Somatics

Preface by Regina Miranda.
Collaborators: Jackie Hand, Júlio Mota, Melina Scialom, Rosel Grassmann, Susanne Schlicher.

This comprehensive book will serve as a step-by-step guide to Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis, updating and expanding concepts and practices.

Following extensive research on the method developed by Rudolf von Laban and his disciples, this book explains movement principles, exercises and motif symbols in detail. Organized according to the four categories of Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis (Body-Effort-Shape-Space), additional chapters present the different developments of the theory in relation to performing arts and movement therapy. The author draws on Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis as a dynamic connecting method, travelling from classroom and studio to everyday life, stage performance and film acting. The method is placed within a multimedia artistic viewpoint, intertwining theory, learning and imagery.

This unique approach to this internationally used method is essential reading for educators and students of dance and other performing arts and movement-related professions.

Feldenkrais methods emphasize individualization, freedom, and ease. Ballet methods emphasize perfection and hierarchy, and this can lead to injuries. This paper asks how Awareness Through Movement (ATM) and ballet-two practices that seem to have disparate philosophies and goals-could ever align, given the long history of authoritarian pedagogy inculcated in ballet. By cross referencing my experiences as a ballet and ATM student, interviews with teachers who combine these techniques, and documented research, I argue that ballet pedagogy can be reconstructed with an emancipatory approach using ATM to help disrupt institutionalized practices of body shaming, racism, and elitism. I interview teachers who engage both modalities within one class to imagine what a professional ballet community could look like with critical pedagogy and somatic practice at its core. I propose Awareness Through Movement as a vehicle for reconstructing our understandings of the interplay between race, class, and gender issues in ballet, restructuring thoughts and practices not through dialectic, but through the body itself.

This paper suggests potential areas of dialogue between Body-Mind Centering® (BMCsm) and contemplative photography from a practitioner’s perspective. I begin with an overview of the embodiment process in BMC, and discuss some understandings of the term ‘embodiment’ relating to visual and performing arts practices, including Fischer-Lichte’s concept of radical presence. I further suggest ways that contemplative photography practice offers insight into the specific perception of the present moment, echoing the articulation of the individual and subjective experience of soma (as contrasted to the more general and objective body) within somatic practices.

in The Art of Embodiment, edited by Jane Guthrie, Kim Sargent-Wishart, Heather Hill & Angela Clarke
Published by the Dance Movement Therapy Association of Australasia with the Body-Mind Centering® Association
Available at dtaa.org.au

"Although numerous books and articles have recently talked about the gut instincts as valuable in giving us useful hunches in the decision-making process, "What's Behind Your Belly Button?" goes much further and explains how gut feelings not only have a psychological intelligence of their own, but are also understandably rational in their functioning. The authors explore how gut feelings are like a gas gauge in our guts indicating through an emotional feeling of emptiness or fullness how well the two instinctive human needs for acceptance (attention from others) and of control of one's own responses (freedom) in our lives are being met and how our behavior attempts to keep these two instinctive needs in balance at all times. They explore how these two instinctive needs motivate nearly all our behaviors all through our lives and that the feeling memory of how well these needs are met from moment-to-moment may be accessed through somatic awareness of our gut feelings of empty and full by using the Somatic Reflection Process the authors have developed.

In 1998, neurological research at Columbia University published the work of Dr. Michael Gershon that identified the enteric nervous system as a center of feeling-intelligence in the gut, which he called the "Second Brain". The authors carefully examined this material and accepted the research findings as pointing to the same universal feeling intelligence they experienced in counseling with hundreds of people. Utilizing the research of Dr. Gershon, the work of Dr. Lise Eliot who charts the development of children from conception through the first five years of life, recent research of their own in the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University, and their vast clinical experience, the authors have presented an interpretation of recent medical research into a Gut Psychology and a more accurate behavioral understanding of the Self and human nature than has previously been available. They share a complete protocol and results of clinical research findings for the Somatic Reflection Process that they have created and used successfully, with themselves and hundreds of people, to assist the process of getting in touch with the voice of the gut and learning to follow its wisdom toward a healthy life--unifying the body-mind split in the individuation process.

