Creative Bodies in Therapy, Performance and Community

Caroline Frizell, PhD, is senior lecturer and researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as therapist and supervisor working indoors and out. She is committed to posthuman, eco-feminist perspectives, working at the intersections of Dance Movement Psychotherapy, ecopsychotherapy and critical disability studies.Marina Rova, PhD, is programme convenor, lecturer and researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London and co-founder of Arts Minded CIC. Her work is nourished by embodied and relational approaches to knowing and being-in-the-world and led by a curiosity about the developmental, existential and socio-political contexts that shape our narratives.

‘Frizell and Rova’s book is fizzing with ideas, thoughts and bodies of all kinds that continually touch, move and morph into new assemblages. The book is unsettling – in the best sense of the word: questioning, probing and deconstructing established binaries and norms, and in the process revealing new vistas of humanity’s capacity for compassion, connection and depth. Reading this book was a stirring experience for me, not dissimilar to that of reading David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous, which is high praise indeed.’ - Dr Farhad Dalal, psychotherapist, group analyst and author, UK‘Caroline Frizell and Marina Rove have brought together an inspiring collection of voices that weave a picture of contemporary embodied research and practice as creatively, politically, critically and evocatively alive and kicking. As co-editors, authors and co-authors of chapters, they bring a spirit of spontaneity, inclusiveness, warmth and humour to a complex and rigorous intersectional enquiry. The book spans a range of research, theoretical and practical approaches to creative, movement, dance and community psychotherapy, its contributors representing and working with a truly diverse set of people and contexts. This anthology walks its talk or rather dances it….as the construction of the book, its layers, and the dialogue within and between each chapter, shimmer and resonate. Each chapter takes us through steps of embodied knowing towards transformation that goes beyond the personal and into wider social change.’ - Roz Carroll, psychotherapist, trainer and author, UK‘Self-reflective, experimental and full of warmth, this collaborative book is a welcome example of creative non-fiction that deepens the project of integrating the embodied and the relational.’ - Jane Ryan, Founder and Creative Director of Confer, UK

• Table of contents List of Figures Acknowledgements List of contributors Foreword: Dr Jill WestwoodChapter 1Arriving, becoming and arriving again Caroline Frizell and Marina RovaChapter 2Check- in, please! Exploring movement check-ins as a tool for embodied psychotherapeutic practiceHeidrun PanhoferChapter 3Arts-based research and self-reflexive autobiographical performance Ditty DokterChapter 4Kinaesthetic entanglements and creative immersion in embodied performanceMarina RovaChapter 5The cat, the foal and other meetings that make a difference: Posthuman research that re-animates our responsiveness to knowing and becomingCaroline FrizellChapter 6Offerings tells the stories of our lives in movementSarah Black-Frizell and Angela Pierre LouisChapter 7Lives transformed through dance: The art of dance as a catalyst for personal transformationEllen SteinmüllerChapter 8Breath, belly and back: Dropping into body as ground Paul BeaumontChapter 9‘Is that yoga or are you just making it up?’ Helen PoynorChapter 10Being seen and seeing self: Explorations in the creative process in performance and therapyClaire Burrell Chapter 11Finding my way home: An embodied journey to building an inclusive dance community Juliet DienerChapter 12Dancing in the kitchen: Using creativity and embodiment to promote a decolonising approach to psychotherapyArchana BallalChapter 13Sing your way home: Designing a creative group intervention in the women’s prison as a Dance Movement Therapist in SingaporeAgnes LawChapter 14Borderlands: Exploring creativity as a practice of liminality in the arts therapies Marina Rova and Marrianne BehmChapter 15Indominus Rex; developing mentalisation with offenders through externalisation and creativity in a Dance Movement Psychotherapy Group Dawn BatcupChapter 16Dancing with Stephen: Reconnecting with the body in a search for closureGoretti Barjacoba-SoutoChapter 17The matriarch and the mollusc and all things in betweenCaroline Frizell and Helen PoynorChapter 18Happening upon a cobwebCaroline Frizell and Marina RovaIndex