individualized
approach to each youth,” DMT provided an environment for the
youths that allowed them to be introspective and to healthily navigate
themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally with relation to the
group.9
“I chose Someplace Else
Crisis Shelter...because the
opportunity to benefit its
community...seemed plausible ”
My Project at Someplace Else Crisis Shelter
According to a presentation on “Arousal Regulation in
Traumatized Children” at the 2009 International Trauma Conference—
given by Elizabeth Warner, PsyD. SMART Program Director, along
with, with Jane Koomar, Ph.D., OTR/L, FAOTA, and, Anne Westcott,
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First Week Subjects
Subject 1
Subject 2
Subject 3
Subject 4
Subject 5
Subject 6
Subject 7
Subject 8
First Week Answers
8
9
1 (originally 2 but then slashed
out)
10
No Answer
7 1/2 (1/2 added by subject)
7
4
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LICSW, Certified Sensorimotor Therapist—when youths face
developmental trauma, such as “emotional abuse, neglect, attachment
disruptions, physical abuse, and sexual abuse,” symptoms occur such
as “interpersonal trauma and attachment disruption, somatization and
biological dysregulation, alterations in attention and consciousness,
affect and impulse dysregulation, interpersonal difficulties, and
distortion in self-perception and meaning-making.”10
Many of the correlations mentioned above could be recognized
at Someplace Else Crisis Shelter. I began my project there by establishing
a level of trust and the acknowledgement of a new routine with the
homeless and at-risk youths. I sat with the youths as they ate their
snacks, chatted and explained that I would be filling the proceeding
time block for the next few weeks. It was originally suggested by the
facility to split up the girls and boys to deter any rowdiness. However,
after the first week, I felt it best to keep them together because the
goal of healthier, friendly and respectful, interactions between group
members remained.
I began the project with a simple survey—anonymously asking
how comfortable, on a scale from 1-10, each individual was dancing
when around others. I recorded the answers in the following table.
Subjects and their answers are not listed in any particular order. I only
conducted the survey once to get a general feel for any discrepancies
between how subjects individually felt about the content and what
occurred later during the exercises.
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DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY
First Week Subjects
Subject 9
Subject 10
First Week Answers
10
10
Contrary to the several high numbers that suggested that most of
the youths were comfortable dancing when around others, the sessions
started off with hesitant participants. I then played a non-explicit Top
40 playlist as background noise in attempt to give the participants a
sense of familiarity so they would feel more at ease during the exercises.
Gender norms became extremely evident on the first day once the
youths were split up. The boys elicited enthusiastic vocal responses to
the activities overall and tried each exercise; each desired to “out move”
the other five boys. There was one outlier who remained seated but still
moved his torso and vocally participated. Other than the one subject’s
act of sitting, no further pushback was received from the boys during
the first session. Their urge to outdo one another declined throughout
the session, replaced by fun encouragement that mimicked that of the
two Someplace Else Crisis Shelter employees in the room. As opposed
to the boys, the four girls would only participate half-heartedly from
their seats and wearily asked me questions about myself during the
first session. Once I was accepted by the girls, they started to brag about
one particular youth who was a dancer. However, they all remained to
timidly complete the movement exercises from their seats. The girls
made a song request near the end of the session, James Bays’ “Let it
Go,” and instead of initiating more movement exercises, I was asked
by one youth to sing with them. The lyrics, specifically the chorus, “So
come on let it go. Just let it be. Why don’t you be you and I’ll be me,”
evoked a touching, soft acceptance of independence from the tween
and teenage girls that I was asked to share.11 I verbally noted that each
girl had relaxed her shoulders, that eyes had dropped either halfway
or all the way closed, and a comforting sway had overcome everyone’s
body. I then explained to the girls that I had been taught by a professor
at Antioch, Susan Loman, that rocking or swaying is a way for the body
to calm down the central nervous system. From then on, music playlists
were left up to the youths (if it was dubbed clean by the organization
and did not lead to “aggressive behavior”). Their ability to choose
playlists added to the information about the group’s mood on a session
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One of my sessions (July 16th, 2016) is outlined by the movement
exercises listed below:
Deep breaths began the session. For it to be a more conscious
experience, I gave rhetorical cues such as, “Can you feel the physical
space between each rib expand? Can you imagine that your chest
has been unlocked?” I encouraged that the breathing exercise be
executed with eyes closed, or with eyes downcast if eyes closed
was uncomfortable. Eyes closed is intended to allow for more
introspection, but also anonymity within the act in case anyone
felt self-conscious at the time. The cues not only called for a more
conscious practice of breathing, but also offered imagery that could
prompt the most efficient, deepest breaths—creating relaxation
and focus. Most youths found this to be their favorite part of each
session. One mentioned that they “didn’t know their lungs were so
big.”
Simple stretches occurred next, interlaced with efficient bloodpumping exercises like Jumping Jacks and Marches. This was
simply to wake up the body of each youth and the group energy.
Freeze Dance followed. Seen more as a game, Freeze Dance is done
to open up the view of the individual to include the group. There is
only one rule. When one person freezes, everyone freezes—when
one person begins again, everyone else also begins again. All the
youths found that they needed to be extremely vigilant to follow
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by session basis. Also, after the first session, I refrained from labeling
any exercise as “dance” to minimize preconceived notions about dance.
Unless the youths requested “dance,” “movement” was used in its place.
Following that first session, the youths would greet me eagerly
at the entrance and update me on their day. Those that remained from
a previous week confidently requested certain exercises and activities.
The consistent youths began seeing the sessions as something that
they could contribute to and tailor to what they needed as a group.
Responsibility for oneself and the consideration of others started taking
root and boys and girls remained together.
