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Authentic Movement and the Art of Witnessing During the second year of life the sense of a verbal self develops. As Stern describes, language enables the infant to share experience with others in subtle and intimate ways, but it can also relegate whole areas of experience, which are not, perhaps cannot be named, to the shadows, to unconsciousness: [Language] makes some parts of our experience less shareable with ourselves and with others. It drives a wedge between two simultaneous forms of interpersonal experience: as it is lived and as it is verbally represented. Experience in the domains of emergent, core, and intersubjective relatedness, which continue irrespective of language, can be embraced only very partially in the domain of verbal relatedness ..... Language, then, causes a split in the experience of the self. (Stern, 1985: 182) In my work as a dance movement therapist and body psychotherapist I have felt deeply drawn to the practice of Authentic Movement (Pallaro, 1999), in part because it works so profoundly, specifically and integrally with the healing of this split in the experience of the self. Originated by Mary Starks Whitehouse (USA), and further developed by Janet Adler (USA) and others, Authentic Movement focuses upon the relationship between a mover and a witness. It gives equal value to both the moving process and the verbal sharing of the mover’s and witness’s experience of the movement; a discipline of bringing bodily experience into language has evolved which honours the direct experience of both mover and witness (Adler, 2002). The ground form, which is most relevant to individual therapy practice, involves one mover and one witness, although Authentic Movement is also practised in groups. It is the task of the witness to provide a safe space through her mindful presence, a container into which the mover can enter, with eyes closed, to attend to the stirrings of her inner world. An impulse to move may be felt and embodied; or it may be a sensation, an emotional feeling, an image, the mood or memory of a dream which provides the impulse to move. Whitehouse describes: ‘the open waiting, which is also a kind of listening to the body, an emptiness in which something can happen. You wait until you feel a change ..... As you feel it begin, you follow where it leads, like following a pathway that opens up before you as you step.’ (Whitehouse, 1963/1999: 53) As the mover surrenders to the flow of impulses from within, she learns to witness her self moving, sensing, feeling, without judging or inhibiting what arises from the unconscious. The body becomes conscious; soul is embodied. In speaking about the movement, both mover and witness speak of their own direct experience - about the movement itself, the sensations felt, emotions and images that arise. For a mover with a rich imaginal world, or one who likes to analyse and interpret, it can be a tough discipline to speak of the actual movement and name the sensations, but this is essential if the experience is to be grounded and integrated into consciousness. For all of us it is a challenge to take ownership of our experience rather than project it onto the other. In the process of naming the richness of detail experienced on many levels, the mover can integrate unconscious material, and clarity can emerge in the relationship between mover and witness. The quest for conscious language that is sourced in the direct experience of bodily movement, sensation, emotion, and the images that arise out of the body, helps to bring, piece by piece, those unnamed, unknown and disavowed parts of ourselves and our experience into consciousness; as they are shared with an accepting other, the extent of our shareable universe expands and the split that language creates in the experience of self can begin to heal. Over time, being witnessed with clarity and non-judgmental compassion by another, the mover is enabled to see himself with clarity and compassion as his internal witness develops. And the witness, too, comes to see herself with more clarity as ‘the density of her personal history empties’. Adler continues: The heart of the practice is about the longing, as well as the fear, to see ourselves clearly. We repeatedly discover that such an experience of clarity is deeply and inextricably related to the gift of being seen clearly by another and, just as importantly, related to the gift of seeing another clearly. (Adler, 1994/1999: 6) Authentic Movement can be used within the context of psychotherapy, but whether movement is the medium or not, the skills of witnessing can always be used to attune to, empathise with, and monitor responses to the client. Tracking my own physical states, movement and posture, sensations, feelings and images in this way informs me about projective identification and countertransference. As I clarify my own sense of self within the therapeutic relationship, a space is created for the client to begin to see herself more clearly too, and as she embodies those unknown and disavowed aspects of her experience, her sense of self grows. Click here to return to beginning of article |
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continued … Seeking a Sense of Self |
