Dance therapy

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The dance therapy is a psychotherapeutic discipline in the field of artistic therapies . The freely improvised dance serves the individual expression, understanding and processing of feelings and relationships. Dance, as any type of movement with creative expression and communication, is the core component of dance therapy that developed in the USA in the 1940s . Marian Chace , Trudi Schoop , Lilian Espenak and Mary Whitehouse are the most important founders of various dance therapeutic directions.

According to the providers, dance therapy increases body and self-awareness, leads to an expansion of the movement repertoire and promotes authentic expression through the integration of the unconscious . It sees itself as “the psychotherapeutic use of dance and movement to integrate physical, emotional and cognitive processes in humans.” The basic assumptions of dance therapy take into account influences from depth psychology and humanistic psychology .

The history of dance therapy

The development of dance therapy began in Germany in the 1920s. Rudolf von Laban (1879–1958) played a pioneering role . One of Labans' students was the German dancer Mary Wigman (Karoline Sofie Marie Wiegmann 1886–1973), who described expressive dance and her experience as a dancer in her book "The Language of Dance" and thus gave important impulses for the development of dance therapy. Other students of Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman were Irmgard Bartenieff , Franziska Boas , Liljan Espenak and Mary Whitehouse. As emigrants in the USA they pursued the theoretical and practical ideas of their teachers and developed new ones from them. Through their work with disabled and mentally ill people, they continuously discovered new therapeutic possibilities in dance . The stage dancers Trudi Schoop and Marian Chace also contributed to the development of dance therapy. From around 1950 they tested the positive effects of dance on people with severe mental disorders. Today Franziska Boas, Marian Chace, Liljan Espenak, Mary Whitehouse and Trudi Schoop are referred to as "the mothers of dance therapy". They all grew up in the time of expressive dance and had already made many experiences in dance as an artistic means of expression. Dance therapy was rediscovered by them through experiences in their dance studios and contacts with depth psychological therapists. Initially, however, none of them were clinicians, psychologists or psychotherapists.

The pioneers of dance therapy

As early as 1941, Franziska Boas tried to work in dance with a specialist in child psychiatry in a clinic with mentally ill children at the age of 12.

Liljan Espenak (1905–1988) studied at the University of Physical Education in Berlin and, after completing her training, received training in individual therapy from Mary Wigman at the Alfred Adler Institute. She tried to achieve freedom of movement for each of her patients and students by seeking changes in the dancer's lifestyle through the conscious coordination of body parts and rhythmic improvisations. Liljan Espenak performed this process with each patient individually in preparation for group therapy. In the group work, role plays were made to help the patient learn to cope with different situations. In addition, stretching and strengthening exercises were carried out to enable the greatest possible expression of movement. Liljan Espenak used music to underline or evoke emotions. Espenak's first group of patients consisted of mentally handicapped children. Later she also worked with neurotic and psychosomatic people in individual and group therapy. She founded the first dance therapy course in New York in 1969.

Mary Whitehouse (1911–1979) developed her approach to dance therapy from her dance education in Europe and America and through contact with the depth psychologist Carl Gustav Jung . She designed Jungian Dance Therapy, which is widely used in the United States today.

Trudi Schoop (1903–1999) was a stage dancer and emigrated from Switzerland to California at the beginning of the Second World War. There she began developing dance therapy for chronically psychotic people.

Marian Chace (1896–1970) was the best known and so far most influential pioneer of dance therapy. She never referred to herself as a psychotherapist, but her work with patients came very close to psychoanalysis . It was very important to Marian Chace that her patients learned to express their feelings in order to process them better. She managed to pick up and reflect their movements, making them more aware of their feelings. Today movement mirroring is one of the main methods of dance therapy. Marian Chace was of the opinion that dance training in many forms of dance was important for dance therapists, but had to be backed up by academic knowledge. She was the driving force behind the founding of the American Dance Therapy Association in 1965/66.

The first generation of the “mothers of dance therapy” was followed by the second generation, the “daughters”. The “daughters” were women with dance training and, in some cases, also with stage experience, who based their theoretical foundation on dance therapy on psychotherapeutic concepts. They followed their dance training with psychotherapeutic training. The contributions of Erma Dosamantes-Alperson, Penny Lewis-Bernstein and Elaine von Siegel are representative of the work of this generation.