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DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY
the rules and to not run into anyone. They also voiced that they felt
noticed, listened to, and a level of command and accomplishment.
One youth exclaimed, “People are actually watching me.”
On this day (July 16th, 2016), some of the youths did not want
to continue dancing, while others did. Discourse began to erupt.
I proposed an icebreaker game that had nothing to do with their
preconceived knowledge of dance/movement. Icebreaker games
are simple and can be improvised to use whatever resources are
around. I had the youths stand in a circle and throw a volleyball to
each other. I established that eye contact before throwing the ball
was the number one rule. Once someone caught the ball, they were
to share a simple, non-vulgar, “I like ____” statement. For example,
“I like to play soccer.” The next person to catch the ball would then
make a choice to stick within the theme of the previous person’s
subject, or, to change the subject. Such as, “I like to play baseball,”
or, “I like to eat chocolate.” The group became more lively and they
also began to look out for/support each other. They all reminded
each other to make eye contact before throwing the volleyball and
would apologize if a throw seemed aggressive. The eye contact
rule held the participants accountable for safety and the chosen
subjects of discussion reminded everyone how much they had in
common—evident by now enthusiastic shouts of agreement.
A request to dance again was then made by one youth and each
member of the group either agreed or decided to sit the next
exercise out. I had those participating remain in a circle to make
the transition less jarring for the entire group. The instruction was
then to pass along dance moves rather than a ball. One person did a
move and the rest replicated it to the best of their ability. This went
on in an accumulating fashion. It was an act intended to make the
youths feel seen and validated by having their movement reflected
to them by the group. After a few rounds, those that had opted to
sit out excitedly decided that they wanted to join in. While none of
them gave a reason why, I suspected that they noticed that it was a
safe environment because their peers were having fun; thus, they
felt comfortable enough to contribute to the hodgepodge of moves
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By that time in the session, another youth requested to try freeze
dance again because they “thought they could do it better now.”
Their confident appeal seemed to make it agreeable to the entire
group. They were more successful the second time around. From
my observations, because of their small disagreement after the
first round of freeze dance, paired with their reconciliation during
the icebreaker game and the accumulating dance move game, the
youths had developed a greater attunement to each other. That
enabled them to freeze or unfreeze almost immediately when one
person froze or unfroze during this second round of freeze dance.
Further Responses
A famous Modern Dancer and Choreographer, Martha Graham,
once said, “movement never lies.”12 I would like to add to it, “if you know
how to pay attention to the movement.” Often the body reveals what
cannot be immediately expressed verbally. This idea greatly applied to
the age group at Someplace Else Crisis Shelter. Youths generally lack the
sophisticated language comprehension that even adults struggle with
to express their emotions. By working backwards—creating sessions of
movement exercises and interventions that attended to the symptoms
of somatization and biological dysregulation, interpersonal difficulties,
distortion in self-perceptions and meaning-making, etc.—participants
had a say in how their all-around self-discovery unfolded and began
to open up about past issues as they rose to the surface from the
unconscious. And because there are numerous movement exercises,
each with the ability for creative and situational consideration, the
process could be tailored every session for where I was attempting to
guide the group.
Not only did the participants begin to speak more candidly
about past and present issues, not available for repetition here, certain
behaviors improved significantly from the first session to the last.
Those behaviors were discussed between the youths and I and they are
shared below:
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being made.
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DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY
The youths could control their anger and began to think clearly
simply by tuning into their breathing and their heart rate.
To have their movement reflected to them meant to be seen,
understood, and accepted.
They could commend, even celebrate, their existence by intensely
focusing on their body and how it physically felt to be alive on a
day to day basis.
What’s Next
The project is by no means as comprehensive as I desired.
Without sufficient funding and other resources, many curiosities could
not be studied in an already underestimated field, Dance/Movement
Therapy. If given an opportunity to progress, I would apply for a master’s
or doctoral degree in the field of DMT. I would create a long-term study
through an institution in fulfillment of that degree and new participants
would go through a more extensive process with additional expectations
such as monitoring brain activity and Sensorimotor Therapy.
For now, my project successfully instilled in the youths at
Someplace Else Crisis Shelter that the only home that you are guaranteed
is your body. And you can move it wherever you please.
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2.
Chodorow, Joan. “The Body as Symbol: Dance/
Movement in Analysis.” Reflections on Psychology, Culture
and Life the Jung Page. N.p., 27 Oct 2013. Web. 14 July
2016. http://www.cgjungpage.org/learn/articles/
analyticalpsychology/88thebodyassymboldancemovementinanalysis
3.
4.
Ibid.
Ibid.
5.
“Faculty,” http://www.cgjungpage.org/learn/articles/
analyticalpsychology/88thebodyassymboldancemovementinanalysis
6.
Kayla McClellan, “IDEA Grant Progress Report” (required
progress report for IDEA Grant Recipients, Florida State University,
2016).
7.
“2015 Annual Report Council on Homelessness,” pg. 8-10,
accessed December 23, 2016, http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/programs/
homelessness/docs/Council-on-Homelessness-2015%20-Report.pdf
8.
We Are on a Mission to Support & Serve Youths in Crisis.” CCYS .
N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2016. http://www.ccys.org/
9.
Ibid.
10.
Elizabeth Warner, Jane Koomar, “Arousal Regulation in
Traumatized Children” (presentation, International Trauma
Conference, Boston, MA, 2009)
11.
Bay, James (2015). Let it Go. On Chaos and the Calm [MP3 File].
Nashville, Tennessee: Republic Records.w
12.
Graham, Martha. Blood Memory. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
Print.
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1.
“FAQs | ADTA.” ADTA . N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2016. https://adta.
org/faqs/