I’ll admit - teaching my daughter early communication skills, including sign language and simple words/key phrases initially got my incredibly interested in the path of Speech Language Pathology (it’s still something I may consider as a ‘career add-on’ in the future).

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my skills as a movement observer and my deep awareness of expression, both subtle and overt, really supported me towards teaching my 15 month old to communicate essentially anything she needs from us.

At close to 15 months old, I can proudly say that my daughter can communicate basics like ‘food’, ‘milk’, ‘water’, ‘help’, ‘more’, ‘park/swing’ - but she can also communicate (and I believe deeply understands) concepts and words like ‘wait’, ‘short/long drive’, ‘hot’, ‘cold’, ‘friends’, ‘sharing’, ‘work’ (ie - “Dada’s at work”), ‘relax’ (this one she will lay her head back on the pillow and go “Neeaaaa” - it’s ridiculous), and a few others I’m probably forgetting in this post-bedtime writing moment.
I know that many children can sign/communicate early and well, but I have been reflecting on some of the pieces that I believe to have contributed to her skills, particularly as they relate to my professional background.

So how did we support this early communication?

It started with simple repetition. This is what any ‘expert’ will tell you about teaching a baby to sign. Do the sign, alongside the represented action or item, repetitively, early on. This simple piece reminds me of working with kiddos on the Autism Spectrum early in my work, particularly those who were non-verbal (non-speaking) - repetition of the specific word, sign, or phrase was really the key to success in our communications with each other. Consistently doing the action for a dance move we’ll call “scoop” while using a repetitive prosody (this means vocal tone, melody and rhythm) for the word as I invited the movement, had the kids successfully following the movement I was inviting them to do. This consistency and repetition was key in helping their brains decode what was being asked of them through both movement and verbalization. I see this in how my baby has learned many of the expressions she uses.

Another major piece that reminds me of my work as a Dance/Movement Therapist is understanding the value of mirroring and attunement. What I mean, is by consistently matching my daughters facial expressions, body language, and muscle tone whenever she would successfully communicate something to us, she learned something. The value of her knowing, in her body, that she has been seen and understood, gave her a major leap in confidence towards using any bits of signing she could.
When she knows, through her body and my movement, that Mama understands and is paying attention to her, she knows she can keep going and keep trying on all kinds of communication, even if it’s messy.

This reminds me again of a child I worked with with ASD who would communicate very minimally with many/any of his supports at school. He would spend our dance class running laps, up and down the room, rarely making eye contact or connection with anyone in the space. One day, I began paying particular attention to him - and began galloping alongside him up and down the room. I smiled and giggled when he did, and matched his energy as best I could. After a few laps of him looking up at the ceiling, he noticed me beside him, and gave me direct eye contact and a huge smile. My intuition in that moment said that he felt seen by me. And, as time went on, this boy would connect more and more with me each dance class. He would come to me and non-verbally request to hold props, or be a part of the exercise we were doing. He would make more direct contact with me whenever I would mirror and follow his movements, and near the end of my time working at that school, he even gave me a hug at the end of class.

This is the power of feeling seen - it enables communication and connection even when words aren’t available.

One last piece I’ll name is that since offering my daughter some signs, she has began making up signs of her own. In knowing that her expression extends beyond her capacity for verbal language, she has taken steps towards finding ways to use her body and her hands to tell us what’s on her mind. This points to the value of expression through the body - in a subtle yet obvious way. When I work with my clients and support them to understand that their body speaks even when there are no words, this increases their capacity to discover outlets for feelings, for experiences that are beyond words, and for knowing that just because we can’t ‘explain’ or ‘find the words’ for something deep within, that it isn’t valuable and worth paying attention to.

If you‘ve made it this far, thanks for reading along. Motherhood has taken up the majority of my time and energy lately, but I’ve also been feeling the call to create more expressively again when I have the time.

Do you have questions or curiosities about Dance/Movement Therapy, how it relates to motherhood, or about my work with individuals on the autism spectrum? If so, please leave a comment or send me a message - giving me further writing inspiration fo future posts!

With love,
Marie-Claire

First of all, let’s just be clear that no therapist should ever “make” you do anything.

Therapy and therapeutic interventions must be a consciously chosen process, one that you willingly undertake of your own volition. Yes, the therapist may encourage you to move beyond your comfort zone, stretch your limits, maybe even explore themes or sensations that might scare you a little bit.

But ultimately, these explorations must always be consensual.

So no, I will not ‘make’ you dance.

Secondly, should we pursue work together, there is a very high likelihood that we won’t even ‘dance’ at all – in the classical sense of the word anyways.
(If we take into consideration ‘life is a dance’ and ‘breath as a dance’ – then yes, it’s likely we will engage in a dance, of sorts).
But there will be no formal teaching structure or choreographed movements. I am not a dance instructor!

As an emerging Dance/Movement Therapist, I find that before I can offer my work, I must first explain my work.
These days, many folks have heard of Music Therapy, Art Therapy, Drama Therapy, and the overarching umbrella of Expressive Arts Therapies.

