DMT & Eating Disorders

We are delighted to propose Dance/ Movement therapy (DMT) as additional supportive element in your Eating Disorders Program.  DMT serves as a powerful medium for people challenged by eating disorders to explore their relationship to their bodies. The psychosomatic nature of eating disorders, that is, of an unconscious dynamic between the psyche and a bodily manifested symptom, suggests that this population is uniquely suited for treatment in DMT.

The interaction between psyche and body is seen as two-directional in that movement expresses the inner workings of the psyche and also influences physical, emotional, and mental states.Experiencing one’s life as “too much” makes clients vacate their bodies, in order to get away from any sensations, emotions, and mental states.

This abandonment of our body forms the root of any addiction. A characteristic of eating disorders is the tendency to detach from feelings and focus on body distortions, obsessive thoughts and black and white thinking. DMT provides a way to safely become more aware of feelings that arise from the body’s sensations, and teaches people with eating disorders how to listen to their body’s needs. Healing cannot fully take place unless clients are able to challenge themselves to live in their bodies.

People with eating disorders tend to become socially isolated. The relationship focus of DMT, in group as well as in individual formats, helps the individual risk connecting to others in supported and authentic ways. Discoveries made in DMT about one’s own mind/body connection and about relating to others transfer to other relationships and how one moves through life.

Transforming everyday movements into expressive movements enables clients to find metaphoric connections between expressive movement and familiar patterns in their lives that may underlie the eating disorder. Through awareness of feelings and patterns, clients become able to release, externalize and transform those. DMT helps people understand how their feelings are given form through their actions, and empowers them to take risks. The client's physical condition has developed both in response to the neurotic psychological state as well as to maintain it. Therefore, as the client's feelings change, her body must change in order to physically support the new feeling state, and to counteract unconscious repetition of the problem.

THEMES

• address resistance to feeling one’s body and to movement by using the client's own words to guide her movement 
• regenerating the body's potential to move > both emotional and mental states can be changed
• change in the client's relationship to her body by active psycho-physical expression of experiences connected to the symptoms > release from the symptoms

DMT & Eating Disorders Resources

Burn, H. (1987). The movement behavior of anorectics: The control issue. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 10, 54-76.
Caldwell, C., (1996). Getting our bodies back: Recovery, healing and transformation through body-centered psychotherapy. Boston: Shambhala.
Franks, B., & Fraenkel, D. (1991). Fairy tales and dance/movement therapy: Catalysts of change for eating-disordered individuals. The Arts in Psychothera- py, 18, 311-319.
Kleinman, S & Hall, T. (2005). Dance movement therapy with women with eat- ing disorders. In F. Levy (Ed.) Dance/movement therapy, A healing art. Revised Edition (pp 221-227). Reston, VA: The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.
Kleinman, S. & Hall, T. (2006). Dance/movement therapy: A method for embody- ing emotions. The Renfrew Center Foundation Healing Through Relationship Series: Contributions to Eating Disorder Theory and Treatment Volume 1: Fostering Body-Mind Integration. Philadelphia, PA.
Krantz, A. (1999). Growing into her body: Dance/movement therapy for women with eating disorders. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 21, 81-103.
Kruger , D., & Schofield, E. (1986). Dance/movement therapy of eating disor- dered patients: A model. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 13, 323-331.
Lausberg H, von Wietersheim J, & Feiereis H. (1996). Movement behavior of patients with eating disorders and inflammatory bowel disease: A controlled study. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 65, 272-276.
Naitove, C. (1986). Life’s but a walking shadow: Treating anorexia nervosa and bulimia. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 13, 107-119.
Pylvainen, P. (2003). Body image: A tripartite model for use in dance/movement therapy. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 25(1), 39-55.
Ressler, A., & Kleinman, S. (2006). Reframing body-image identity in the treat- ment of eating disorders. The Renfrew Center Foundation Healing Through Relationship Series: Contributions to Eating Disorder Theory and Treatment, Volume 1: Fostering Body-Mind Integration. Philadelphia, PA.
Rice, J., Hardenbergh, M., & Hornyak, L. (1989). Disturbed body image in anorexia nervosa: Dance/movement therapy interventions. In L. Hornyak & E. Baker (Eds.). Experiential therapies for eating disorders (pp. 259-261). New York: Guilford Press.
Stark, A., Aronow, S., & McGeehan, T. (1989). Dance/movement therapy with bulimic patients. In L. Hornyak & E. Baker (Eds.). Experiential therapies for eat- ing disorders (pp. 121-143). New York: Guilford Press.
Totenbier, S. (1995). A new way of working with body image in therapy, In- corporating dance/movement therapy methodology, in D. Doktor (Ed.), Arts
therapies and clients with eating disorders, Jessica Kingsley : London.