The state of dance therapy today

Academization

In the USA, a two-year course for a master’s degree in dance therapy with predetermined standards was established in the early 1980s. Other forms of training were then no longer recognized by the ADTA. This completed the process of academization in the USA. The picture in Europe is mixed: In some countries (England, Spain, the Netherlands), training courses are also established at universities. In the majority of European countries, dance therapists are trained at private institutes. In Germany, too, a differentiated range of private training has been established since the 1970s. The process of academization was initiated by SC Koch, on whose initiative the dance and movement therapy (MA) course at the SRH University of Heidelberg was created in 2012. This development represents a significant step towards the urgently needed evidence-based dance therapy.

Professional association and training standards in Germany

In 1995, the professional association of dance therapists in Germany (btd) was founded in Germany, which sets standards for the four-year part-time training to become a dance therapist. Dance therapy pioneers in Germany such as Susanne Bender, Marianne Eberhard-Kaechele, Petra Klein, Sabine Trautmann-Voigt and Elke Willke had developed the basis for the standards over years of preparation. These standards guarantee a well-founded education so that the graduates can safely use the psychotherapeutic interventions of dance therapy. Training institutes must meet the training standards for recognition by the professional association, but they do represent different theoretical orientations (psychoanalytical, systemic, Gestalt basics), which allow priorities without neglecting the basic knowledge and skills. The level of the standards is based on other psychotherapeutic training courses and the corresponding national and international developments. Since the term “dance therapy” is not protected as a professional title, training courses of shorter duration are also offered, which not only provide insufficient qualifications, but also often do not correspond in their methods to the internationally accepted understanding of dance therapy. Work is currently underway to establish a European dance therapy association that can represent professional interests within Europe.

theory

Dance therapy uses dance and movement in a psychotherapeutic way to integrate physical, emotional and cognitive processes and as a medium for personal expansion. On the one hand, it is a form of artistic therapy and, on the other hand, a form of body psychotherapy with a special focus on the symbolism of movement. Established in health care since the 1980s, it integrates findings from psychology, psychotherapy research (e.g. psychotraumatology, non-verbal communication research, creativity research and body psychotherapy). Evidence-based studies have been increasingly carried out since the 1990s (Koch & Bräuninger, 2006).

The goals of dance therapy are:

- Integration of pre-linguistic experiences by incorporating body language and body memory

- Promotion of body awareness

- Development of a realistic body image

- Promotion of personal movement expression and authentic movement

- Promotion of self-awareness and others' perception

- Processing of emotional content

- Processing of intra- / inter-psychic conflicts

- Acquisition of new possibilities for building relationships / action skills

- Linguistic processing and reflection of the movement

- Awareness and integration of what has been experienced.

As individual or group therapy, it is used by all age groups due to its variety of methods. Expression, adaptation and communication behavior can be observed in muscle tension, breathing, rhythm, shape, posture and movement dynamics and can be influenced by dance-therapeutic interventions. (Info sheet Professional Association of Dance Therapists Germany eV, Koch & Bräuninger, 04/2008)

The areas of application of dance therapy

The areas of application of dance therapy are diverse. The following are the most important: Psychiatry, day clinics, psychosomatic facilities, psychotherapy, special educational facilities, outpatient practices for dance therapy (according to HeilprG , e.g. neurotic and psychosomatic clients), oncology, neurology, geriatrics, children, palliative medicine, rehabilitation, addiction facilities , Crisis intervention for clients with severe physical changes (e.g. after accidents, cancer, etc.), prevention, couple and family therapy , advice centers.

The diagnosis

With the movement analysis, the therapist tries to learn more about the patient's problems through posture, gestures, facial expressions, rhythm, tempo, relationship to space and breathing patterns. In order to find out more about these individual subject areas, the therapists work with diagnostic tests that are especially suitable for the area in question, especially at the beginning of the therapy.

