Authentic movement as a laboratory for spirituality: opening to God and the inner self

The main purpose of this research is to evaluate authentic movement as an effective approach to liberative religious education. Authentic movement is a field of modern dance that focuses on emotional movement and its ability to open access to the human unconsciousness, especially as understood in Carl Jung’s psychological perspective. Through authentic movement, a person is able to glimpse one’s inner self and one’s sense of the Divine, and also to release suppressed feelings, including those feelings evoked by the pressures of social expectations and stereotypes. Authentic movement thus engages persons in a process of religious education that can liberate them toward greater integration with their inner selves and religious experience

The Psycho-neurology of Embodiment with Examples from Authentic Movement and Laban Movement Analysis

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Helen Payne, 'The Psycho-neurology of Embodiment with Examples from Authentic Movement and Laban Movement Analysis', American Journal of Dance Therapy, June 2017. Under embargo. Embargo end date: 7 June 2018. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s10465-017-9256-2.There is widespread agreement that thought is embodied cognition and that our earliest learning is implicit, through the body, and nonverbal expression. This article advances the proposition that the integration of thought and emotion is felt through the body. Embodiment and embodied simulation (ES) (Gallese in Neuropsychoanalysis 13(2):196–200, 2011) represent controversial topics in both the philosophy of mind (Clark in Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998) and cognitive neuroscience (Gallagher in Cognitive Syst Res 34–35:35–43, 2015a; Gallagher in Conscious Cogn 36:452–465, 2015b; Gallese & Sinigaglia in J Conscious Stud 18(7–8):117–143, 2011a; Gallese in Philos Trans R Soc B 369(1644):20130177, 2014). As a result of advances in these areas of research, there is a need to re-conceptualize our understanding of the mechanisms and processes involved in dance movement psychotherapy. Could ES be applied to the psychology of movement? This article attempts to apply this theory of embodiment to the practice of Authentic Movement (AM) and Laban Movement Analysis. The theory of ES is proposed as one possible explanation of how the witness in AM comes to know her inner experience in the presence of a mover, which may lead to an “offering” to that mover from the witness’ conscious body (Adler in Offering from the conscious body: The discipline of Authentic Movement, Inner Traditions, Rochester, VT, 2002). Furthermore, there is an examination of how ES connects to the task of movement observation and how meaning is arrived at from the various movement patterns observed.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Doing It Alone: Supporting a Single Mother Through Authentic Movement (An Artistic Inquiry)

The purpose of this study was to take an in-depth look at the human experience of single motherhood and how authentic movement, a body based movement practice used in dance/movement therapy, can play a role in supporting one single mother cope and navigate through mental, emotional, and physical struggles. This study documented my experience, illuminating the relationship between single motherhood and authentic movement. Heuristic methodology was used to collect data and took the form of personal journals. This data documented my authentic movement experience. The creative process method of artistic inquiry was then used to help further analyze my experience on a body level, which culminated in a performance film. This external representation of my experience combined movement, music, spoken word, and visual images. This research has helped to inform my role as single mother, student, and therapist

Stepping In: My Experience of Embodied Power Through the Relations-Cultural Framework

This qualitative embodied artistic inquiry self-study explored how I used my embodied power in an ethical and intentional way as a dance/movement therapist and illustrated how I experienced my embodied power as informed by relational-cultural theory. At the time of the study, I was a 24-year-old, White, female identified, Midwestern, second-year dance/movement therapy and counseling graduate student. Data were collected through five authentic movement sessions with a trained authentic movement practitioner. Data analysis took the form of creative synthesis through embodied writing passages following each authentic movement session. Results included a journey of self-compassion through a growing movement repertoire, which led to self-acceptance, ownership of the past, and choice. Implications demonstrated the importance of therapists exploring theoretical frameworks that align with or challenge one’s worldview, and continuously engaging in introspective exploration of one’s racial identity

Nature Connectedness and The Discipline of Authentic Movement

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article follows a path linking the discipline of authentic movement with Nature connectedness. This deep empathic practice seeks to change empathy from the interpersonal solely to an interspecies dialogue, cultivating a shift from human-focussed to an earthly perspective of the world. It offers the author's reflections and examples from practice of an adapted model of the discipline of authentic movement which employs the roles of witness and mover outdoors to cultivate opportunities to experience participatory knowing from, and with, the more-than human world. There are enormous challenges to be met by the human species in the face of the climate catastrophe. This proposed creative, enactive, embodied, embedded model is another way to promote Nature connectedness to develop an ecological self which recognizes an ethical responsibility for the planet and its interdependence with humans.Peer reviewe

Dance/Movement Therapy as Influence on Sense of Self: A Community Engagement Project

This community engagement project seeks to explore the influence of dance/movement therapy and authentic movement techniques on one’s sense of self. This project focused on these techniques as an approach toward self-actualization and finding one’s essence. This study considered the potential implications of these practices on populations whose bodily experience can be perceived as a barrier toward self-actualization, such as in eating disorders and trauma. Six expressive therapy students from Lesley University participated in two sessions of dance/movement therapy. This included: a movement-exploration warm up, authentic movement, and a visual artistic representation of their perceived essence based on the experiential. Following these sessions, participants reported experiencing embodiment, allowing permission for stillness, attunement, connection, and present awareness. They acknowledged the influence dance/movement therapy and authentic movement practices have on the sense of self and one’s essence and recognized the varying ways in which these phenomena emerge. Their insights shared that these phenomena can be understood and explored, however one’s sense of self cannot be defined nor can the essence be materialized in absolute form

Being a witness: Using kinesthetic empathy as a reflective tool for clients

The body can be described as the container of one’s entire life experience with movement and sensation as its language, known as kinesthetic empathy. Authentic Movement is a practice that makes use of this language to be able to gain a higher awareness of the kinesthetic affective material which may not be accessible otherwise. This paper describes an exploration to investigate if kinesthetic empathy experienced by the therapist in their body may be used as a reflective tool for clients through the process of being a witness to their verbal stories, as practiced in authentic movement

Shared Habitats: the MoverWitness Paradigm

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/642 on 14.02.2017 by CS (TIS)This practice-led research thesis analyses and visualises central components of Authentic Movement, with particular reference to the work of Dr Janet Adler. By contextualising and comparing this improvisation method with modern, post-modern and contemporary movement practices the author describes the emergence of Authentic Movement and distinguishes it from other practices. A new and original viewpoint is adopted and the practice's aesthetic, visual and empathetic characteristics are explored in relationship to and through visual art. The author, a learned Authentic Movement practitioner, critiques, deconstructs and reframes the practice from a visual arts- and performance-based, phenomenological perspective renaming it 'the MoverWitness exchange'. Embedded aspects and skills of the MoverWitness exchange, usually only accessible to firsthand practitioners of the method, are made explicit through research processes of analysis, application and visualisation. Hereby the practice's unique capacity to contain and express binary embodied experiences and concepts is exposed. Resulting insights are crystallised in a distinctive understanding of the MoverWitness exchange that emphasises its suitability as a new learning and/or research methodology for inter- and cross-disciplinary application.Dartington College of Art