Talked Body, Embodied Language
This paper was presented at the 1st GASi Online Symposium in Group Analysis, “The Languages of Groups: the power to include and exclude” 4-6, September, 2020.
Introduction
This work is born from the experience with various clinical groups, and in particular with training groups led by the authors for 15 years in the Master’s in Dance Movement Therapy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The particularity of the latter groups is that they are, in general, made up of a majority of women.
The objective is, in the first place, to show the way in which a certain use of language can contribute to consolidate a kind of “presence” that is necessary for the gesture to express the feeling and to externalize the energy of deep impulses. In other words, this presence, which is achieved only through a practice of attention to the present moment, is a necessary condition to consolidate embodied[1] consciousness[2]. This can allow implicit levels[3] of experience, not conscious but always present in communication, to be recognized and included.
We start from two assumptions. The first is that this presence is essential to overcome a certain “blindness” in relation to the internal states of the body, caused by the complex cultural and technological development of our civilization. This means recovering the ability to “feel” that “under each one of our images of the world is the image of our own body pulsing with life” (Damasio, 2000; p. 46).
The second of our assumptions is based on a paradox. Although we agree with the Lakoff and Johnson (1999) view, that language is generated from embodiment, and consequently, it is always a metaphor of action and experience, at the same time, we share Stern’s opinion ( 1987) who sees in common language an element that, by separating reality into discrete, conceptual categories, contributes to relegate non-verbal experience to the background of consciousness.
This paper describes some practices through which the DMT attempts to overcome this fracture through forms of verbalization that completely avoid interpretations in order to focus on the description of the intimate experience. We consider that this attempt, in a certain sense destined for failure, given that the non-verbal experience is in reality unspeakable, has the value of favouring the evocation of the lived experience that remains for a longer time in the foreground of consciousness, and enriches the language of images and metaphors. In short, it amplifies the psychic space and the poetic dimension of the words, facilitating the narrative capacity.
This type of practices proposed in the training, maintains active presence towards themselves also during the verbal exchange between the members of the group. Presence that is perceived not only through the non-verbal aspects of the same language (intonation, pauses, intensity, modulation of the tone of the voice, it’s points of resonance in the body, etc.) but also through the body attitude of the participants.
The relationship between this type of presence and authenticity will also be addressed, since this is one of the objectives of all therapy; we will also consider how the former can promote reciprocal recognition of the participants, thus favouring an inclusive environment.
Finally, it will also be seen how a communication characterized by a certain harmonization between non-verbal and verbal dimensions can influence the field of the group. In other words, “the common field that contains all the participants including the therapist” (Neri, 2004) that is configured as a fluid network generated by the resonances of the basic somatic and mental functions (such as breathing, muscle tone, anguish, relaxation, attention) (Neri, C, 2011..) The field becomes present through the implicit awareness of the participants, and in the cases in which it is configured through “collective attunement” it can be a carrier of vital forces, can favor the ability to “be present” and stimulate a feeling of belonging.
What is Dance Movement Therapy
We are aware that the word dance evokes preconceived ideas and that our discipline is little known, so we will begin by defining the specificity of Dance / Movement Therapy (DMT) as it will be consider in this work.
Although today there is a multiplicity of approaches that are recognized under the name of Dance Movement Therapy, in general terms we can say that the essence of DMT consists in promoting the creative process through expressive movement. The word creativity, due to its excessive use, may sound outdated today and empty of meaning. However, we are allowed to quote D. Winnicott, an author not exactly current, but who has offered solid bases for successive later elaborations.
It is known that for the author creativity is a natural impulse of the human being, an expression of vitality and an index of mental health. It is the “fundamental, basic energy that guides the development of a person” (Winnicott, 1971, p 96), which is already externalized in the child’s play with his own body and develops impetuously, as long as the environment offers adequate conditions.
The creative process always involves some way of influencing reality. It implies a particular way of integrating the dimension of “doing” with the dimension of “being”. Creative doing always involves some kind of contact with the richness of our inner world, sensations, activation levels, emotions, but also memories, states of consciousness and general states of our Self. From this source, stimulated by the encounter with the world, is born the impulse to act creatively.
At the same time the creative process is also a way of knowing, of knowing oneself or knowing the world
(…) Truly few of us are aware of the existence of a small brain in each of the fingers of the hand, (…) For the brain of the the head to know what the stone is, it was necessary for the fingers to touch it, to feel its roughness, the weight and the density, it was necessary for them to be hurt by it (…)
José Saramago, “La caverna”, About the potter’s hands. Editorial Alfaguara, 2000
To create with the own body
The body is an active part in every creative process, and at the same time, it is modified by the process of creating. However, the creative process through the body and its movement, that is the dance proposed by Dance Movement Therapy, has specific characteristics.
