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Home: Survivors: Healing: Dance therapy

One of the most fundamental issues for us as facilitators is recognising how challenging movement and body work is as a therapeutic medium for women who have been sexually assaulted. Particularly in the initial weeks, there was a very real sense of uncertainty and scepticism amongst participants, firstly about the movement itself, (what am I meant to do? what is expected?) and then in relation to the movement/recovery connection (what does it all mean?). As the women began to find themselves within the movement, the connections started to emerge through their reflections. They asked fewer questions and began instead to make statements as to what they understood about the process.

As facilitators, this highlighted the need to strike a supportive environment in which the women were able to see themselves reflected in each other, to observe similarities and differences, and to be afforded the chances to validate and support the difficulties as much as the pleasures. In the women's words "it was great to see other people expressing themselves and feelings; it was great sharing them - it taught me things about myself and others". Similarly, "members have been courageous, open, supportive, inspiring and affirming", "it was great seeing others get stronger within themselves". There existed the power of the group to draw increased effort from some participants who at times would not have committed to the same degree of energy to the moving had they been left to their own resources. This became a significant moment of insight on several occasions for some of the women.

Our responsibility as facilitators to be flexible and responsive to the collective as well as individual needs of the women became somewhat problematic in the latter part of the program. In future programs we will need to incorporate the option of some individual work for women wanting to explore individual themes further on a one to one basis. This will need to be negotiated in terms of the time it could take away from the group as a whole.

It became clear that the sessions were a storyboard of experiences for the women. Each woman had her own experience of the group and the meanings of these experiences unfolded in different ways for the women. This process of discovery also allowed women to decide if this program was right for them. Some of the women discovered that the movement medium was not right for them. For one of these women it was a discovery that she preferred a talking group, for another the physical material became too overwhelmingly difficult to manage.

On reflection, it has become clear to us as facilitators that it is imperative for women to be currently in a therapeutic relationship whilst participating in this program. Moreover, that this has been a relationship of some length prior to the commencement of the group. Acting as a safety net for the women, an individual counselling relationship provides further opportunities to specifically reflect on, and integrate personal experiences of the moving, as well as debrief should difficult material arise.

Finally, as facilitators we found a specific need to be respectful of each other's disciplines and areas of expertise. Particularly as the weeks progressed, sessions became more fluid in content with greater reliance on responding to issues as they spontaneously emerged, rather than adhering rigidly to 'the plan'. To facilitate this style of leading requires knowing each other well, and being able to demonstrate professional trust that each other knows what they are doing as they lead the group.

As the women reflected, it was an honour to be witness to the literal movement by some of the women through their body traumas. At the conclusion of the program, whilst not claiming to be 'cured', some of the women articulated the desire to take up and return to body based activities such as community dance classes and team sports.

When asked what they understood  by the term 'dance/movement therapy', one woman responded "allowing my body to do the talking". We are encouraged as facilitators, that even knowing something of the difficulties, there is great benefit in connecting women with sexual assault histories and dance therapy.

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Disclaimer Copyright Updated: 19 Mar 2011