Dance/movement therapy may be conceptualized as an embodied and enactive form of psychotherapy. The embodied enactive approach looks at individuals as living systems characterized by plasticity and permeability (momentto-moment adaptations within the self and toward the environment), autonomy, sense-making, emergence, experience, and striving for balance. Enaction and embodiment emphasize the roles that body motion and sensorimotor experience play in the formation of concepts and abstract thinking. A theoretical framework and a perspective on professional practice in dance/movement therapy are herein offered as influenced by interdisciplinary embodied and enactive approaches deriving from cognitive sciences and phenomenology. The authors assert that dance/ movement therapy, enaction, and embodiment fruitfully contribute to one another.From its very origin, the body-mind relation, interpersonal relations, and the relatedness of the person to the environment have been central to the clinical practice of dance/movement therapy, in which movement and dance as essential Sabine C. Koch and Diana Fischman equally and jointly contributed to the article.
Humans have used dance as a healing art since the beginning of human history, but dance therapy has only begun to be recognized as a formal profession since the mid-1940s. At that time, dancers living in the USA began using dance as a therapeutic medium in health-care settings. Since then, the field has expanded across the world, with dance therapists now practicing in most countries. Professional associations have been established, training courses set up, and processes for registering therapists with government authorities implemented. This article provides an international overview of these developments. Detailed information about progress and challenges in the advancement of the dance therapy profession is offered across six world regions. Progress includes expansion of geographic range to countries where no formal training or networks exist, including many developing nations. Barriers to progress include lack of university-based accredited training and low numbers of professionals, making the establishment of a critical mass of practitioners difficult. Suggestions for future development of the profession internationally are made.
To cite this article: Diana Fischman (2012) El cuerpo en psicoterapia. Teoría y práctica de la Danza Movimiento Terapia compiled by Heidrun Panhofer, Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 7:2, 153-157,
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