For those who do not know this discipline, the word dance can simply evoke moving accompanied by music. However, we do not consider every movement creative, in the same way that Winnicott held the possibility that certain artists, even virtuous and successful, might not be creative.
The specificity of the creative process through the body and its movement lies in the coincidence of who creates and what is created . Dance, as understood in DMT, requires deepening the receptive towards the bodily background of the experience of existing. Something that accompanies us throughout our lives, although we are not always aware of this. (Stern 1987, Damasio 2000) Receptive consciousness allows us to perceive the nascent energy of our deep impulses and capture the potential they have to unfold in an expressive, intentional, voluntary gesture with a recognizable form.
This conscious and articulated manifestation of the dynamism of our experiences, this form of dance/movement can be considered a form of non-verbal symbolism that, according to Bucci’s (1997) [4] multiple code theory, fulfils an organizational and integrating function. These are mental images that, although present in consciousness, cannot be translated into words, but awaken in us a multiplicity of new sensory, emotional, imaginative and reflective experiences. These enriched our sense of Self and opens the way to a form of verbal symbolic consciousness. This dance / movement is born from an impulse, but as it evolves it becomes something more, it represents something else, no longer exclusively the impulse that generated it.
The withdrawal from the body
The creative process, particularly that carried out through the body and its movement, encounters many obstacles. We will not consider, in this work, those related to internal conflicts or pathological aspects, but rather those that belong to the order of normal development of human beings.
Our early childhood is characterized by a direct relationship with the vitality of the body, but as we grow, we acquire new abilities; we learn to speak and think, to face the growing needs of the environment and this takes us away from the experience of the felt body. Our voluntary movements are dissociated from our deep impulses. Our way of perceiving is also transformed, and our original way of vibrating when we meet the world is withdrawn to the depths of our consciousness. We no longer perceive the body in a global but in a segmented way (Stern, 1987). This blindness “tends to prevent us from grasping the origin and nature of what we call Self” (Damasio 2000, p. 45), consequently impoverishes our creativity and frequently affects mental health. However, by exercising a certain type of attention / conciousness is possible to recover the ability to “feel” that “under each of our images of the world there is the image of our own body pulsing with life” (Damasio 2000, p. 46)
“When we were young and looked up into the sky at an airplane, the whole body looked up. When we bent over to look at a bug , the whole -body bent over – but, gradually only the eyes, with a restricted movement of the neck, looked. When we reached for something only the arm reached. When we walked, only the legs walked. The bodily stir, the total action of the whole organism broke up into separate gestures. The lovely flow of energy, the connectedness, was gone.” (White house in Pallaro, 1999, p.34)
Language and non-verbal experience
As Stern (1987) points out, the acquisition of language allows an enormous expansion of interpersonal experiences. It allows us to imagine and represent things in our own mind, communicate our own experiences more easily, build shared meanings, use signs and symbols. At the same time, it makes it possible to consider our own self as an object of reflection, from which to begin to build the narrative of one’s life.
While we agree with the vision for which language is generated from embodiment (Merleau-Ponty 1962; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999; Gallese & Lakoff, 2005; Gibbs, 2005; cited in Toro, 2010 and Koch & Fichman, 2011) and consequently, is always a metaphor for action and self-experience, at the same time we share the opinion of Stern (1987) who sees in the common language an element that, by the fact of separating reality into conceptual discrete, categories , contributes to relegate non-verbal experience to the consciousness bottom . The same author points out some causes why this happens:
“Language specifies the sensory modality in use in contrast to amodal non-specification” (Stern 1987, p.184), that is, in contrast with the global sensitivity of the felt body.[5]
For the same reason, it is difficult to find words to communicate internal states, which are not discrete. Many experiences motivated by intersubjective relationships find the same difficulty to be communicated.
Finally, there is a certain social interest in keeping certain levels of communication outside the “formal language system”, to allow the possibility of retracting them. The consequence is that “that which can be denied to others becomes ever-increasing denial to ourselves” (Stern 1987, p 186)
Thus, the distance between personal and interpersonal experience and its representation creates a space for neurotic constructions to emerge. Being also one of the reasons for the feeling of lack of unity between body and “mind” that we frequently experience.
This fissure also affects the possibility of being and feeling authentic. We consider in accordance with Neri (2008) that authenticity, one of the purposes of all therapy, is directly related to the experience of “being oneself”. For the author, it arises from the certainty of having a core consisting of the own Self , which is experienced non-verbally and on which our feeling of being alive and healthy is based.
Authenticity also implies feeling the right to speak with one’s own voice in a spontaneous and non-complacent way. At the same time it means to assume responsibility for personal relationships and become aware of the effects of one’s words and actions on the other. . We will return to this topic later in relation to communication in groups and the possibility of creating favourable conditions for inclusion.
