An introduction to embodied movement through the work of a dance education pioneer In this introduction to the work of somatic dance education pioneer Nancy Topf (1942–1998), readers are ushered on a journey to explore the movement of the body through a close awareness of anatomical form and function. Making available the full text of Topf’s The Anatomy of Center for the first time in print, this guide helps professionals, teachers, and students of all levels integrate embodied, somatic practices within contexts of dance, physical education and therapy, health, and mental well-being. Hetty King, a movement educator certified in the Topf Technique®, explains how the ideas in this work grew out of Topf’s involvement in developing Anatomical Release Technique—an important concept in contemporary dance—and the influence of earlier innovators Barbara Clark and Mabel Elsworth Todd, founder of the approach to movement known as “ideokinesis.” Featuring lessons written as a dialogue between teacher, student, and elements of the body, Topf’s material is accompanied by twenty-one activities that allow readers to use the book as a self-guided manual. A Guide to a Somatic Movement Practice is a widely applicable entry point into the tradition of experiential anatomy and its mindful centering of the living, breathing body.

This book offers a timely, detailed, and comprehensive synopsis of dance/movement therapy (DMT) in the treatment of psychological trauma. Along with the foundational concepts of DMT, tied to traditional trauma theory and a neurobiological framework, contributions contain rich clinical examples that illustrate the use of dance, creative movement, and body awareness with a wide variety of populations including survivors of sex trafficking, military veterans, refugees, those with multigenerational trauma, and others. Chapters emphasize the underlying influences of power, privilege, and oppression on trauma, prompting practitioners to consider and understand the dynamics of sociocultural contexts and engage in continuous self-reflection. Featuring multiple perspectives, as well as cultural and contextual considerations, this book provides direct takeaways for clinicians and professionals and concludes with a roadmap for the trajectory of trauma-informed, healing-centered DMT.

In Mindful Movement, exercise physiologist, somatic therapist, and advocate Martha Eddy uses original interviews, case studies, and practice-led research to define the origins of a new holistic field--somatic movement education and therapy­--and its impact on fitness, ecology, politics, and performance. The book reveals the role dance has played in informing and inspiring the historical and cultural narrative of somatic arts. Providing an overview of the antecedents and recent advances in somatic study and with contributions by diverse experts, Eddy highlights the role of Asian movement, the European physical culture movement and its relationship to the performing arts, and female perspectives in developing somatic movement, somatic dance, social somatics, somatic fitness, somatic dance and spirituality, and ecosomatics.

This book will be a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to learn more about the therapeutic use of creative movement and dance. It will be welcomed by students and practitioners in the arts therapies, psychotherapy, counselling and related professions

This book focuses on Somatic Movement Dance Therapy and the importance of self-regulation and co-regulation. The chapters attend to self-regulating different tissues through movement, breath, sound and the imagination. Throughout the book the author shares processes and practices that support participants to balance their living tissues, moving from sympathetic arousal into parasympathetic ease and release. The study of the autonomic nervous system and how to innervate the parasympathetic through breath awareness, heart-sensing and intero-ception is the central through-line in the book. Uniquely, Williamson attends to the anatomical and physiological complexity underlying the apparent simplicity of somatic movement dance practice. How to sense-perceive and move with attuned awareness of specific body tissues, such the skeletal-muscular and craniosacral system invites the reader into a deep anatomical and physiological excavation of self-regulation. The interconnectivity of fascia, and the importance of cardio-ception, breath awareness and gravity lie at the heart of this book. Sensory-perceptual awareness of the heart is foregrounded as the most important ingredient in the efficacy of practice, as well as gravi-ception, soft-tissue-rolling and fascial unwinding. Includes a collective foreword from Sarah Whatley, Daniel Deslauriers, Celeste Snowber and Karin Rugman This is a must-read practice-as-research book, for under- and postgraduate students, researchers and educators and especially important for practitioners who feel the weight and condescension of the mechanistic paradigm.

Patrizia Pallaro's second volume of essays on Authentic Movement, eight years after her first, is a tour de force. It is indeed "an extraordinary array of papers", as Pallaro puts it, and an immensely rich, moving and highly readable sweep through the landscapes of Authentic Movement, "this form of creative expression, meditative discipline and/or psychotherapeutic endeavour". You don't need to practice Authentic Movement to get a lot out of this book, but it certainly helps! I defy anyone to read the first two sections and not be curious to have their own experience.' - Sesame Institute 'Authentic Movement can be seen as a means by which analysts can become more sensitive to unconscious, especially pre-verbal aspects of themselves and their patients.' - Body Psychotherapy Journal Newsletter 'This book is a collection of articles, some of which are interviews, brought together for the first time. It is very valuable to have them all together in one place...It is a wonderful collection of articles on topics you have always wanted to read, such as the role of transference in dance therapy or Jung and dance therapy. The book also includes scripts for exercises.' - Somatics Authentic Movement, an exploration of the unconscious through movement, was largely defined by the work of Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow. The basic concepts of Authentic Movement are expressed for the first time in one volume through interviews and conversations with these important figures, and their key papers. They emphasize the importance of movement as a means of communication, particularly unconscious or 'authentic' movement, emerging when the individual has a deep, self-sensing awareness - an attitude of 'inner listening'. Such movement can trigger powerful images, feelings and kinesthetic sensations arising from the depths of our stored childhood memories or connecting our inner selves to the transcendent. In exploring Authentic Movement these questions are asked: - How does authentic movement differ from other forms of dance and movement therapy? - How may 'authentic' movement be experienced?

Using a contemporary synthesis of Jungian and Post-Jungian imaginal perspectives, animate ecological phenomenology, somatics and recent scholarship in dance movement and progressive spiritualities, this unique book discusses how the promotion of a fluid relationship between imagination and movement can bring the mover back into relationship with soul and spirit. This connection with soul and spirit is considered as an essential and powerful resource in mental health. The book provides a rich digest of theory and produces a clear framework for the application of transpersonal theories to Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) practice, writing and research, illustrating the use and value of transpersonal perspectives through detailed case studies. Providing spiritual, soulful and mythological perspectives on DMP rooted in theory and practice, this book will be essential reading for dance movement psychotherapists, drama psychotherapists, expressive arts therapists, and dance movement psychotherapy students, drama psychotherapy students and arts therapy students.