Over a period of 45 years, there has been a utilization of further graduate studies in Depth Psychology and Religious Education on the part of the authors, and giant steps forward in the fields of Neurology and Human Psychology, which help form a new more accurate image of human nature. The authors present this new image of human nature and the meaning of its understanding in making positive changes in our lives. They suggest that we are at the beginning of a Renaissance in human consciousness and that understanding our true human nature is the way to thrive in this present era. This book also discusses the implications of this new image of human nature in education and for rehabilitation of those incarcerated. The authors suggest that early in the child learning process, care be taken to offer the experience of freedom and acceptance to the preschool child to form a positive self-concept and to self-regulate his and her behavior as part of the learning process in becoming a loving, caring person.

After careful examination of life's processes, they conclude that of all the mammals in the animal kingdom, humans seem to be the only species that has been denied the open use of their natural instincts. Out of ignorance, fear or wanton control by others--"we are denied the use of the brains we were born with". This awareness is of growing concern since the absence of the use of the feeling intelligence of the body interferes with a major stabilizing force--built into the human system--that can affect human behavior, provide a sense of well-being, and the ability of the body to combat disease."

Building on C. G. Jung's early understanding of dance as a form of active imagination, Dreamdancing (Stromsted 1984) brings together the inner world of body sensation, feelings, dreams and images; moving through dreams can help us experience the body/psyche connection. Just as the sensing body provides immediate access to all of life's experiences, our dreams, in turn, reflect the vitality of the body and the condition of our psychic, spiritual life. Analysis involves attuning to these messages, in the other, and within ourselves, hearing the soul's call and working with obstacles to its fulfilment. Elements from this practice may enhance your clinical practice by providing an increased sense of comfort with and appreciation for your own bodily wisdom and feeling responses. Expanded ways of seeing and enhanced awareness of the somatic foundations of the intersubjective relationship can deepen empathy and effectiveness in working with others, while providing avenues for self care and renewal.

This is the programme of a two-day praxical symposium that took place at East 15 Acting School, London (19-20 July 2019). It was the culminating event of a wider research project, the main outcome of which will be a volume for Routledge Voice Studies Series (2020). The gathering was developed upon activities offered by the majority of the contributors to the project, a group of world-leading pioneers in teaching, researching and disseminating the significance of somatic or somatically-inspired practices towards new research methodologies in somatic and voice studies.

Sin duda podríamos alegrarnos de que “el cuerpo” se haya vuelto últimamente un objeto de estudio para nuestras ciencias sociales o humanas, y en mi caso la filosofía. Pero estas mismas disciplinas aprendieron a sospechar de las grandes  periodizaciones históricas y de las grandes declaraciones definitivas. Toda celebración de una vuelta al cuerpo no debe
hacer olvidarnos de los riesgos de volver a hacer del cuerpo un “objeto”, un objeto para nuestros estudios, por un lado y por el otro, de continuar participando en hacer del cuerpo una excepcionalidad en relación con otra cosa, en una distinción con tendencia dualista. Es que siempre está el riesgo de hacer de aquello que nos encontramos en el camino un objeto de pensamiento, ubicando el objeto como otro de este yo pensando. 
Se tratará de pensar las técnicas somáticas como la oportunidad para no volver al cuerpo un objeto sino extender el pensamiento a través de sus movimientos.
ISSN: 978-987-27772-2-5

Abstract:  Movement improvisation is an embodied, transformational practice that can aid in understanding complex systems and relationships. When practiced in groups, it can develop a capacity to respond to complexity with increased creativity and cooperation. This type of embodied wholeness-in-action serves to promote awareness of and familiarity with the ever-changing movement inherent to life. As we become more comfortable in face of the ever-shifting unknown, we begin to respond rather react to it, accepting our place in the animate and interdependent worlds we are a part of. As we practice participating in life, dancing with it rather than attempting to arrest its constant flow, we are positioned to participate more consciously in the creation of our shared world and, potentially, to participate consciously in our evolution as a species.

In this chapter I show how awareness plays a role in reshaping ideas of physical pain. By awareness, I mean the natural ability that each one of us has to imagine, visualise, and focus into the sensations, feelings and emotions that occur in the body and mind. In other words, awareness in this chapter is seen as the ‘here and now’ of experiencing walking meditation in the natural environment through a body in pain, as it happens. This chapter suggests that walking meditation may be approached as a somatic practice, (instead of a spiritual practice) and that scholars can critically engage with events and topics that impact on their personal and professional worlds, while navigating between those spaces.

