Heard of Dance/Movement Therapy? Pass it on!

I have a few Dance/Movement Therapists that I hold up on a major pedestal. One of them is Lora Wilson Mau. Her energy, passion, and focus in the field of D/MT is contagious. As past president of the California chapter of the ADTA, she was revolutionary in organizing, motivating, and networking D/MTs to get together throughout the state. Knitting together once fragmented pieces of the chapter, Lora continues to inspire others to be better human beings, to share, give, or offer what they can. Her brilliance is not just with people, though. She also is a tremendously passionate writer.

I am re-posting from Lora Wilson Mau's blog, Moving Towards Understanding, which beautifully articulates the need for the world to know about Dance/Movement Therapy. So pass it on!

Dance/Movement Therapy Goes Viral (Please?)
February 21, 2011 by Lora Wilson Mau, MA, R-DMT
Let me put my cards on the table.

I started this blog two years ago out of a deeply felt frustration that I know is shared by many of my fellow dance/movement therapists. I know they share this frustration in some form or another because the topic and the discussion of ways to address it has been repeated – for years – in professional discussions, online forums and local and national dialogues. It is an ongoing issue for our professional community.

The frustration is this:

In the 21st century, how can it be that the profession of dance/movement therapy is not better known? Better understood? At the very least, heard of? Granted, if one is not working in the mental health or rehabilitation or wellness professions, then it is perhaps logical that the profession be an unfamiliar concept. Certainly, I have never heard of countless occupations. But, how can it be in the 21st century, over ten years since the “Decade of the Brain” concluded, that dance/movement therapy is not better understood by our colleagues whose professions involve psychology or neuroscience?

How is it that when one googles “dance therapy” on the internet, one gets more references to Brittany Spears and pole dancing or random dance classes than one gets legitimate information on the nearly 50 year old profession of dance/movement therapy?

This latest spike in frustration was inspired by the recent feature on Anderson Cooper 360 that took a close look at a day in the life of Gabrielle Gifford’s rehabilitation at the TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital in Texas.

How is it that when Dr. Sanjay Gupta visited the hospital to get a hands on experience of a day in the life of Congresswoman Giffords’ recovery, dance/movement therapy was not included in the diverse list of therapies? Yes, music therapy was on the day’s agenda and, to Dr. Gupta’s credit, he really appreciated the power of music therapy to work “on developing … attention, memory and overall executive function.” This acknowledgement on a show as respected and widely viewed as CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 is a real boost for our colleagues in the music therapy profession.

But dance/movement therapy was NOT on the schedule and it was not addressed by Dr. Gupta – by name. However, a quick glimpse at the video of the music therapist, Maegan Morrow, reveals that she was incorporating movement with the music to help her patients improve cognitively and learn to walk again. “Lean 2, 3, 4, Push up, 2, 3, 4…” The diverse therapies at TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital work together to rehabilitate patients from traumatic injury… and yet the experts on using movement psychotherapeutically, who are specifically trained in connecting through movement and facilitating movement and rhythm – for whatever end goal – are not on that team?

“The brain learns best when it processes cognitive, affective and psychomotor information simultaneously.” (emphasis mine.)
Dr. Michael Merzenich
Neuroscientist

This is fundamental knowledge to neuroscientists and to anyone familiar with “brain-based learning.”

Movement is not only integral to healing psychologically, it is integral to effective rehabilitation of the brain, to learning and to brain plasticity.

Though my peers and I ask these questions – how, how, how can the world not know? – we do so, of course, acknowledging the onus is on us, the dance/movement therapists. This is precisely why I blog on DMT, why I encourage my colleagues to do the same and why I am writing a book on the topics of this blog.

To read the rest of this post from the Moving Towards Understanding blog, click here.

Arts in Healthcare

From Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist blog:

Arts in Healthcare Seen Yielding Benefits
According to a new study by the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, Americans for the Arts, The Joint Commission and the University of Florida Center for the Arts in Healthcare documents that incorporating the arts into health-care settings has multiple benefits for patients and may reduce health-care expenses. Up to half of health-care institutions in the U.S. incorporate arts programming into their care. Benefits from arts programming include shorter hospital stays, less need for medication, and a boost for job satisfaction and employee retention. Philanthropy Journal, Oct 19, 2009

Related Articles and Videos

I've been getting back into the swing of things at work this week after a fabulous two weeks off in Maui (friend's wedding) and Portland (ADTA conference). If you haven't yet been to the ADTA conference, GO NEXT YEAR IN BROOKLYN. It's a profound experience to be with hundreds of dance/movement therapists. I felt as though I was with "my people."

