An exploration of the relationship between the arts, awareness of nature and dance movement psychotherapy

Abstract

The aim of this article is to underline the importance of metaphors, imagination, and symbolism, and our connection to the natural environment through dance movement psychotherapy. In today’s society, the humancentric attachment with others and with nature highlights the nature-body-mind split and how far apart we have grown from our surrounding environment. Through spontaneity, playfulness, desire and exploring the joy of existence, we can weave anew the web of life; a life directly connected with the earth, our bodies, our inner experience and spirituality. Rituals, symbolism, and a more sensory way of experiencing the world could become the anchor of our journey towards otherness and developing our ecological self.

Keywords:

• Dance movement psychotherapy
• metaphor
• ecopsychology
• transpersonal psychotherapy
• spirituality
• attachment
• nature-body-mind split

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jill Bunce

Jill Bunce trained as a Dance Movement Psychotherapist in 1991–1995 at the Laban Centre and completed a piece of research which was published in the ‘Nameless Dread’, 2006. She has worked as a Dance Movement Psychotherapist since then and still practices working with children and adults. She has always been interested in the transpersonal as her first degree was in theology and remained interested in the body mind soul relationship and the relationship to nature and ecology. She has been part of the initiative of the HIPC (UKCP) to include ecopsychology as part of the training standards. She gained her doctorate in 2008 on the development of a different ethos for Dance Education and has established a training course for Dance Movement Psychotherapy at Derby University in 2010. She has organised workshops and lectured in Finland, Russia, Greece, Spain and Romania, Hong Kong and Australia

Christina Gougouli

Christina Gougouli holds a degree in Psychology from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and a master’s degree in ‘Dance Movement Psychotherapist’ from the University of Derby in the UK where she was also a visiting lecturer delivering workshops in research modules. She is a trained Kestenberg Movement Profile analyst and she is currently a trainee at the Hellenic Institute for Group Analytic and Family Psychotherapy. She has board experience working with children and adults in both Greece and the UK. Since 2016, she supported people with eating difficulties; charities supporting adolescents & adults with mental health difficulties; outpatient units in children’s hospitals; organisations supporting the development of children in the autistic spectrum, and refugees in Open Accommodation Sites in Central Greece. She has established her private practice in Larissa, Greece. She is also an associate Dance Movement Psychotherapist at Amna, formerly known as the ‘Refugee Trauma Initiative’ and a psychologist-psychotherapist at ISPA, an organisation supporting the psychosocial development of children, adults, and families.