The expression of music comes through the instrument as an extension of the body. contended that the body is "vital in the generation of expressive ideas about the music." (p. 237). A musician spends years training his or her body to play an instrument so that he or she can convey emotional and intellectual experiences to audiences.

O objetivo é explorar conexões entre yoga, processos de criação em dança, improvisação, performance  e o que denomino de ‘in-ex-corporação’, uma proposta artístico-investigativa com  ênfase na complementariedade, que busca unir ao invés de separar, tendo em vista que o termo ‘Yoga’ tem em si o radical ‘Yuj’ que significa unir. Para unir dentro-fora, no Yoga, na vida, nos processos de criação em perfomance e em dança, podemos acionar nossas percepções a fim de haja uma ligação indissolúvel nas trocas constantes entre o conhecimento que se processa no corpo pessoal e o conhecimento processado nas trocas com outros corpos, humanos e não humanos, vivos e não vivos, e com o ambiente. Sugiro que para ampliar possibilidades de que conhecimentos construídos na criação e improvisação em dança e performance se tornem significativos, ou seja, sejam embodied/‘in-ex-corporados’,  no seu processo criativo haja profunda conexão interna-externa (incluindo fluxos de sensações, sentimentos,  emoções, energias e estados corporais com os de outros corpos e com o meio). Esses conhecimentos são frutos de sinergias, trocas, não necessariamente em harmonia, mas como se o conhecimento fosse formado por um corpo de saber ou uma unidade que contém muitas partes diferenciadas. Corpo único, pois cada corpo de saber se constrói de forma diferenciada dos demais de acordo com inúmeros fatores (e.g., história, valores, crenças). Em processos de criação em dança e performance, principalmente se lidamos com improvisação, movimentamos de forma intuitiva ou pré-reflexiva gerando conhecimentos que tem grandes chances de serem ‘in-ex-corporados’/embodied quando acionamos nossas múltiplas maneiras de perceber, fazendo conexões e mediando diferentes caminhos, formas, possibilidades. Assim, podemos abrir espaços e canais para in-ex-corporar (embody) conexões no grau máximo. Ao abraçarmos ‘conexões’ como parte do processo de embodiment, temos que considerar que essas  estão em um ‘contato-improvisação’ constante. Portanto, podem se tornar parte, mesmo que provisoriamente, do nosso ser, mas assim como mudamos em termos físicos, fisiológicos, cronológicos e assim por diante, também  se transformam conexões já construídas, in-ex-corporadas. Ou seja, entendo que não há mundo estável. Sob esta perspectiva, embodiment se cria, se materializa, se (re)constrói, 'dança' e se faz ‘artista’ de acordo com a intermitência co-existencial.

Certain trends in the recital of Western art music composition and performance have embraced indeterminacy through an emerging sonic aesthetic that seeks to redefine the notion of failure. From Charles Ives' adoption of bi-tonality in the early twentieth century to the ‘glitch’ movement in contemporary computer music, this article traces ways in which musicians have sought to embrace the risk for failure in performance with special attention to virtuosic instrumental music (Cascone 2006; Rodgers 2003; Godlovitch 1998; Rosen 2002). Drawing upon the author's recent interdisciplinary practice-led research ‘Woman=Music=Desire’ (2010) and adopting a choreographic approach to the re-appropriation of musical gesture, the author explores how the risk for failure contributes to live musical experience. This discussion is then extended to the process of corporeal acquisition necessary in rehearsing and performing a piece of music which, the author suggests, results in a degree of gestural self-simulation. In this way, the performer's personal authenticity is discussed as a potential locus of failure in which the physical manifestation of emotional expression helps to determine empathetic identification between performer, spectator and instrument (Kivy 1995). Drawing upon Steven Baker's notion of ‘botched taxidermy’ (2000), the author suggests that this empathetic identification creates a space in which the potential risk for failure might be considered intrinsic to conceptions of corporeality in music performance. In this way, live musical experience is posited a site of risk in which the performer, as a desiring subject, emerges as the embodiment of failure. A short excerpt of the case study ‘Woman=Music=Desire’ may be viewed at: http://www.imogene-newland.co.uk/perf_women_md.php

Gestalt therapists are uniquely positioned to address issues
of gender and sexuality in authentic and empowering ways.
However, gender has been a relatively neglected territory within Gestalt therapy theory and professional discourse. Drawing on social and somatic theories of gender, this article articulates how Gestalt therapists might harness existing skills and orientations to become significant contributors to the evolving debates on gender and sexuality in counseling and psychotherapy. The author describes a four-step approach to professional development on gender issues focused on application to Gestalt therapy practice.

