Spring Issue 2024, Vol 19, Issue 1

As you read this, we shall be entering into a new year, and we hope that you will enjoy the offering of articles this time.We are delighted to present more articles than usual.We have articles and book reviews on safety, play and pleasure, connections with self and other, considerations around time and creativity, all key elements of the practice of both dance movement and body psychotherapy.Each article deals with these topics separately, explores key therapeutic factors and thus delineates the rich tapestry of our practice.The issue begins with a discussion around safe space in dance therapy, a piece brought to us from The Netherlands by Meri Erkkila and Rosemarie Samaritter.Safety, an essential prerequisite for the therapeutic process to begin, is regularly discussed but rarely researched.Erkkila and Samaritter's phenomenological approach involving interviews with six practitioners, guides the reader to the importance of safe space in the therapeutic relationship, the client's internal safe space and the therapist's sense of safety.In all cases, this article highlights the need for the embodied therapist to adopt certain qualities that offer a sense of safety.The physical presence of the therapist and the client bodies are clearly part of the co-created sense of safety.It is possible that if safety is in place, therapeutic play may be possible, a topic covered in the second article of this issue.Jessica Eve, in her piece entitled 'Play in body psychotherapy' explores the significance of play within a therapeutic context.The huge contribution of embodied psychotherapies to help traumatised individuals is well known (e.g., Ogden et al., 2006;Rothschild, 2000) and although highly significant, it is only one area of our clinical work.Perhaps more importantly, body psychotherapy seeks to support clients to connect with their essential nature or core state.When clients are in touch with this it shows in their physical demeanour and is recognisable in the manifestation of creativity, playfulness, joy, curiosity, love, and intuition (e.g., Boyesen, 1976).Jessica Eve gives composite clinical examples to illustrate her points and asks how play appears in body psychotherapy and why is it helpful.She does not shy away from considering the links between play, pleasure and sexuality.She also writes of the importance of risk taking and vulnerability on the part of both client and therapist for changes to occur.She draws on Panksepp (2009) and reminds us that the PLAY system is built into the mammalian brain, and she shares the view that ' … any therapist who can capture the therapeutic moment in