This study examines Circle Dance as an embodied healing practice within the Chacian tradition of Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP). Using a literature-based qualitative synthesis, it analyses experiential accounts that identify circular formation and collective rhythm as core conditions and conceptualise healing as a transformation of lived experience rather than a clinical outcome. The findings show that healing emerges through bodily sensibility, co-regulation and relational attunement, reorganising meaning, relationships and shared temporality. This study contributes a conceptual framework that reframes healing as a relational and embodied process, extending DMP discourse beyond symptom-centred models.
Humans inevitably encounter thresholds, periods when a familiar identity dissolves but a new one has not yet formed. Such liminal states may arise through grief, trauma, illness, relocation, or other major life transitions and are often accompanied by stress, uncertainty, and heightened emotional sensitivity. While cognitive approaches can help individuals reframe meaning and experience, they may underemphasize the role of the body and nervous system. Somatic and ritual practices, including dance and expressive movement, can support transformation but may lack theoretical integration or therapeutic structure. Integrative NeuroSomatic Therapy (INST) is a neuroscience-informed framework developed through clinical practice, somatic movement arts, and ritual facilitation. Drawing on research in affect regulation, interoception, neuroplasticity, autonomic regulation, narrative identity, and social synchrony, INST integrates embodied, symbolic, and psychological processes. This paper situates INST within trauma literature, dance movement psychotherapy, and ritual studies and presents a framework for supporting resilience and transformation during life transitions.
This paper explores the integration of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy with actor training methodologies, including body movement, dance, authentic movement, and non-verbal theatre. Drawing on recent research demonstrating IFS's efficacy in treating trauma, enhancing self-awareness, and improving social cognition, this paper proposes that IFS offers a powerful framework for actors to access, embody, and express complex emotional states and character dimensions. The paper examines theoretical foundations, applications, and empirical support for this integrative approach, arguing that IFS-informed training can enhance authenticity, emotional availability, and creative spontaneity in performance while maintaining psychological safety for performers.
This paper offers a reflection on how movement, breath, and mindful practices rooted in prenatal yoga and holistic birth preparation can support somatic-informed psychotherapeutic work during pregnancy and childbirth. Drawing from years of practice, as well as embodied clinical observation, I explore how breath, touch, voice, and movement may open pathways for emotional processing, nervous-system regulation, self-awareness, and repair. Rather than assuming pregnancy is inherently therapeutic, this paper argues that pregnancy can become a site of psychological transformation when it is held within trauma-informed, body-based support, particularly for those navigating fear, prior trauma, or a medically controlled birth culture. When approached with sustained attention to bodily experience, these practices may strengthen agency, reduce fear reactivity, and foster trust. The paper invites movement and dance scholars and practitioners to consider how cultivating embodied presence in the perinatal period can complement existing models of care by supporting regulation, meaning-making, and relational resilience.
Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) is a psychotherapeutic modality that employs the body and creative movement within the therapeutic alliance. Its empirical support has grown notably, alongside increasing international professional recognition. This systematic review, conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines, examined DMT interventions across multiple developmental domains in educational and clinical or healthcare settings involving children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years. Using the PICOS framework for article selection, 22 studies were included and assessed for methodological quality. Despite methodological heterogeneity, the findings consistently reported improvements in prosocial behaviour, emotional regulation, stress reduction, self-esteem, and trauma recovery. These outcomes suggest that DMT offers valuable psychological benefits during critical developmental stages. The review underscores the relevance of DMT as a therapeutic approach in both formal and non-formal educational and healthcare contexts, while also highlighting the need for further research employing standardised protocols and validated outcome measures to strengthen the evidence base.
Communication and human interaction have traditionally focused on verbal language, but recent research highlights the importance of body movement. This study aimed to examine the ability to express and interpret emotions through full-body movement within embodiment theories. Eighty-four participants took part in two studies. In Study 1, participants listened to music with positive or negative valence and moved freely while their emotional state was assessed via questionnaires. Movements were recorded and edited to exclude music and facial cues. In Study 2, other participants watched these silent videos and completed the same questionnaires, evaluating their own emotional responses to the observed movements. Findings from both studies demonstrate that full-body movement can successfully convey and induce emotional content, supporting the role of embodied processes in emotional communication. These results emphasise the value of considering bodily expression in understanding human emotional interactions beyond language.
This study examines whether the SE protocol can reduce stress and anxiety in pandemic-affected healthcare workers over time. This within-group pre-test-posttest study examines frontline healthcare workers' stress and anxiety after a brief SE intervention. The study included 112 healthcare workers who surpassed the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) minimum anxiety and stress thresholds. 69 of 112 individuals completed pre- and post-test measures, and 27 completed follow-up scales. Analysis showed that SE sessions reduced stress and anxiety in healthcare workers, and follow-up assessments confirmed this. The findings suggest that two online SE sessions can help frontline healthcare workers cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Breathwork techniques such as diaphragmatic, paced, and box breathing are increasingly used in psychotherapy and embodied clinical practice yet their efficacy and mechanisms remain unevenly documented. This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesised controlled studies examining breathwork as a stand-alone or adjunctive intervention for psychological (anxiety, depression, stress) and neurobiological (heart-rate variability, brain activation) outcomes. Twenty-five eligible studies (N = 1278) were pooled using random-effects models. Breathwork produced moderate to large reductions in anxiety, depression and perceived stress, with moderate to large increases in heart-rate variability and activation of neural regions implicated in emotion regulation. Subgroup analyses suggested that slow diaphragmatic and paced breathing protocols, delivered regularly and embedded within psychotherapy, were associated with the most robust effects. These findings support breathwork as a low-cost, scalable component of embodied psychotherapies and highlight the need for further trials that integrate somatic, dance/movement, and body-oriented approaches with mechanistically informed psychophysiology.
Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) traditionally relies on shared physical space to foster embodied connection. This embodied artistic inquiry explores how psychotherapists experience offering DMP online. Informed by a background in dance movement psychotherapy, this research examined how therapists adapt movement and creative methods to sustain embodied and relational practice in virtual settings. Eight practitioners participated in body-anchored interviews via videoconferencing. Transcripts were analysed using a hybrid method combining Hervey's (2000) aesthetic analysis with reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021). Findings revealed five themes and nineteen subthemes, with key embodied experiences such as 'reaching through the screen', 'disjointed connection' and 'therapist health and safety'. Therapists engaged creatively with devices, revealing challenges and successes while highlighting the importance of movement, self-care, and kinaesthetic presence in sustaining online DMP, and calling for further research and structured support for body-based therapies in online contexts.
Gender-based violence (GBV) generates profound psychological and somatic trauma, leaving survivors' bodies as sites of both injury and resistance. This paper introduces embodied resistance as a framework for understanding how somatic and embodied psychotherapy facilitates healing and agency among GBV survivors in India. Drawing on feminist, trauma-informed, and phenomenological perspectives, it presents a practice-led synthesis of three anonymised case studies from community-based therapeutic work. Findings show that recovery unfolds through micro-acts of bodily reclamation-breath, posture, movement-that restore physiological safety and social dignity. Ritual, rhythm, and collective practices emerge as culturally resonant pathways for regulation and meaning-making. By framing somatic psychotherapy as feminist praxis, the paper situates care as both therapeutic and political: a process of re-inhabiting the body to challenge systems of control. Implications are outlined for integrating body-based healing within trauma-informed GBV services, community training, and policy frameworks in India.
This paper introduces an innovative framework for sex addiction treatment, integrating the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Swish Pattern with the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Departing from traditional cognitive-behavioural models, this approach conceptualises sexual compulsivity as a deeply embodied phenomenon. A qualitative multiple case study was conducted on eight men in Hong Kong, with data analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Findings demonstrate the Swish Pattern, when phenomenologically framed, functions not as a mere cognitive technique but a catalyst for profound shifts in the 'lived body', modifying motor intentionality and restructuring the perceptual field. The analysis yielded five superordinate themes on clients' embodied, temporal, and intersubjective experiences of transformation. The discussion highlights the centrality of the body-subject and the self-other dynamic in recovery. The paper argues for a more embodied, holistic, and phenomenologically informed therapeutic approach that addresses the whole person within their socio-cultural context.
This reflective case paper explores how various layers of oppression, power, and pathways to liberation emerge in entangled ways within a therapeutic relationship. Drawing from on-going individual work with Mel (Pseudonym) within an out-patient National Health Service (NHS) setting, I explore the importance of working with an intersectional feminist lens to inform co-creation and enhance the therapy process. This article contributes embodied knowledge and offers two interrelated themes to the readership, (1) The embodied negotiations of power within a therapeutic relationship, (2) The interdisciplinary nature of dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) and rituals that initiated explorations around safety, power, and bodily autonomy. This paper has revealed implications to enhance DMP practice based on the importance of how noticing, naming, and negotiating politics of bodies can reframe power imbalances and challenges internalised oppression for the client and therapist.
Digital applications such as 'AI chatbots' offer therapeutic support or interventions, but can they meet professional quality or ethical standards, such as 'do no harm' for example? 'AI' systems aim to replicate how people acquire knowledge and to simulate human interaction. Client's phenomenal experience is central to any psychotherapeutic process, but commonly non-verbal. Can lifeless machines access such psychophysiological dimensions? And what, if any, might be the risks for users? The author investigates these and related questions alongside reflections on professional aspects such as ethical practice, accountability, safe guarding or client confidentiality.
This paper examines how urban environments ontologically design bodies through movement patterns and develops corresponding therapeutic interventions. Drawing from ontological design theory and dance movement psychotherapy, the research analyses three urban contexts-corporate sidewalks, surveilled crossings, and transit waiting areas-to expose how seemingly neutral infrastructures materialise power relations through everyday walking. The analysis identifies kinaesthetic patterns produced within these environments: the accelerated individualism of corporate districts, the defensive contractility of surveilled spaces, and the embodied docility of waiting areas. Based on these findings, three therapeutic interventions are developed-Rhythm Disruption, Expansive Presence, and Collective Waiting-that address how systemic conditions become incorporated into bodily habit. These interventions expand dance movement psychotherapy beyond individual pathology to engage with political dimensions of movement, while enriching urban activism with embodied methodologies. The research establishes everyday walking as site for critical analysis and transformative practice in the struggle for more equitable urban futures.