This paper is a reflection on the spring 2022 semester at the California Institute of Integral studies, specifically for a class titled, "The Somatic Psychology of Exceptional Human Experiences".

This paper includes both personal and scholarly reflections on the transpersonal and integral qualities of somatic psychology, with an emphasis on Tantra.

Note: please go to lifedance.com and scroll down to subscribe to emails, if you would like to stay in touch and learn about updates and applications of this work.

This chapter presents a framework for understanding the knowledge, skills and attitudes that support effective and ethical dance movement therapy (DMT) practice across cultural boundaries. I summarise and discuss a long-term qualitative inquiry conducted through cognitive-behavioural modelling, action research workshops and interviews with health, caring and managerial professionals from over 60 countries. Drawing on my application of the model in professional development programmes, my own clinical experience and interviews with other dance movement therapists, I discuss the implications of the ensuing Transcultural Competence model for DMT theory and practice. I provide a framework for practitioners to review their own practice and development needs, propose ways in which the DMT profession can be strengthened by giving greater attention to cultural issues in training and supervision, and make suggestions for future research.

Este trabalho reflete sobre a tentativa de desenvolver uma metodologia de ensino para o balé clássico sob uma perspectiva epistemológica construtivista. Ele é fruto da pesquisa de Mestrado em Artes Cênicas pela Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA). A pesquisa descreve e analisa como é aprender uma técnica codificada de dança -no caso o balé clássico -sob outra perspectiva metodológica que não a mecanicista. Para isso, se apoia nos princípios da Educação Somática. A pós-modernidade trouxe problematizações em relação às verdades absolutas em diversos campos e que estão inscritas no corpo. Essas mudanças de paradigma não poderiam deixar de se refletir na dança, mas não em toda dança. A abordagem do ensino de algumas técnicas ainda segue paradigmas mecanicistas, de corpoinstrumento. O estudo, denominado "Balé Clássico -Corpo Consciente", ao incorporar a educação somática ao ensino da técnica clássica transforma o processo de aprendizagem desta linguagem. Pesquisas do uso da educação somática no balé clássico não são comuns, como no caso de trabalhos voltados às técnicas moderna ou contemporânea. Nesta pesquisa, os conteúdos somáticos são trabalhados a partir da estrela labaniana (corpo, ações, espaço, dinâmica e relacionamento). Por sua vez, os fundamentos do corpo, baseados em Béziers, se relacionam com os sete fundamentos do balé (dobrar, esticar, lançar, deslizar, girar, elevar e saltar). Palavras-chave: educação somática; balé; metodologia de ensino; pedagogia da dança.

