Kinesthetic empathy and inner experience of dance movement therapy workshops' participants

This qualitative study was designed to investigate the phenomenon of kinesthetic empathy and its impact on the inner experience of dance movement therapy workshops’ participants. In dance movement therapy, kinesthetic empathy is seen as a catalyst of positive change in the client, but in practice it is still a very poorly understood phenomenon. Four students of expressive arts therapies attended four experimental dance movement therapy workshops, where the greatest emphasis was on the process of mutual attunement. All workshops were video recorded. Based on video movement analysis, key moments of nonverbal attunement and non-attunement were chosen, and then analyzed within group interviews with participants. The results of this study show that successful attunement in dance movement therapy draws the client’s attention to the present moment, it encourages individual spontaneity, playfulness and creativity, promotes embodiment and thus the integration of mind and body. Successful attunement with another leads to intersubjective exchange, where two people co-create an intersubjective experience. Successful attunement with the group leads to the experience of oneness. Moments of non-attunement trigger unpleasant feelings, result in lack of spontaneity, feelings of exclusion and hinder the contact. The study’s results also show the connection between the characteristics of inner experience of attunement with the inner experience of the present moment in dance. On this basis, the model of experiencing the present moment in dance was designed, which outlines in detail these connections