Bridge Between Separation and Connection: A Heuristic Inquiry Looking at the Therapist's Experiences of Containment During Dance Movement Psychotherapy Work at a Forensic Mental Health Service

There is a great need for more studies within the field of dance movement psychotherapy to validate and develop the practice and profession further. Dosamantes (1992) states that, "the enactive or somatic mode of the therapist's experience has not yet received as much attention from psychoanalysts as have the imagistic and verbal modes" (p. 362). The aim of this study is to explore how (I) as trainee therapist experience containment during dance movement psychotherapy work at a forensic mental health service. Furthermore, this will come from a perspective of creative arts psychotherapy within the context of body-based work. Thus, the focus of data collection and analysis will be in relation to psychology/psychotherapy with somatic and embodied responses as well as artwork. To explore, understand and analyze this, an adapted version of the heuristic methodology is used. The study showed that the therapist experiences the process of containment as a bridge between an uncontained state and contained state, metaphorically related to the going back and forth from being separated to being connected. The technique of grounding within dance movement psychotherapy seemed to effectively facilitate containment. It was evident that the process of containment is very crucial in therapeutic work with patients within a forensic mental health service, and it is perhaps the initial process that needs to be cultivated to develop a more coherent and concrete therapeutic relationship. Furthermore, it is very important for any therapist, especially working within this population to have knowledge of how they experience containment themselves, so they can develop their ability to process their countertransference to help contain their patients effectively.msc_danunpub1517_ethesesunpu