The methods of dance therapy

Widely used instruments of dance therapy are the Laban movement analysis (LMA), the Movement Psychodiagnostic Inventory (MPI) and the Kestenberg movement profile (KMP) as well as their further development into the phenomenological movement observation instruments RES (rhythmic-energetic structure of visible and invisible movement), which are used for both Assessment and diagnostics as well as for interventions and therapy evaluation can be used. The main methodological elements of dance therapy are dance technique, imitation, improvisation and design. These areas build on and complement each other: By working with dance technique, a certain repertoire of movement is learned that is necessary for improvisation. Elements from the two areas are combined in the design.

The dance technique

In dance therapy, as is often misunderstood, only certain dance styles are danced. Simple movements such as gestures, small movement games and simple turns are just as much a part of dance therapy as verbal processing of what has been experienced. Established movement patterns help to overcome inhibitions: Most people are afraid that they will not conform to the ideal of beauty and movement when dancing. In this situation, the dance technique can create clarity and stability through its clear structure, which reduces uncertainties.
The goal of dance technique is to understand the movements with inner participation, to better perceive one's own physical sensations, to expand the repertoire of movements and to become aware of the connection between mood and movement.
The choice of dance style is primarily made dependent on the mood and overall situation of the patient, as different dance styles evoke different moods.

The imitation

Imitation of other people's forms of movement leads to one's own form of movement and thus personal development. The thought of getting closer to oneself by dancing the feelings, states and roles of another seems strange at first, but by imitating others and comparing them to others or also by rejecting and resisting another person we receive information and Feedback about ourselves. Therefore it can often be therapeutically useful to ask the patient to imitate certain movements. Even with imitation it is very important that the movement does not only focus on the physical and that the psyche is included.
In cases where the therapist senses that the patient has a certain deep feeling but cannot express it or does not know how to deal with it, the therapist can resort to imitation. It can show him a certain movement that is tailored to his feelings and thus help him to express himself.

The improvisation

It is characteristic of improvisation to let the unforeseen, the unplanned, happen. It serves to let the movement arise out of impulses in an uncontrolled manner, to let arise what wants to arise and to give oneself completely to the expression of the movement. Formal movement specifications do not exist in improvisation; it is any combination and arrangement of body, space, time, strength and rhythm. In improvisation there is no performance in the sense of fulfilling certain standards, the dancer can express his feelings, experiences and understanding in the movement (→ see also Contact Improvisation ).
The beginning of improvisation in therapy is usually difficult and frightening for the client. Due to his sudden freedom in action and movement, he feels insecure and does not know what to do. At the moment of improvisation, all external constraints, barriers and behavioral guidelines are lifted and yet the patient does not feel "free" at first. This experience often brings with it the first insight, namely that we often set ourselves the limitations and limits in everyday life.
Another difficulty in improvisation is switching off self-control, including the intellect. This is the only way to gain access to the unconscious and that is necessary to bring forgotten, suppressed, repressed feelings, scenes, memories and emotional movements back to the surface in order to "embody" them. The longer the intellect can be switched off, the sooner the forgotten and the hidden can arise. Sometimes there are outbursts of emotion and movement in the sense of a catharsis .
Working with the unconscious in improvisation is appropriate for patients who work well in everyday life but are still dominated by feelings of emptiness and senselessness. Psychotic people do not work on the unconscious, but very specifically in the external, real world in order to build up a clear and stable ego structure.

The design

The design can be seen as a combination of dance technique and improvisation.
In dance technique one tries to find access to the corresponding feeling through a certain movement, while in improvisation one expresses feelings and moods through uncontrolled movements and impulses. The design should create a balance between the two extremes. The control of one's own movement learned in dance technique and the expression of one's own feelings, as in improvisation, are combined.
When creating the design, the patient expresses feelings, moods and emotions through masterful, controlled movements, which he performs in rhythm with suitable music. He retains the freedom of choice as to which feeling he wants to express. He chooses, controls and changes. This creates the necessary distancing for the patient; he does not have the feeling of being helplessly exposed to his inner life and losing himself in it, as is the case with improvisation. This gives him the opportunity to express himself in dance at any time.