While I adjust back to my regular schedule, here are some articles you may find interesting:

*The act of exercise can improve body image.

*How can taking the stairs be more fun?

Interactive Swedish Piano Stairs - Watch more Funny Videos

*"Breath Made Visible" a documentary about Anna Halprin, co-founder of the Tamalpa Institute (my movement based, expressive arts therapy school), and postmodern dancer extraordinaire.

Making Art in Healthcare: Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange

Excerpt from Stage Presence - Body Presence: Movement and Body Experience With the Elderly by Babette Becker, PhD, CSW, BCD

Liz Lerman, a dancer and choreographer, developed an intergenerational dance company by first training young dancers in her company, The Dance Exchange, to teach and dance with older adults.

Creativity is often arrested in the aged. It is imprisoned by inhibitions, habits, and expectations. When it is released we get a Grandma Moses creating vibrant paintings in the primitive style. If it is never inhibited, we get a Picasso creating until the week of his death. Creativity can be released in many ways.
...The experiences and emotions of older persons can be translated into vibrant, creative works. Usually, however, there must be a program and a setting that encourages and channels free expression into an art form.

Movements can be used to express emotion, re-create an event, tell a story, work out an idea, or simply create joy. Dance is an active expression of individuals' willingness to move, learn, and reveal themselves through their bodies as well as to learn, take directions, work harmoniously, share ideas, and rehearse--to grow as artists, both collectively and individually. As muscles get full play, they are likely to improve in their range of motion, stamina, and agility.

To teach dance to older adults, I rely heavily on the experience of dance itself than on the therapeutic growth of the individual. If each of us listens to our own individual beat, we can create themes and movements. All forms of creativity, emotional and physical expression, physical movement, intellectual agility, and body health together produce therapeutic growth for elderly persons as well as create vitality for rich and long lives.

Read more about Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange here.

Michael Jackson Tribute at the MTV Video Music Awards

The MTV Video Music Awards opened last night with a tribute to Michael Jackson.

What was their tribute, you might ask?

The dances from his videos. Enough said.

MTV Shows

Click here for my previous blog post about his death.

Proven: Dance Combats Dementia

For hundreds of years dance manuals and other writings have lauded the health benefits of dancing, usually as physical exercise. More recently we've seen research on further health benefits of dancing, such as stress reduction and increased serotonin level, with its sense of well-being.

Then most recently we've heard of another benefit: Frequent dancing apparently makes us smarter. A major study added to the growing evidence that stimulating one's mind can ward off Alzheimer's disease and other dementia, much as physical exercise can keep the body fit.

You've probably heard about the New England Journal of Medicine report on the effects of recreational activities on mental acuity in aging. Here it is in a nutshell.

The 21-year study of senior citizens, 75 and older, was led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their method for objectively measuring mental acuity in aging was to monitor rates of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.

The study wanted to see if any physical or cognitive recreational activities influenced mental acuity. They discovered that some activities had a significant beneficial effect. Other activities had none.

They studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments. And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework.

One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia. There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind. There was one important exception: the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing.

Reading - 35% reduced risk of dementia

Bicycling and swimming - 0%

People who played the hardest gained the most: For example, seniors who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a 47% lower risk of dementia than those who did the puzzles once a week.

Playing golf - 0%

Dancing frequently - 76%.
That was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical.


Quoting Dr. Joseph Coyle, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who wrote an accompanying commentary:
"The cerebral cortex and hippocampus, which are critical to these activities, are remarkably plastic, and they rewire themselves based upon their use."

And from from the study itself, Dr. Katzman proposed these persons are more resistant to the effects of dementia as a result of having greater cognitive reserve and increased complexity of neuronal synapses. Like education, participation in some leisure activities lowers the risk of dementia by improving cognitive reserve.

Read more of Richard Powers' article here.