The lived experience of the body–that is, our bodily sensations, perceptions and behaviors–is the essential ground of human identity. Developmentally, our visceral impulses serve as the foundation for personal agency, guiding us as we move through the world, reaching for some things and refusing others. Our bodily encounters with the physical environment shape and reshape our understanding of the world; we learn about gravity by falling down and discover how our point of view changes when we walk around and encounter new perspectives. Language, often considered a function of our cognitive capacity for abstraction, is laden with meaningful references to the body that hint at its sensorial roots. Indeed, cognition itself is increasingly understood as deeply intertwined with bodily feeling i. When applied to our understanding of the social world, our embodied experience plays an equally important role. As we navigate interpersonal relationships and learn about the characteristics associated with different groups of people, our bodies help to create and maintain the power dynamics that can arise between us–for instance, by signaling dominance or submission through our gestures and eye contact ii. We are categorized into sociocultural groups according to physical traits that are marked as desirable or deficient based on their appearance and functioning. Depending on our social identifications, we may learn to treat our bodies as sexual objects or as instruments of labor. In short, our nonverbal communication patterns, beliefs about body norms, and feelings of connection and identification with our bodies are all deeply affected by our assigned membership in different social groups and the privileges associated with that membership iii. However, despite the research evidence supporting these ideas, existing models of social justice have not been particularly attentive to the body's role in reproducing oppression iv in everyday life. Neither have approaches that specialize in working with the felt sense of the body (often grouped into a field called " somatics " v) offered many strategies for resolving the tension between the information available to us through bodily explorations of sensation and movement and the data grounded in social power and authority. However, it is possible to address the singular experience of the body in a way that does not bypass the political. Conversely, it is possible to work collectively to transform oppressive social structures while fully recognizing the micro-sociological building blocks that maintain those structures. An embodied approach to social justice–one that recognizes the degree to which our bodies are implicated in the reproduction of social power–should not be considered a replacement for working on the macro-sociological level to make structural and ideological changes in social institutions such as education or healthcare, or as a substitute for legislative reform. Rather, it works to support change in the relational fabric of our lives so that structural shifts correspond with authentic transformations in attitude, and where legal rights and freedoms are experienced at the core of our beings and manifested in our everyday interactions with others.

Extends the 1992 theoretical work of comparing human motor development from two somatic movement perspectives - Bartenieff Fundamentals and Body-Mind Centering.  Comprehensive review of the distinctions and similarities of each approach and when to use which. Also includes discussion of reflexes in motor learning from a neuro-maturational and from a dynamical systems perspective.  Some reference is made to applications of these methods in dance, fitness, psychology and health. Extensive charts - describing specific movement for supporting neuro-motor development are included.

It’s an interesting topic and how I dance with that depends on how I interpret the word ‘drives’ I suppose. I could talk about Freud’s aggression and sexual impulses in drive theory, but I’d rather address one of my main drives; as sharing knowledge of embodied practice towards development, which can result in personal and societal empowerment, communication and healing, as we focus on the integrated body and mind.

Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action is a masterful book that traces the complex spider web of somatic influences on American and European contemporary dance, with a focus on the integration of somatic awareness in higher education. Eddy and her collaborators take the reader on a historical journey, systematically connecting the various generations of somatic educators with trends in dance education in the West and the infusion of non-western disciplines in this larger amalgamation.

This theoretical study is part of my doctoral research on the history and development
of the psychodynamic theory movement, the Kestenberg Movement
Profile (KMP). This paper attempts to introduce the KMP within the historical
context of its origins, the psychoanalytic circles of 1940–1980 New York outlining
the main lines of influence on Kestenbreg’s work. The KMP forms
a complex integrative approach of movement assessment and analysis that
examines the interplay between movement development and the process of
self-formation. The paper explores the theoretical foundations of the
Kestenberg Movement Profile in general, concerning influences from Freudian
drive theory and ego-psychology in particular. The paper aims to illuminate the
field of scientific thought that the KMP emerged from as a psychodynamic
assessment tool of movement behaviour.

Introduces the role of neuromaturational and dynamical systems theory in child development and ensuing adult movement behavior. Highlights the work of physical therapist, Irmgard Bartenieff (1900 - 1982) and occupational therapist Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and the development of the somatic movement systems:  Bartenieff Fundamentals and Body-Mind Centering, respectively.  Compares and contrasts these two systems of human movement analysis and their perspectives in intervention with children and adults.  Shares Dr. Eddy's unique blend of these two systems in Dynamic Embodiment Somatic Movement Therapy.  Provides charts of different views of body organization and neuro-developmental organization in embryological and infant motor planning, as well as the reflex theory related to adult performance.  Also includes additional charts from the pedagogy of colleague Rachelle Tsachor.

Over the years my work has taken me into a deeper investigation of how to re-inhabit ourselves and live a life guided by embodied wisdom, responding to the question: "Once we have experienced wounding, trauma, or loss that has resulted in a subjective experience of having left the body, how do we get back in?" My long-term work as a dance therapist with a depth analytic approach that integrates somatic processes, Jungian dreamwork, and creative arts therapy approaches has taught me that there are many roads to healing. My concern is that having been raised for so many generations according to patriarchal images of spiritual "ascent," together with the quest for personal and individualistic power, our technologically advanced and acquisitive culture has caused us to nearly forget its vital counterpart: the feminine path to individuation through "descent."

