Her body finds a voice: Authentic Movement in an imaginal world

Abstract

Authentic Movement is a somatic and therapeutic practice often referred to as active imagination in movement. Some practitioners refer to the form as mystical, sacred or archetypal and so ascribe it a particular power and potential. This movement form, based on a dyadic relationship, is a unique environment to research such experiences. I will suggest that particular language skills and modes of articulation are needed to work in this territory. How do mover and witness work with these moving experiences and what means of speaking from and with these experiences can be useful? How can we speak from these experiences and images and not lose the primacy of both? I will suggest Focusing, tracking and poetic or symbolic articulation can help to provide a container for moving and witnessing experiences. The safe container allows for deeper exploration of more ineffable experiences. These are defined as subtle body, imaginal, mystical and processes of individuation.

Keywords:

• Authentic Movement
• Focusing
• imaginal
• subtle body
• articulation
• transcendent function
• tracking
• felt-sense
• individuation

Notes

1. Her/she is used throughout and should be read to indicate both men and women.

2. This work also aims to develop what Sassenfeld (2008) notes as a problem in Jungian psychotherapeutic circles: that there is not a theory of technique that allows the incorporation of the body into the analytic space. There are excellent dance movement therapists who are also Jungian Analysts whose work does just this as does the work of Schwartz-Salant, and so I don’t fully agree with Sassenfeld's comments. I do think it is still difficult to find modes of theoretical articulation for the moving body that do not either move to pathologise or reify the body and lived experience.

3. For a detailed examination of Dance Therapy and the transcendent function see Joan Chodorow's article ‘Dance Therapy and the Transcendent Function’ in Patrizia Pallaro's (1999) edited collection of essays on Authentic Movement.

4. See Mary Starks Whitehouse (1999) ‘C.G. Jung and Dance Therapy: Two Major Principles’ in Patrizia Pallaro's Authentic Movement (1999) for a discussion about individuation and movement (pp. 78–79).

5. For an interesting outline of the subtle body, somatic counter-transference and body oriented psychotherapy see Roz Carroll's (2004) ‘Subtle Body and Countertransference’, http://www.thinkbody.co.uk/body-psych/subtlebodyctr.htm#top