Being a witness: Using kinesthetic empathy as a reflective tool for clients

The body can be described as the container of one’s entire life experience with movement and sensation as its language, known as kinesthetic empathy. Authentic Movement is a practice that makes use of this language to be able to gain a higher awareness of the kinesthetic affective material which may not be accessible otherwise. This paper describes an exploration to investigate if kinesthetic empathy experienced by the therapist in their body may be used as a reflective tool for clients through the process of being a witness to their verbal stories, as practiced in authentic movement