What is Authentic Movement?
Authentic Movement was developed by Mary Starks Whitehouse who integrated her roots in dance, Jungian studies, and pioneering work in dance and movement therapy. Building on Jung's method of active imagination, Mary saw symbolic meaning in physical action.
It was further developed by Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow, and today there are many different forms, practices, and names for Authentic Movement (AM). Depending on the practitioner, it may be described differently in terms of a meditative, expressive, creative and/or a spiritual practice.
I offer Authentic Movement (AM) in Individual and Group settings to encourage self-discovery, understanding, and acceptance of your embodied experience in all areas of your life. Sessions are tailored to a clients goals and needs! Movement is used as a catalyst to integrate your emotional, physical, cognitive and spiritual selves. This process of discovery through movement engages the total person, providing a vehicle for self expression, understanding, healing, and growth for people with diverse needs.
How does it look like?
AM is practiced within of a specific structure, either one-on-one or in small to large groups. Individual and group sessions provide a safe space to explore your innermost movements. You will learn to turn your attention towards your bodily sensations, images and feelings that are then allowed to develop into spontaneous movement. Movement is done with eyes closed in the presence of the witness/therapist, whose task it is to hold and contain the experience of the person moving.
In general, the AM process will also be followed by writing, drawing, and/or speaking to integrate and further develop the movement experience. As movement can trigger powerful images, feelings and memories arising from as early as infancy or childhood there may also be a need to further process them in psychotherapy or through other means.
Who can benefit from this work?
If you are interested in developing a deeper connection with your inner Self and/or your body in a primarily non-verbal way, Authentic Movement may be right for you.
For those in spiritual search: AM allows an opportunity to engage 'spirit' in matter, to access cellular and energetic knowing that resonates beneath constrictions of personality. Spontaneity, creativity, a discovery of more choices, and a profound sense of authenticity become more available as we become more genuinely who we are.
For dancers and artists: AM is a great tool for overcoming artistic and creative blocks, to develop a new vision, and to increase your ability to tap into your personal creativity while re-connecting with a deep inner source.
Therapists can benefit from AM by finding personally nourishing resources and ways to connect to their SELF again. They may also gain an embodied understanding of how movement can evoke feeling and change in patterns and how somatics are part of the transference/countertransference relationship.
Transformative in many ways, I feel that AM's healing and growth are facilitated through seeing and being seen as one in the presence of a loving and compassionate witness. Awareness can then develop to own and trust the moving experience, its interpretations, to disengage judgments and to integrate shadow material as it emerges. The body as a sometimes broken container may heal and through this we can become freer in every moment to engage in experience directly.