What is Authentic movement and what does the practice look like?

This form was created by Mary Starks Whitehouse (1911-1979), in the 1950s. Mary Starks Whitehouse was a Modern dancer turned Jungian Psychoanalyst who investigated the body as the vehicle for acting out and bringing to light subconscious material. She is one of the mothers of modern day dance therapy. Mary Starks Whitehouse is quoted to have said “Movement, to be experienced, has to be ‘found’ in the body, not put on like a dress or coat. There is that in us which has moved from the very beginning: it is that which can liberate us.” Her students, Joan Chodorow (1937- ) and Janet Adler (1941-2023) developed Mary’s work and coined this form Authentic Movement.

In this guided practice, you engage in improvised movement that arises from the wisdom of your unique, intelligent body. It is a practice that facilitates a migration into the nexus of body-mind-spirit, aka, the subconscious. The body, with cells who still remember what it was like to be a jellyfish, is a gateway to unconscious material, the stuff that is guiding our life choices (whether we like it or not!) In the practice of Authentic Movement, the body expresses its stories — its impulses, sensations, memories, emotions and images — through movement. You learn to listen to and follow the information your body has for you. This helps you live and make choices from a more WHOLE, Authentic You.

In Authentic movement, a mover moves with eyes closed while being witnessed by another person This relationship between mover and witness is essential because there is a transformative dyanamic in the process of seeing and being seen. Your witness is a loving presence who attends to you as you venture into the unplanned landscape of moving with eyes closed. The witness acts as both tether and container for your journey. And then, that human is there waiting to hear all about your adventures when you come back! When you come back from moving, you and your witness engage in dialogue. First, the mover speaks their experience, what they can remember, what they felt, thought, imagined. Then, the witness has the opportunity to speak about their experience of witnessing - what they saw, felt and imagined. This dialogue process integrates the felt experience (more limbic and lizard brain) with analytic thought (more pre-frontal cortex), again, in the service of living more consciously from the information our body-minds have for us. Dialoguing also builds our capacities for safe connection with another human.

What happens in each 2-hour Session?

In each session you will engage with a sequence of activity. First, for arrival, you will be gently guided into your body and the felt sense. This is normally done lying down on the floor with some restful, subtle movement. Then, you will gather in a circle with your co-participants to check in. Here, each person shares what they are bringing, emotionally, physically, psychologically, into this evening’s space. After we have attended to our present states of being, we will explore a variation of ‘movement problem’ to heighten your connection to your felt sense and how it moves you. A ‘movement problem’ is a structured task that you investigate for a set amount of time. One example of a ‘movement problem’ is — to explore Sinking and Rising where, for 3 minutes you explore the felt sense and movements of, sinking then, for 3 minutes you play with the physicality around the state or image of Rising. Another example may be — to explore moving from and with different parts of your body (like elbows, fingers, tail bone, feet) as directed by me, your facilitator and witness. Your experience of your movement exploration will then be digested in a circle share. Then, for the final half of class, we engage in dyads with the practice of Authentic Movement as described above.

I like to work in containers because they provide the Yang (Structure) for the Yin (Soft and Squishy) to emerge. Containers are like a greenhouse for the young sprouts to emerge and flourish. They offer stability and protection to the vulnerable process of digging down and growing up. The group has its own particular healing power ;;; we evolved to flourish in community.