The Tango of Therapy: A Dancing Group

Abstract

This article describes a form of group bodywork using a couple dance (the Argentine tango), which serves as a “container” for the experience and feelings of participants. The frame offered by the group and the dance facilitates awareness of and experimenting with posture, how participants move and sense their bodies, and how they relate to others through their bodies. The aim of the group is to access nonverbal levels of functioning using a vehicle that is more conducive to progressive rather than to regressive work. Dancing with a partner particularly opens up issues concerning the other, including meeting/leaving, guiding/ following, deciding/trusting, and so on. The title of this article also refers to the cocreative aspect of psychotherapy, an interactive process based on mutual listening and responding that is, in many ways, similar to a dance.

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Notes on contributors

Laurie Hawkes

Toward the end of her life, after she had left Russia, it has been said that Emma Goldman remarked that she just could not believe in any revolution that didn't have dancing! (Allen & Allen, 2000, p. 191)

Laurie Hawkes, DESS in clinical psychology, is a Certified Transactional Analyst in private practice in Paris, France. She can be reached at 191 rue d'Alésia, 75014 Paris, France, or by email at [email protected].