DMT’s proposal of an embodied and inclusive language
Taking into consideration all that has been said so far, it is evident that the objective of Dance Movement Therapy consists in opening to consciousness what has been submerged, bringing the focus of attention to the implicit dimension of our existence.
This can be achieved only through an evolutionary leap in our level of consciousness. In other words, it means developing the ability to be present to our experience, using our attention potential to reach a state of listening; a form of self-observation that allows to bring to consciousness what is non-verbal and non-symbolic, or rather sub-symbolic, according to the multiple code theory. As we have already said, in DMT we seek to achieve this through the externalization of the inner states, of the vital energy, through expressive/creative movement. By shaping them, the level that Bucci has called non-verbal symbolic is accessed (Bucci, W; 1997).
This form of presence cannot be achieved without at the same time healing the gap between body experience and verbal experience. For this reason, the work proposed by the DMT is developed from two directions that converge and reinforce each other in a circular manner.
On one hand, in DMT contact with the lived body is promoted through forms of improvisation[6] stimulated by moments of attention towards our constant somatic fluctuations, towards our constant vibrations.
Obviously, the way in which the work is carried out varies depending on the different clinical problems and the degree of expressive autonomy of the group members. (Garcia, 2010)
The body that vibrates as perceived by a psychiatric patient
The drawing of her body, made by a DMT trainee, after a week-long seminar
But it is also necessary to recover the “corporeality” of the word. In each session, the group gathered in a circle has a time dedicated to verbal exchange. It is frequent, especially in the initial moments, that a split between both planes is observed, together with the attempt and the demand to find interpretations for what has been experienced. While this could be similar to what happens at the beginning of a verbal therapy group; In DMT, whose main objective is to reintegrate body and mind, it is essential that words do not again obscure what has been experienced
For this reason, the training of the Master of the UAB of Barcelona includes a series of practices that have the purpose of distinguishing and exercising the ability to describe, without interpreting and without judging, the experience. Although these practices, are more frequent and necessary at the beginning, can be proposed throughout all the process according to the needs of the group
The diary
That which accompanies the participant from the beginning and throughout the duration of the group is the writing of a diary of their own process. This mediation through writing performed privately, intimately, gives time and tranquillity to search for suitable words. People often say that they cannot go quickly from movement to speech.
As we said in the introduction, there is an unbridgeable distance between what is felt and what is said, however the attempt to describe has two very important consequences: it favours the evocation of what has been lived, which remains thus for a longer time in the foreground of memory, and it also enriches the language of images and metaphors.
The following is an excerpt from diaries, shared by two students on the DMT master’s at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
“The weight of sadness and anguish take over my soft body.
I feel tension in my neck and hip.
I have dreamed three times that I destroy the plaque of hate with my teeth.
When I let go, when I soften, a sea of tears washes my heavy body.
I feel soft and heavy.
The warmth of the sun accompanies me, as well as the voice and heart of my group.
I have been afraid. I have been surprised by myself.
And in this I feel ALIVE, despite being suspended over time ”.
J.“I close my eyes. I breathe. I feel a strong impulse arise in my legs; it fills my body, takes space inside and outside of me. It transforms. It transforms me. It shapes me. And I let my imagination guide my steps. And this energy It flowed freely in and out, until it made me feel that there was no longer inside or outside. And if a small leaf was vibrating tickled by the wind beside me, I vibrated with it.
I could hear myself and my companions, the trees and the leaves, the land and the horizon, the sky and the textures of the air. It was not me who wanted or decided. There was no thought except to shape my feelings. ”
S.
The spoken narration
As familiarity with this way of narrating the experience is acquired and reciprocal trust grows, it is described orally to a partner or to a small group. In these cases the role of the partner is simply to listen in a receptive way, to be a witness, but is asked to try to observe the own inner experience in doing so.
Likewise, those who narrate their experience have the opportunity to observe and later describe the new somatic and emotional experience that sharing implies.
Freed from the need to respond, the listener can not only register the changes in the state of her body, stimulated by the act of listening, but also thoughts, images, memories and or judgments that may appear. They also have the time to notice the influence that the latter can have on the possibility of staying present towards the deep non-verbal flow.
Depending on the moment in which the group is, the members of the couple can simply entrust to their personal diary the experiences aroused by narrating, being heard and listening. Later in the process, they can communicate with each other what they have experienced in this exchange. This last alternative is proposed when the participants have already developed a certain capacity to accept the subjective experience of others and to communicate their own, avoiding judgments and interpretations. From the initial moments, however, these experiences offer material for collective reflection in the final verbal circle of the group[7]
In this work we will not be able to detail all the variants of this proposal that depends, as already mentioned, both on the characteristics of the group and on the moment in which it is. However, we must point out that it is a valid practice when the participants have sufficient ego integrity, and it is particularly useful in training groups.