The focus of this integrative thesis project is to diversify the scope of somatic education to serve research, performance art and life and to develop a fused epistemology of theory and practice to bridge the gap between experientialtheoretical, subjective-objective and abstract-concrete knowledge. It is significant as it adds to the field of embodied studies and to alternative methods for education, research and practice. The work is grounded in interdisciplinary research (practical and theoretical) in the field of somatics, phenomenology, and dance, and draws support from practices such as embodied-writing, performance-writing, and somaticperformative research. A new method of somatic-performative inquiry was developed within an innovative chapter that exhibits an example of the same. Also a course was developed, entitled "Beyond Frames-Without Masks," as a Transformative Somatic-Performative Intensive experience, and seven individuals participated in the pilot run in Bangalore, India. Implications for future include: a new method of self-education, self-knowing, and self-expression; inclusion of a unified perspective of mind-body; primacy of movement; collaboration between somatics and performance; and, an autotelic process-oriented approach and research.

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

The human embryo creates a body without a brain. Just how it does this, remains mysterious. While advances in science and technology afford scientists a privileged view of developmental changes in vivo, the embryo's dynamic growth patterns remain ill-defined. As Embryologists aligned with Goethean Science and Anthroposophy, another perspective has evolved: Phenomenological Embryosophy. Basic to this discourse is the concept that all biological organization and development is intelligent and metaphysical throughout the developmental timeline. Somatic education (Somatics) shares this holistic concept. Somatics is a living philosophy as well as an empirical approach to understanding the lived and living body through conscious movement practice. Throughout the 20 th Century, Somatics spawned multiple movement practices, pathways to an embodied understanding of human potential and relational depth. Developmental movement has been critical to this study. In this article, the author draws from her personal engagement with Somatics, highlighting parallels between embryosophical theory and somatic practice. To illustrate key relationships, the author describes elements of her personal practice-based research called human origami. Human origami is an improvisational exploration of bodily folding. The inspiration came from French phenomenologist Gilles Deleuze who wrote extensively on the aesthetics of folding. Beyond the particulars of Deleuzian Phenomenology, human origami offers a means of re-enacting one's biological history through mindful movement practice. Here, elements from one practice session are described: the embryonic phase of gastrulation (the formation of the primitive streak and consolidation of the axial midline). The practice is informed and affirmed by trans-disciplinary studies in dance phenomenology, fractal biology and embodied cognitive science. Human origami ultimately aims to obliterate artificial 2 International Journal of Prenatal & Life Sciences, www.journalprenatalife.com divisions between theory and practice in underscoring the impact of prenatal processes on lifelong health and wellbeing.

Until the second half of the 20th century, publications on breathing techniques for woodwinds have been scarce and often failed to adequately address this aspect of performance and pedagogy. It is through various sensory experiences and because of recent technological advances that academics recognize a gap in the existing literature and have since included studies using various methods, as well as modern technical devices and experiments into the woodwind literature and teaching. These studies have proven to be of great importance to confirm ideas and hypotheses on the matter.
The aim of this project is to collect woodwind journal publications into a meta-analysis, focusing specifically on the breathing techniques for woodwind instruments and provide a comprehensive annotated bibliography on the topic and its application. The project is limited to journal articles on breathing techniques applied for woodwinds only, and will not review literature discussing breathing from other perspectives or in a broader sense.
Major findings show that misconceptions and contradictions on the subject still exist. At the same time, they also highlight unique approaches used to help the learner overcome general and specific challenges while mastering the art of breathing.
The project highlights areas where future research on breathing would be encouraged and should be complemented by measured data. Such studies might include a woodwind specific examination of the relationship between the tongue and the soft palate, or analysis of how tension in the torso muscles influences the movement of the diaphragm, or how rhythmical breathing affects breath control and capacity, and finally a discussion on how larynx influences the air stream.

