BERN—a method for analyzing dance/movement therapy groups

Rooting into moving – a tribute to the life of Claire Schmais (1924–2015)

“…Claire captured and translated the deep essence of Chace's work with empathic reflection. Claire's major contribution to the field and to professional training was her understanding of how dance therapy groups work and identifying the healing processes within dance therapy group work (Chaiklin & Schmais, 1993;Schmais, 1985Schmais, , 1998Schmais & Diaz-Salazar, 1998).…”

Dance Therapy Models: An Anthropological Perspective

“…For individual work, the following assessment and analytic tools are used: Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) (Laban, 1975) and Kestenberg Movement Profile (KMP) (Loman & Merman, 1996). For group analysis, Schmais and Diaz-Salazar (1998) have used the BERN method; others have utilized Dance Therapy Process Analysis (DTPA) (Schmais & Felber, 1977), Structural Analysis of Movement Sessions (SAMS) (Johnson & Sandel, 1996), as well as Analysis of Interaction in Movement Sessions (AIMS) (Koch, 1990). A very important technical tool is the videorecording of movement, through which therapists manage to review sessions and avoid the possibility of not taking basic clues into consideration (Karkou & Sanderson, 2001a).…”