Embodied Psychotherapy: A forum for dance/movement and all other forms of psychotherapy!: The Tangibility of “Limbic Resonance” in Dance The...

Embodied Psychotherapy: A forum for dance/movement and all other forms of psychotherapy!: The Tangibility of “Limbic Resonance” in Dance The...: Amara…and me…in dance therapy. She comes into the group room and makes a beeline to the seat directly next to me. She has never don...

The Tangibility of “Limbic Resonance” in Dance Therapy

Amara…and me…in dance therapy.

She comes into the group room and makes a beeline to the seat directly next to me.  She has never done this – it seems important, significant.  I notice her breathe, its sharp, shallow, tense.  The skin on her lips, dry and cracked.  Her eyes are, wide and tense.  She is grinding her teeth I note to myself, she has not done this in dance therapy.

My body and I imagine my ‘limbic brain’ sense her energy.  I invite everyone in the group to breathe.  I make eye contact with Amara.  As I do so her breath slows and her muscles soften.

We ‘the group’ continue.  Again, I hear, teeth grinding, sharp shallow breathe, hands pressing, rubbing the velveteen fabric of her pants.  Her anxiety is again heightened. 

She leaves the group room…to take a ‘break’.  However, not without ‘first’ asking with a forced tense smile.  All along her eyes dart, her hands twitch and her breath once again reverts to sharp, shallow rhythms.

Amara returns to the group – her teacher tells me – Amara is excited to share her holiday vacation experience.  Would you like to share with the group Amara? “Yes, I went to see the Adventures of Tin-Tin…and enjoyed it”.  Forced smile, tense body, sharp, quick breathes.

We begin to move.

In dance therapy, we start with a general warm-up, much like a check-in but with our bodies.  During this time we begin to notice and pay attention to our bodily felt experience, in a conscious way.  We observe what is tense, what hurts, where are we holding energy in our bodies? 

In this group we start with deep breathes.  Then begin to move our heads up, down, laterally, side to side, then look left, right…look to the neighbor on each side of you.

I look at Amara, tense face, forced smile, like what someone told her a smile might look like, its not her smile.  I have seen a real Authentic Amara smile.   I look at Amara again, lips drawn back above the top row of her teeth, eyes tense and wide, then they constrict, squint.  We look back and forth at our neighbors several times and each time I see Amara, I see this same Amara.  I mirror/reflect this ‘smiling Amara’.  Yet I know, I feel, the anger, the sad, the anxious, the frustrated, the enraged…Amara.

I look at her one last time, same face.  Only this time I slowly let my face, my muscles melt, my eyes soften, my cheeks relax, and my mouth draws down.  As this happens she too, begins to let go, her eyes fill with tears and sadness – the anxiety gives way to a deep sorrow – we, together hold this she, me and the group – I see you, we see you.

We continue as she cries, the group holds hands, in our reaching out and holding one another we begin to sway – to hold each other through touch and in rhythm.  Amara and the group feel different – something has been transformed, moved, worked through.

She, like everyone needs a hand to hold – a body, a face, a person to be emotionally responsive, mirror, hold and witness those burdensome, unwanted feelings, of sadness, sorrow, anger, isolation, fear.

Now we press our weight into each other’s hands in the circle.  I feel her strength to both give and hold – she presses the whole of her body and weight into my hand and I hold her…we sway back and forth again – she comes closer to the ground, closer to the Earth closer to me closer to the group.

We hold elbows and lean back – using the strength of the whole circle to balance.  She quietly tells me she can’t…that’s okay want to sit and watch first?

“Yes” and, she does.  Then says, “I’m ready!”

And she is, ready.  She holds her peers elbow and me and trusts that she will be held, then leans back…and balances with the rest of the group. 

At the end of the session she says that was scary, being “vulnerable”.  Her peer defines this word as weak.  Then revises the meaning and says its when you are out there in the open.  A beautiful metaphor for this group; for this girl who when she finally let her body be held looked me in the eyes and smiled a real Authentic Amara smile.

Now, that is limbic resonance and revision as I see it in the Dance Therapy experience.  Do you have thoughts or ideas about how I have laid it out here?

Or, even instances of this limbic meeting between yourself and client in sessions and want to talk about it, swap ideas about what the experience feels like within you?  For example, I am curious about what therapist/clinician/healer feels and observes in themselves and the other in these instances of limbic resonance/meeting.  How might you know you are resonating?  Are there specific sensations that arise during the moment of resonance/attunement/revision?

Excitedly awaiting discussion...

Yours,

Cara

www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org

embodiedpsychotherapy@gmail.com

Twitter: @embodiedtherapy

Embodied Psychotherapy: A forum for dance/movement and all other forms of psychotherapy!: Limbic Resonance & Dance Therapy

Embodied Psychotherapy: A forum for dance/movement and all other forms of psychotherapy!: Limbic Resonance & Dance Therapy: So Fellow Bloggers it has been a long time since my last post. I am so very new to this and often times find myself deep in thought abo...

