Body- and movement-based interventions with male offenders – a narrative review

ABSTRACT

Therapeutic and psychosocial accompaniment of offenders is increasingly being understood as a communal responsibility. Apart from recognised treatment batteries, an increasing amount of body- and movement-based interventions is carried out within the prison environment. Extensive literature searches were performed for this review. From a total of 2908, 23 publications were included. An increase in research interest in body- and movement-based interventions during the past 5 years was observed. Such interventions are being flexibly applied in detention contexts across western countries, transnationally. Effects of emotional nature as well as competence are being described. Body- and movement-based interventions may contribute substantially in the supervision within the prison regime and can be applied in different modalities as well as low- and high-threshold treatments. Scientific development in this field still is rudimentary and thus further research is necessary in order to provide more evidence for modification processes and efficacy from validated studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Male offenders
• body- and movement-based interventions
• narrative review
• literature search
• body- and movement-based therapy

Additional information

Funding

This article is part of a larger research project investigating body- and movement-based interventions in prison which is realised by Fabian Chyle, Dr rer.medic., with support from the University of Applied Science, Duesseldorf, Germany.

Notes on contributors

Fabian Chyle

Fabian Chyle, Dr rer. medic., is a dance/movement therapist, choreographer and theatre producer, and trainer for dance and theatre therapy. He is the head of the dance faculty of the Akademie der Kulturellen Bildung/Remscheid, Germany.

Thomas Ostermann

Thomas Ostermann is professor for research methods and information systems in complementary medicine at the Institute of Integrative Medicine at the University Witten/Herdecke, Germany.

Katja Boehm

Dr Katja Boehm is a health psychologist and healthcare researcher of complementary and alternative therapies and is a part-time research fellow at the Private University Witten/Herdecke, Germany.