The psychoanalytic dance and movement therapy

In the 1960s and 1970s, Elaine von Siegel and Zoe Avstreih in particular integrated psychoanalytic concepts into their work. Elaine von Siegel has developed the following guidelines for her work:

  1. The resumption of a harmonious body-soul unity must take place through careful movement work, which, in addition to the motor skills, promotes the development of an adequate body image.
  2. Catharsis is recognized as a way of remembering dramatic events.
  3. The view gained through one's own activity and self-observation must also be worked through verbally.
  4. Movement patterns preferred by the patient are used as a starting point for specially choreographed dances and movements.
  5. Independence is promoted through improvisation
  6. Muscular inhibitions and spasms are viewed as an unconscious attempt to express and suppress aggression at the same time.

Through the development of psychoanalytic dance and movement therapy, two forms of therapy have been linked, which are based on completely different media: on the one hand psychoanalysis with its linguistic expression as a medium and on the other hand dance therapy with its expression through movement. Various development models of ego psychology and Laban's movement category are also incorporated into theoretical assumptions of psychoanalytic dance and movement therapy.

Scientific studies on dance therapy

The effectiveness of dance therapy has already been demonstrated for various disorders, such as B. Schizophrenia , oncology ( breast cancer ), pain , depression , dementia , post-traumatic stress disorder and eating disorders are researched. Marion Spors was able to show in her Göttingen dissertation (with Arnd Krüger ) that it was possible with the help of dance therapy to fathom the causes of eating disorders. B. to show abuse in the family environment, since it is easier to express feelings and experiences through movement than to verbalize Bräuninger was able to demonstrate in a randomized control study that dance therapy in outpatient care can improve the quality of life and manage stress. With the analysis of the Kestenberg Movement Profile, Lier-Schehl recognized the movement patterns in relationship disorders of postnatally ill women and their babies in an inpatient psychiatric mother-child ward. In the field of oncology, a study found significant improvements in the areas of quality of life, disease coping and self-esteem. Too few conclusive studies are available on the effectiveness of dance therapies for depression. More and more dance therapists contribute to the scientific support of dance therapy through doctoral theses. Evidence-based studies have been increasingly carried out since the 1990s.

Legal status of dance therapy

According to the Psychotherapists Act, psychotherapy as disease treatment may only be billed to the statutory health insurance companies by doctors with further training in psychotherapy (including specialists in psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy), psychological psychotherapists or child and adolescent psychotherapists. Dance therapy, however, is not billable because dance therapy is currently not a recognized procedure in the psychotherapy guidelines. Licensed psychotherapists (behavioral therapists, depth psychologists, analysts or conversation psychotherapists) with appropriate training in dance therapy sometimes work with elements of dance therapy. People with authorization for psychotherapy according to the Heilpraktikergesetz (HPG, "Kleiner Heilpraktikerschein") can offer dance therapy as a therapy method, but the client usually has to pay privately. According to the current law on psychotherapists, however, these naturopaths are not allowed to call themselves “psychotherapists”.

Currently in Germany, neither the admission to training (requirements) nor the training (content), final procedures (exams) or the admission to practice activities in dance therapy are regulated by law.

The training to become a dance therapist takes place mainly in private law training and further education. Since 2012 there has been a master’s degree in dance therapy at the SRH Hochschule Heidelberg under the direction of Sabine Koch . Those private training and further education providers who are recognized by the BTD meet standards for the approval and content of the training that are comparable to other training courses in artistic therapy, body psychotherapy and other psychotherapeutic procedures.