Limbic Resonance & Dance Therapy

So Fellow Bloggers it has been a long time since my last post.  I am so very new to this and often times find myself deep in thought about ideas worth sharing here, but alas I have not written, until today...

With that I want to write a bit about the main reasons for setting out to write this blog.  Over the last two years (or so...)  I have been fascinated by neuroscience and in turn have immersed myself in the theories and new knowledge constantly emerging in this field. Through research within this discipline; ideas and theories such as limbic resonance/attunement, neuroplasticity, mirror neurons and Stephen Porges: Poly vagal theory have come to the fore in the field of neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology and of course Dance Therapy among many others.

Now, I am an old hat when it comes to Dance Therapy and if any of you out there want to know more about dance therapy check out: www.ADTA.org.  However, in short, the work of the dance therapist is to address the emotional, psychological, cognitive and interpersonal experiences of the person seeking help, through non-verbal dance/movement interaction.  We seek to support and expand upon the health of the persons we work with through a relationship co-constructed in the dance experience. 

Off now for a bit to the land of neuroscience and how it relates to dance therapy.  One of the neuroscience ideas which excites me most is the idea of limbic resonance, it posits that we (people) are open loops and that our limbic brain structures are set up to regulate and re-regulate off of one another.  That we are most certainly and inextricably linked!  Moreover, Psychiatrists and authors of: A General Theory of Love, Lewis, Amini and Lannon, talk about it within the realm of sensation, which to my mind is an undoubtedly non-verbal experiential state.  

In dance therapy sessions the therapist is regularly picking up and embodying with the client their motion, emotion and movements.  As we go along in sessions we may begin to name and ask questions about the clients felt sense, sensations, images, symbolism and emotions of the shared movement experience.  We do this in an effort to support increased awareness of themselves and internal emotional states.  We are also encouraging and hoping to cultivate in clients an ability to trust while being seen by another in a safe and non-judgmental manner.

However, as I began to dive into the sea of literature available in the field neuroscience I started to wonder if there might also be something else happening in the non-verbal movement realm.  In reading further on the above cited text I came upon the following in a section discussing the limbic brain (the emotional center, if you will); "...limbic resonance----a symphony of mutual exchange and internal adaptation whereby two mammals become attuned to each others inner states." They go on "It is limbic resonance that makes looking into the face of another emotionally responsive creature a multi layered experience". And finally, for now at least the same authors talk about how "When we meet the gaze of another, two nervous systems achieve a palpable and intimate apposition".

I read and re-read this material for well...months!  It was brilliant and I understood viscerally that this is what happens on a neurological/biological level in dance therapy sessions.  That through the movement, eye contact and a rhythmically resonant movement experience the clients limbic brain system is adapting and re-regulating itself in the moment while in and because of their relationship to myself and the other group members in the dance therapy session. 

Now, here I am...at the beginning.  Starting to write about and figure out how to explore what happens in the brain/nervous system while in the highly relational dance therapy experience.  Is it possible to even study this?  I think so.  We live in an age where potential exploration of this type of phenomena feels more and more tangible, to me at least.

So what do others out there think?  In the blogosphere.  Are there other modalities of therapists, doctors, nurses, and/or holistic healers who are interested or currently exploring some of the points I bring up? 

I am writing the blog not only to become clearer about my own ideas but to also engage in dialogue with others who are exploring topics such as these. 

Until next time…

Excitedly awaiting discussion!

Yours,

Cara

www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org

  

Parent/Caregiver Child Dance Therapy Play Group

Hello Fellow Bloggers,

  
Below find some information about a group I will begin facilitating at the beginning of December.  I will be writing more about the dance therapy and play process and how it supports the attachment and neural development of young children during this critical period of 12-24 months of life.  Until then...please feel free to contact me for group registration information!

New Group Starting - Friday December 2, 2011

Parent/Child (1-2 year olds) Dance Therapy Play Group

In cultures across the globe parents/caregivers universally engage in some form of movement, play and song to support the budding relationship between themselves and their children.  

Psychiatrist Allan N. Schore talks about how caregiver-child attachment supports the neurological development of infant and young children's limbic brain and future "...expansion, of the child's coping capacity".  

This group will be a safe and supportive environment for caregivers and young children.  We will use movement, song and play to facilitate the deepening of attachment between caregiver and child.  In addition to supporting the development of a support network between the caregivers in the group.  

The group will meet once a week from 11-12:15 pm at the Institute for the Arts in Psychotherapy in Chelsea, NYC.  The cost is $60/session.  

Contact Cara A. Gallo M.S BC-DMT/NYS-LCAT for more information and registration details at 718.490.5912 or embodiedpsychotherapy@gmail.com

www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org

A forum for discussion about dance/movement and all other forms of psychotherapy!

This is my first blog!  And I am quite excited!

I am a dance movement psychotherapist and NYS-Licensed Creative Arts Therapist.  I work in private practice in NYC. I am interested in writing and learning more about the dance therapy process and its links to neuroscience, physiology and human development. For its the body that is the vehicle for change.

I am hoping that this can be a place to share thoughts, discuss and develop knowledge of the mind/body and its integral role in healing!