Aim: To identify therapists’ views on sexual boundaries and the strategies they employ to manage them in therapeutic practice. Method: In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 13 accredited, experienced practitioners of psychotherapy or counselling. A grounded theory approach, informed by principles from Free Association Narrative methodology, was employed, in which team members used debriefing sessions for extending depth of understanding of the interviews. Findings: There is consensus about boundaries at the extremes, but variability about fantasy, flirtation and touch. A core process was generated from accounts of successful management of sexual attraction. We identified four problematic ways of reacting to boundary pressure, each with potential to harm clients and therapy. Discussion: A participant-observer stance was conceptualised as essential for managing threats to boundaries, consistent with the empathic stance. Minor boundary crossings were viewed by interviewees as both potential precursors of more serious transgressions, and as opportunities for understanding the client's difficulties. Implications for practice: These span training, accrediting organisations, supervision and therapy practice.

Many scholars suggest that the primary reason for our current state of socio-ecological crisis is the persistent social construct of human-nature dichotomies. This dualism implies that humans are separate from and superior to nature, leading to erosion of our intrinsic and codependent relationship with the natural world. Nature is commonly framed as something out there beyond the city-to be controlled, conserved or commandeered for human utility. A surge of researchers and practitioners have advocated for the importance of (re)connecting with the more-than-human as a transformational tool for developing more ethical relationships with our environments. Research shows that effective forms of connection must be felt through the multi-sensory feeling body, not just the thinking mind.

“Being Ma” lives at the nexus of ma and the lived body. (1) Of Shinto Zen origin, 'ma' concept of spacetime permeates traditional forms of Japanese Fine Arts. (2) The essence of 'ma' reappears in the contemporary Butoh dance philosophy, and has migrated as spatial-temporal perspective in a number of movement art practices outer-borders of Japan. “Being Ma” attempts at describing a porous, fluid, indescribable concept as experienced in its relationship along and between the artistic intents of a moving body in spacetime.
'Ma' is a contributing rather than a limiting principle. The study follows a flow leading to ma-body-as-event. The study of 'ma' contributes to the phenomenal, cultural, and embodied knowledge production of Dance & Performance scholarship, and beyond, extending to fields of research mandating embodied inquiries. Having chosen to study a Japanese phenomenological concept through the practical framework (in some cases) of North American movement art practitioners, I come across issues of embodied translation and issues of movement approaches – or, stylistic codes and forms of ‘trans-action’. Aided by the artistic expressions of the lived body paradigm, this paper addresses the experience of movement: Shinto Zen rites, Nihon Buyo (Traditional Japanese Dance), Butoh practice, Somatic practice, dancing dream state, and Durational Performance Art. These forms call for movement awareness, which makes them ideal pilots for observation, description, analysis, and interpretation.

Abstract
This study examines the treatment outcome of a 10 weeks dance movement therapy intervention on Quality of life (QOL). The multicentered study used a between subject-design with pre-test, post-test, and six months follow-up test. 162 participants who suffered from stress were randomly assigned to the dance movement therapy treatment group (TG) (n= 97) and the wait-listed control group (WG) (65). The World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire 100 (WHOQOL-100) and Munich Life Dimension List were used in both groups at all three measurement points. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that dance movement therapy participants in all QOL dimensions always more than the WG. In the short term, they significantly improved in the Psychological domain (p>.001, WHOQOL; p>.01, Munich Life Dimension List), Social relations/life (p>.10, WHOQOL; p>.10, Munich Life Dimension List), Global value (p>.05, WHOQOL), Physical health (p>.05, Munich Life Dimension List), and General life (p>.10, Munich Life Dimension List). In the long term, dance movement therapy significantly enhanced the psychological domain (p>.05, WHOQOL; p>.05, Munich Life Dimension List), Spirituality (p>.10, WHOQOL), and General life (p>.05, Munich Life Dimension List). Dance movement therapy is effective in the short- and long-term to improve QOL.
Keywords: Dance therapy, Dance movement therapy, Research, Quality of Life (QOL), Randomized controlled trial, Treatment outcome and Efficacy.

Research is a crucial element in advancing our collective knowledge of somatic psychology, but body and movement psychotherapists often struggle to engage in meaningful relationships with the psychology research literature and the
community of scholars who typically produce it. This paper elaborates the common ground between research and somatic psychotherapy by linking the values, attitudes and skills of somatic psychotherapists with specific research
methodologies. It traces the similarities between doing therapy and doing research, with a focus on the role of the therapist/researcher, and outlines a research method that somatic psychotherapists might consider as a basic
framework when undertaking their own formal research.