Moving through Life Transitions: Integrating New & Authentic Parts of Self through Dance Movement Therapy
Do you sometimes find it challenging to put words to your emotional experience? Are words sometimes not precise in what your body and soul are experiencing? Every day we move through our world and our lives with so much demand on our bodies and minds, frequently leaving little room for us to be with ourselves fully and compassionately. Sometimes what helps us express the felt emotion is a sigh, a gesture, a song, or a body posture. That’s because our emotional expression is felt and experienced by and through the body.
What is Dance Movement Therapy?
Dance movement therapy is a form of psychotherapy that invites you to explore the healing dialogue through your body, mind, and spirit. To begin the therapeutic process, one does not need a background in dance. During sessions, movement and dance are brought in to accompany you in meeting yourself authentically, honestly, and compassionately. When words are not enough, dance movement therapists invite you and guide you to look to the body and its expression for answers. Dance movement therapy is a healing approach that welcomes embodied experiencing and embodied communication.
The therapeutic use of dance and movement is a form of holistic healing that explores symbolic movements through the therapeutic movement relationship. Through movement exploration and verbal processing, you can explore new ways of being in your space through your dance, through your movement, and through a deepened body-mind connection. Dance movement therapy can help you integrate new senses and understandings of self by exploring varied movement patterns and movement qualities.
I believe that as humans we are drawn to various art forms because they have the power to hold immense sentiment on what it means to be free, to experience pain, to be understood, to be seen, and to be alive. These deeply emotionally holding and relatable forms of art can be a poem, a film, a dance performance, a song, a painting, or a play.
During the session, a dance movement therapist may introduce embodied practices such as authentic movement, free movement, improvisation, guided instructed movements, body scan meditations, mindfulness meditations, somatic sensing, verbal processing, music and song, gestural expression, vocalizations, and breath-work to help you come to understand your body on your path to healing.
How does dance movement therapy speak to your body’s wisdom?
I believe that the body holds so much wisdom, holds your story and holds the answers for your healing. It is scientifically proven that the body stores our memories throughout our lives whether it is the recalling of visual memory or a smell that brings you back to a physical space or a specific memory. As your dance movement therapist, I will create a space for you to welcome your whole, creative, and embodied connection to yourself. During sessions, I will work to build a therapeutic movement relationship at your pace to understand your past and your goals for your healing. To come to know ourselves and to come to deepen our healing is to meet our bodies.
If dance movement therapy speaks to you and your intentions to begin or further your healing, I invite you to reach out and schedule a consultation call with our team to learn more about our offerings.
- Noelani Rodriguez, LCAT, RDMT