But for many, linking Dance and Movement to therapeutic process is a new concept.

One of the things I often hear folks say is “Well that makes sense, Dance IS my therapy!” or, “I always feel better when I dance through my feelings!”.

Another common response is “There’s no way I will ever dance without some liquid courage” or, “The only place I dance is alone in my living room, or at a wedding!”.

These reflections, though perhaps opposing each other, point to a truth that many seem to overlook –

all humans have some relationship to the word dance.

Be it a ‘first dance’ with a young crush, a dance at a wedding, ‘going out dancing’ in their early 20s, learning swing dance in elementary school, or cultural roots of dance for celebration or ceremony.
Most, if not all humans, have a connection to a memory where music and movement happened simultaneously.

Sometimes this happens without any conscious attempt to make ‘dancing’ occur. A tap of the finger, a sway of the hips, a bop of the heels, a step side to side. Somewhere, inevitably, we have all had some sort of experience with this ominous, joyous, expressive, or occasionally downright embarrassing notion of “dance”.

When we consider Dance/Movement Therapy as a field, there are many ways of practicing. Some will work exclusively with expressive movement, inviting their clients into the movement space 99% of the time. Others will work primarily with sensation, with breath, with slowing down and connecting to a somatic sense of self. To the felt sense, to presence from within through the body. From this place, sometimes movement occurs, and sometimes not.

Most importantly however, there is a qualitative distinction between the clinical work of Dance/Movement Therapy, and what I will call

Therapeutic Dance.

Therapeutic dance happens in those moments people speak of when they say “Dance IS my therapy!”.
Therapeutic dance happens to those of us who dance and cry in our living rooms after a challenging relational dynamic.
Therapeutic dance happens in spaces like Dance Temple or Dance Church, where people sweat out their ‘demons’ on the dance floor while shaking and howling into the studio with other weirdos.
Therapeutic dance is what I taught to children with developmental disabilities for years as I undertook my training to become a clinical Dance/Movement Therapist.

Therapeutic dance recognizes that if one moves their body, particularly if they intentionally challenge their movement repertoire or ‘regular’ ways of moving through the world, that this will bring about therapeutic benefits. Blood flow to the brain, movement of the joints, activation of the proprioception sense (the internal knowing of where one’s body is in space), and joy through connecting to music and rhythm – these will all benefit the individual on a physical, mental, and emotional level; resulting in therapeutic effects!

When we refer to clinical Dance/Movement Therapy however, there is more happening.

With Dance/Movement Therapy,

We are taking the benefits of therapeutic dance, and connecting to deeper levels of being – through metaphor, through sensation, through guided awareness of how we inhabit our Self as a body.

The therapist is a trained clinician who understands the intricacies of mental wellness, of diagnoses and treatment plans, who is trained in either counselling, psychology, social work.
The therapist can see and work with the lens of various theoretical frameworks such as Gestalt, Existential, Person-Centered, or other models of psychotherapy.
The clinician has a grounded sense of themselves as an embodied being, as a being whose experience of the world manifests from a body-mind connection.
The therapist experiences their body-cues as sacred and worth paying attention to.
Through their training in Dance/Movement Therapy theory and lineage, as well as (ideally) their own embodiment practices, the clinician is able to offer an invaluable connection to their clients. One that other, more cognitive based therapists may not understand on a body-based level – the gift of kinesthetic attunement.

So, no, I will never “make” you dance.

At times, we may engage in a mirroring exercise where I invite you to move in any way that makes sense to you, as I follow your lead and we begin to explore together, finding meaning through movement.
I may invite you to pay attention to the way your body experiences sensations as you speak of a loaded emotional experience.
I may invite conscious awareness into a part of your body that is already moving, or communicating non-verbally without your current knowledge.
We may explore what it’s like to express an emotion through a hand gesture, a feeling that can’t quite be put into words, giving it form and an outlet for communication.
We may even use drawing or writing to ground into your experience and process.

For me, Dance/Movement Therapy is ultimately about creative exploration.
It is about intuition (yours and mine), and embodied connection with my clients.
It is about thinking outside the box and using the fullness of our Selves, rather than just our linear, ‘know-it-all’ mind, to flow through your experiences and ‘make sense’ (or ‘make sensation’) of your world and stories.
It is about interpersonal connection.
It is about eye-contact.
It is about feeling-with, being-with, and simply seeing the other – through benevolence and non-judgement.
It is about no two client sessions being the same – because no two bodies experience the world in quite the same way.

If you have any inkling of curiosity towards this modality, I urge you to follow that impulse. Get curious about how your emotions speak through sensation. Follow your desire to shake or jump or wiggle when you’re feeling “off”. Connect with me or another skilled, embodied, clinician and share your curiosities around what you’d like to explore.

Trust your inner senses, connect with your body, and see where it leads you.

Who knows – you might even discover, that you actually want to dance!