In this way, the conditions are created so that the participants can develop the capacity to be present. Something that we can call the “inner witness” emerges, that is, the receptive consciousness capable of observing their own experience without conditioning it. When this is achieved, a parallel growth is observed in the ability to improvise freely with one’s own movement and in greater fluidity and authenticity in the collective verbal exchange. It is as if two forms of narration could in a certain sense come together, influencing each other.
As we said in the introduction, this presence is perceived not only through the non-verbal aspects of the language (intonation, pauses, intensity, modulation of the tone of the voice, its points of resonance in the body) but also through of the body attitude of the participants. There is a growing concordance between the two planes, verbal and non-verbal, of communication.
This language, which we can call inclusive of the implicit experience, also has the potential to be inclusive for the different participants because it favours reciprocal recognition and the growth of a feeling of belonging to the human community.
When this level of communication is achieved, the basis is created to smooth out any religious or political conflicts that may be present. For J.Adler, receptive consciousness, the presence, is what allows us to recognize “the connection at the bodily level between people” (Pallaro, 2003 p. 179).This open ourselves to intersubjective consciousness that generates transformations and, later, can nurture reflective and symbolic consciousness.
We have been able to observe that under these conditions the weight of inequalities in language proficiency decreases, something particularly evident in the UAB DMT training where many students belong to different cultures but speak Spanish, a language that in many cases is not their own. .
When this form of presence towards oneself accompanies the verbal exchange, a clear influence is noted in the “field of the group, that is, the common field that contains all the participants of the group including the therapist” (Neri, 2004 p.85) . The moments of attunement or synchronization between the members are more frequent, which favors the perception of the group as a whole with a common affective climate. Moments in which, according to interpersonal psychology, becomes more evident the social co-creation of mental and affective life (Stern, 2005, Dosamantes-Beaudry, 2007).
The moments in which the group field achieves a certain attunement can be carriers of transformative forces and a stimulus for intersubjective consciousness. For Stern, in the child it is through intersubjective consciousness that implicit experience becomes conscious, that is, when “our presence is added to the presence of the other, and is reflected in their eyes, in their body, in the tone of voice and so on ”(Stern, 2005, p. 104). For J.Adler, the growth of our embodied, intersubjective consciousness reveals to us our belonging to the “collective body”, deeply linked to the source of our humanity.
If you are in me
then you know that I am full of hopes, fears and doubts, that I am strong and at the same time vulnerable. You know that I deeply want to be seen, welcomed.
If I am in you,
then I know of your hope, your fears, your strength and your vulnerability. I know you want to be loved as you are ”
Janet Adler
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Footnotes
[1] “In the embodied perspective, both cognition and affects are rooted in the body’s present and past” “Cognition (including perception, memory and language) are rooted in the body and can be described in terms of its functions” ( Koch 2006, p.192).
[2] “Consciousness is born when the brain acquires the power to tell a story without words that takes place within the confines of the body, the story…. of the states of the living organism ”(Damasio 2000, p.47)
[3] The implicit level of experience is “non-symbolic, non-verbal, procedural and unconscious (in the sense that it is not reflexively conscious”) (Stern 2005, p93) (…) is a very complex phenomenon, which is not limited only to motor processes but also includes also affects, expectations, changes in the level of activation and motivation and cognitive styles (Stern2005, p.94)
[4] According to Stern (2005), Bucci (1997, 2001) distinguishes three categories: the non-verbal subsymbolic code that refers to continuous and analogical experiences, the non-verbal symbolic code that includes non-verbal experiences and information, and the verbal symbolic code.
[5] For Stern, amodal perception, that is, global perception not channeled through a specific sense, always present in the intersubjective relationships preceding the acquisition of language, is what allows the phenomena of attunement between mother and child. It also implies, and this is the most important thing for this work, to be modified by the very act of perceiving. The language orients towards the specialization of the different sensory modalities introducing a fracture in what until then was lived as continuous; changes at the same time, the perception of the same body that feels composed of “parts” and frequently we do not notice the energetic flow that exists between them.
[6] Regarding what is meant when the term improvisation is used, the chapter corresponding to the book Movimento Creativo e Danza de García, Plevin Macagno (2006) can be consulted. Gremese Editore. Rome
[7] This type of procedure is based on the principles of the discipline of the Authentic Movement, in particular in the form proposed by Janet Adler. The Authentic movement, a practice followed by many DMT professionals to keep their own presence alive, has a specific structure and ritual, however its principles offer elements that can shape the way of working in other forms of DMT. Regarding the use of language, Janet Adler recognizes the powerful influence received from John Weir.
Maria Elena Garcia
Psychotherapist, dance movement therapìst, teacher on the Master’s en Dance Movement Therapy at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
ml2770@mclink.it
www.movimentocreativo.it
Maria Laura Villarreal
Psychologist, dance movement therapìst, teacher on the Master’s en Dance Movement Therapy at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
malalavillarreal11@gmail.com