1st Edition
Primitive Expression and Dance Therapy When dancing heals
This book provides a rigorous and comprehensive account of primitive expression in dance therapy, focusing on the use of rhythm and exploring the therapeutic potential inherent in the diverse traditions of popular dance, from tribal shamanic dance to styles such as rock, rap and hip-hop strongly present in our contemporary society.
Drawing on the author’s vast experience in the field of dance therapy, the book examines biological, psychological and anthropological foundations of rhythm based therapies, considering their roots in biological rhythms such as the heartbeat and using such rhythms in therapy. Chapters include:
• The link between animal and man: ethology
• Shamanism
• Gestural symmetry coupling with the other
• Bilateralism as structuring dialogue
• Rhythm dance therapy
• New fields in the application of dance therapy.
Clinical examples are provided throughout the book to comprehensively demonstrate how dance rhythm therapy can contribute to the use of the arts therapies. It offers a fresh perspective for researchers, psychotherapists and clinicians who want to use dance therapy techniques, as well as arts therapists and those who want to learn more about artistic and cultural dance.
Introduction
PART ONE: OUR LINK TO THE WORLD
Chapter 1 Human-World Unity
A Plural Body
Dance and Neuroscience
Brain plasticity
The Memory of the Body
Rhythmic Patterns as Substitute Behaviours
Chapter 2 The link between Animal and Man: Ethology
Mirroring, Imitation and Simulacra
Non-Verbal Language
Playing
Rituals
Chapter 3 Humanization of Homo
The Origin of Humanity According to Paleontology
The Culture, a Second World
PART TWO: TRADITIONAL DANCE THERAPY
Chapter 4 Dances of Trance
The Trance of Possession
Therapeutic Possession
Dances of Possession
Enthusiasm
Chapter 5 Shamanism
Universality and the Persistence of Shamanism
An invisible World
The Shaman
A Shaman’s Therapeutic Tools
The Shamanic Cure
PART THREE: THE HUMANIZING PROCESS
Chapter 6 The Universe of Fusion and its Dangers
The Permeable Body
Primary Narcissism
The Body Image
Psychosis
Autism
Chapter 7 Between Two
Intermediary Space
Transitional Creativity
Repetition in Rhythm Dance Therapy
Duplicating
Chapter 8 Gestural Symmetry Coupling with the Other
Symmetry in Rites, Games and Dances
The Dynamic Sources of Gestural Symmetry
The Corporeal Foundations of Gestural Symmetry
Gestural Symmetry in Dance
Restoring the Link
Application in the Treatment of Psychotic and Autistic Patients
The Therapeutic Treasure of Oral Cultures: Bilateralism
Chapter 9 Bilateralism as Structuring Dialogue
The pair Call-Reply
The Calling Power of Archetypes
The Pairing of Opposites
Chapter 10 Symbolization
Descending to the Underworld
The Liberating Rhythm
The Separation from the Animal Kingdom
Fort-Da ‘Dance’
The Paternal function
PART FOUR: THERAPEUTIC PROCESS
Chapter 11 The healing process
The Creation of meaning
Symbolic reorganization
Pacifying, Mastering and Structuring
Sublimation
Primitive Aesthetics
Chapter 12 Rhythm Dance Therapy
Popular Dances for Therapeutic Mediation
Rhythm Dance Therapy using Primitive Expression
Therapeutic Tools in Primitive Expression
Ethics
Chapter 13 New fields in the Application of Dance Therapy
The Social Field and Dancing for Peace
Clinical Applications: Neurological Disorders
Conclusion
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Biography
France Schott-Billmann, PhD, is a Psychoanalyst, Dance Therapist and Dance Researcher. She was Program Leader within the Performing Arts section of the Arts Therapy Program at University Paris 5 Descartes in Paris for 20 years until 2011, where she now teaches dance therapy to masters students. She worked with adolescent psychotic patients in the CEREP psychiatric hospital in Paris for 15 years. At present she works at Bellan Hospital in Paris with patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. She teaches in various training programs in Europe and leads workshops all around the globe.
"The book provides insight into the use of dance, song and rhythm that have been employed for millennia to facilitate liberation through the use of substituted behaviors enabling one to keep troubles at bay as well as using rhythmic and gestural forms to express oneself. [...] The goal of this book, while explaining the roots and the rationale of primitive expression, is to extoll it as a contemporary, effective way of achieving the social and therapeutic objectives of dance therapy. It integrates the body at the level of motor function, the social at the level of a group link and the psyche as it awakens emotions and representations in an experience both symbolic and artistic. [...] [It] is a thorough treatment of the application of Primitive Expression to the field of dance therapy as both an art form and choice as a healing therapy. It is a worthwhile addition to the knowledge base of anyone interested in any phase of dance and rhythm and the concept of such as an important social link."
-Enid G. Wolf-Schein, PsycCRITIQUES, 2015
