Arts Therapies And Psychotherapy Training: An International Survey

This paper presents a comparative analysis of data received from the dissemination of a qualitative questionnaire to 12 countries. The survey was concerned with the extent to which group therapy was incorporated into the personal development (PD) aspect of arts therapies and group psychotherapy training. It asked respondents for their rationales, which include or omit such an experience in their programme, together with details of the form, structure and orientation if it was included.Peer reviewe

Psychosomatic conditions in primary care : change within the moving bodymind

Original article can be found at : http://www.admt.org.uk/ Copyright Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UKThis is a short report of the outcomes of a pilot study (2005-2008) for which I was Principal Investigator. Readers might find it of interest, especially if unexplained bodily symptoms are present in your clients. Full details of the study can be found in the publications listed below. Research question: Do patients from GP surgeries suffering psychosomatic conditions (otherwise termed somatoform disorder/medically unexplained symptoms) perceive an improvement in their quality of life, in relation to the perception and management of their symptoms, following a group intervention termed the BodyMind Approach which traces the connection between physical symptoms and emotional experience?Peer reviewe

Embodiment, learning and wellbeing

Final Published versio

Medically Unexplained Symptoms (1/4): The BodyMind Approach

© Psychotherapy Excellence Ltd trading as PESI. All rights reserved.Final Published versio

The body speaks its mind : the BodyMind Approach® for patients with medically unexplained symptoms in primary care in England

Date of Acceptance: 22/12/2014This article documents an experience of translating research into the real-world of the National Health Service (NHS) in the England. Transferring new knowledge from research is problematic particularly when negotiating within the context of the changing NHS England. An overview of the pitfalls/challenges and some of the tried and tested methods which were designed to overcome these is provided. The evidence-based intervention, offered by a University of Hertfordshire spin-out company Pathways2Wellbeing, is a service called Symptoms Groups to patients, and termed The Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS) Clinic to health professionals. The groups use The BodyMind Approach (TBMA)®2, based on a bio-psychosocial model derived from dance movement psychotherapy, which has been specifically researched with patients with MUS. These patients have no specific pathway for supporting their wellbeing and are high health utilizers at the interface of primary and community care. They suffer with chronic, physical symptoms or conditions which do not appear to have an organic, medical diagnosis, previously known as psychosomatic conditions.Peer reviewe

Embodied Perspectives in Psychotherapy

© Psychotherapy Excellence Ltd trading as PESI. All rights reserved

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

Personal constructs of mind-body identity in people who experience medically unexplained symptoms (MUS)

"Medically unexplained symptoms" (MUS) refers to chronic physical symptoms without a clear medical cause, which produce significant levels of distress and functional impairment. This project modified the repertory grid technique to explore how twenty participants experiencing MUS construed self and others in bodily and psychological ways. Findings suggested that symptoms are well integrated within participants' wider mind–body construct systems. Increased distance between how self in general is construed compared to self when symptoms are worst was associated with reduced anxiety. Measuring intrapersonal and interpersonal implicative dilemmas suggested that moral and relational construing of identity is affected by MUS.Peer reviewe

Waiting room.

Waiting Room is an installation of drawings and monotypes that re-envision everyday printed materials common in medical offices. The brochures, poster, bulletin board and children’s ABC book in this Waiting Room offer guidance suggest invasive and dysfunctional policy. A door opens onto a further room, where a hundred ultrasound images cascade onto the floor. This work, called Transducer Phosphene is the product of a fictional character’s encounter with a cruel (and not fictive) abortion policy. Waiting Room is the fruit of an inquiry that spanned my three years of study at the Hite Art Institute, a probing into the politics of ubiquitous measurements. With paper and ink, I asked: When does measurement become surveillance? When does it construct rather than reflect human interiority? And how, in a world intent on measuring, do I hold on to other ways of knowing

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