See also

literature

  • Janet Adler: Who is the Witness? A Description of Authentic Movement. In: Contact Quarterly. Winter 1987.
  • Susanne Bender: The psychophysical meaning of movement. A manual of the Laban movement analysis and the Kestenberg Movement Profile. Logos Verlag, Berlin 2007.
  • Iris Bräuninger: dance therapy. Improving quality of life and coping with stress. Beltz PVU, Weinheim 2006.
  • Harris Chaiklin (Ed.): Marian Chace: Her Papers . American Dance Therapy Association 1975.
  • Martha Davis: Guide to Movement Analysis Methods, Part 2: Movement Psychodiagnotic Inventory. available through the author 1991.
  • Eleanor DiPalma: Liljan W. Espenak. Her life and work as a dance therapist . Projekt Verlag, Bochum 1996, ISBN 3-928861-33-6 .
  • Marianne Eberhard-Kaechele: Dance therapy: indication, effective factors, goals . Lecture at the symposium of the Rhineland Regional Association "With all the senses: artistic therapies in the Rhineland" from 15. – 16. November 2001 in the Horion House of the Rhineland Regional Council. Cologne 2001. ( online ( memento from November 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ))
  • Liljan Espenak: Dance therapy - through creative self-expression for personal development. Hourglass, Dortmund 1985, ISBN 3-925508-01-5 .
  • Stefan M. Flach: Professional and performance law for artistic therapies . Reinhardt, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-497-01980-9 .
  • Janet Kestenberg Amighi, Penny Lewis, Susan Loman, Mark Sossin: The Meaning of Movement - Developmental and Clinical Perspectives of the Kestenberg Movement Profile. Gordon and Breach, Amsterdam 1999.
  • SC Koch, T. Kunz, A. Kolter, S. Lykou, R. Cruz: Effects of dance movement therapy and dance on health-related psychological outcomes. A meta-analysis. In: The Arts in Psychotherapy. 41, 2014, pp. 46-64.
  • SC Koch, L. Mehl, E. Sobanski, M. Sieber, T. Fuchs: Fixing the mirrors. A feasibility study of the effects of dance movement therapy on young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In: Autism. Feb 2014. doi: 10.1177 / 1362361314522353 .
  • Rudolf von Laban: The Art of Movement . Florian Noetzel Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 1988.
  • Hannelore Lier-Schehl: Movement dialogues in mother and child - movement patterns in relationship disorders of postnatally ill women and their babies in an inpatient psychiatric mother-child ward. (= Writings on developmental psychology. Volume 19). Publishing house Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8300-3732-3 .
  • Elana Mannheim, Joachim Weis: Dance / Movement therapy with cancer patients. Evaluation of process and outcome parameters. In: SC Koch, I. Bräuninger (Ed.): Advances in Dance / Movement Therapy - Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Findings . Logos Verlag, Berlin 2006.
  • Elaine Siegel: Dance Therapy . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-608-95404-X .
  • Elaine Siegel, Sabine Trautmann-Voigt, Bernd Voigt: Psychoanalytical movement and dance therapy. Ernst Reinhardt, Munich, 1999, ISBN 3-497-01512-1 .
  • Elke Willke (ed.): Dance therapy - theory and practice. 3. Edition. Junfermann, Paderborn 1999, ISBN 3-87387-028-2 .
  • Elke Willke: dance therapy. Theoretical contexts and basics of the intervention . Hans Huber, Bern, 2007, ISBN 978-3-456-84423-7 .

Trade journals

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Definition of dance therapy on the homepage of the professional association of dance therapists in Germany (accessed on November 11, 2008)
  2. ↑ Koch & Bräuninger, 2007, Movement Analysis - motion analysis. The Legacy of Laban, Bartenieff, Lamb and Kestenberg, and Hörmann, 2005, dance psychology and movement design.
  3. ^ Marion G. Spors: Eating disorders in women with a history of abuse and dance / movement therapy as a treatment modality. Dissertation . Göttingen 1997.
  4. ↑ Iris Bräuninger: Dance Therapy. Improvement of the quality of life and stress management . Beltz PVU, Weinheim 2006.
  5. ↑ Hannelore Lier-Schehl: Movement dialogues in mother and child - movement patterns in relationship disorders of postpartum sick women and their babies in an inpatient psychiatric mother-child ward. (= Writings on developmental psychology. Volume 19). Publishing house Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8300-3732-3 .
  6. ↑ Elana Mannheim, Joachim Weis: Dance / Movement therapy with cancer patients. Evaluation of process and outcome parameters. In: Sabine C. Koch, Iris Bräuninger (Ed.): Advances in Dance / Movement Therapy - Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Findings . Logos Verlag, Berlin 2006, pp. 61–72.
  7. ↑ B. Meekums, V. Karkou, EA Nelson: Dance movement therapy for depression (Review). In: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. No. 2, 2015, Art. No .: CD009895. doi: 10.1002 / 14651858.CD009895.pub2 .
  8. ↑ Sabine C. Koch, Iris Bräuninger (Ed.): Advances in Dance / Movement Therapy - Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Findings. Logos Verlag, Berlin 2006.

Web links