[Adta] Follow Up on "Student Seeking Guidance"

Sat Mar 24 14:57:47 EST 2007

Dear Jessica,

I would like to add to the responses that you have received. I strongly echo 
Susan Kleinman's words of advice.

Movement and dance is extremely powerful and evocative. You must know this 
from your experience as a dancer. Especially for these girls who have 
experienced such sexual trauma... movement WILL evoke deep emotional 
responses. It just will. I hear in your words that you believe yourself to 
be compassionate... which is wonderful... clearly you feel for these women 
or else you wouldn't be moved to embrace this experience in the first place. 
But as Susan has pointed out, compassion is simply not enough. Trained dance 
therapists spend months, years, learning how to "attune" to their clients 
movements and underlying emotional states and by doing so learn how to 
maintain what is referred to as a "safe space" for the client to explore 
their emotions. This is incredilby delicate work, especially for a 
population that will have stored so much trauma IN THEIR BODIES because it 
was their BODIES that were violated.

I do not wish to negate your positive intentions or your desire to help. You 
have creative ideas... and much enthusiasm...you simply do not have the 
requisite training needed to carry them out. Requisite... not out of 
obeisance to arbitrary rules and regulations, but requisite because it is 
absolutely necessary for the emotional safety of the women you so very much 
want to help.

I would like to offer an example. I  participate in an ecstatic dance class 
in Los Angeles on an occasional basis. This class has a huge following, 
based on the work of Gabrielle Roth's 5 Rhythms.  This class is quite large 
- about 150 people at a time.  It is not faciliated by a dance therapist. 
More accurately it is dj'd by a spiritual "teacher." The point being... my 
movement in this class has evoked my own emotional breakdowns and 
breakthroughs... I have had enough personal therapy and training myself to 
process it, but even so I have felt profoundly the absence of a safe 
container. I have experienced emotional breakthroughs with a dance therapist 
and emotional breakdowns in a dance class and the latter can be terrifying.  
  I have witnessed many other people "break down" emotionally from the 
movement journey they followed... these individuals are essentially 
abandoned to surf the tidal waves of their emotions on their own - because 
it is NOT therapy and there is no THERAPIST present attending to the 
participants. Everyone is on their own.

I use this example to illustrate that even a dance "experience" for these 
women that you want to work with could lead you into territory that you do 
not have the training or experience to handle. If you will work with them, I 
encourage you, as Susan has offered, to simply do a dance class - introduce 
them to a technique class of your choosing, structured and safe... and I 
would HIGHLY encourage your drama therapist to work with them immediately 
afterwards so that a trained therapist is present to acknowledge and process 
what may have come up for them, even from simply moving their bodies.

Should you, after undergrad, pursue graduate study in dance/movement therapy 
(and I hope you will)... you will begin to understand why you are receiving 
the highly concerned responses from our professionals.

I wish you all the best.

Sincerely,
Lora Wilson, MA, DTR
Long Beach, CA

>From: "skdmt2" <skdmt2 at bellsouth.net>
>To: "'Jessica Gonzalez'" <gizmodancer1 at charter.net>, <adta at adta.org>
>Subject: RE: [Adta] Follow Up on "Student Seeking Guidance"
>Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 06:48:32 -0400
>
>Jessica, perhaps you might consider not delving into emotions at all &
>simply providing a dance experience.
>
>Not only is this task "bigger" then you, you are not trained to provide
>experiences that you THINK may be called "therapy" of any type. Although I
>would hope that any dance/movement therapist is compassionate, it is just
>not enough skill for an untrained person, and in some cases, can be a
>dangerous & naïve undertaking because of that.
>
>  So, I DO hope that you will reread the messages you have received, talk 
>to
>your partner as well as others who are in charge of this camp, and proceed
>from there.
>
>Best of luck
>
>Susan Kleinman, MA, ADTR, NCC
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: adta-bounces at adta.org [mailto:adta-bounces at adta.org] On Behalf Of
>Jessica Gonzalez
>Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 9:44 PM
>To: adta at adta.org
>Subject: [Adta] Follow Up on "Student Seeking Guidance"
>
>Thank you, Lisa, for your concern about my situation.  I have
>received many responses thus far and you are not alone in being
>concerned.  I have definitely been presented with a task that is much
>bigger than myself.  I am seeking and praying for guidance and doing
>my best to be as prepared as possible for this trip.  It is coming up
>on me very quickly!
>
>I realize, as with any new situation, that I will not truly know how
>things will go until I am with the group in India.  I tend to be a
>fairly flexible and compassionate person.  So, I am praying for the
>ability to read the energy coming from the girls as to what they are
>comfortable with.  It is difficult to communicate with my partnet
>because she is already in India.  However, her mother is the
>president of the non-profit organization we are going through
>(projectrescue.com, rescuearts.com).  I think I may try to get a hold
>of her and see if I can talk to her a little bit about it since she
>is more easily reached.
>
>Thus far, I have been feeling like I clearly will not be working on
>any intensive therapy with these young women for a number of reasons:
>I am not a trained professional, I will not be there very long, and
>that is not really my purpose at this time.  Although I have not
>heard back from my partner about her idea of the main objectives yet,
>I plan on focusing primarily on introducing them to the basics of
>dance and movement.
>
>It may ease you to know that my partner has been doing drama therapy
>with the girls for some time.  She has spent one month with each of
>the girls that will be coming to the camp.  So, expressing their
>feelings about their past is not something entirely new to them.
>Expressing themselves through movement will be failry new.  However,
>as I have discussed with Rebecca (my partner in India), many of the
>girls have a natural dance ability and have even choreographed some
>dances for past performances.
>
>Some activities I am looking into using:
>1) The mirror exercise: I will move in front of the class and they
>will imitate me.  As they get more comfortable, I will try to pair
>them up with partners.  I realize that there may be girls who do not
>want to dance and this is not at all about forcing anybody to do
>anything.
>
>2) Using photography: a few options for this one.
>          - bringing photos of dancers in poses that emulate certain
>feelings/emotions (ie. anger, sadness, joy, etc.)  and having the
>girls guess what mood it is.  And, also have them come up with their
>own moods.
>
>3) Music exercise:  I feel very strongly about the power of music to
>move us, especially as a dancer.  So, I would like to have exercises
>where I play different types of music and just allow them time to
>feel the music and dance to it as they please
>
>So, sorry for such a long post, but can anyone give any feedback on
>how all of this sounds?
>
>Thank you so much for all of the guidance!!!! =)
>Jessica
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>
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