Assessment and evaluation

In therapy at some point the counselor will engage in an assessment/evaluation  process that generally involves examining how the therapy sessions are going and hopefullyincludes feed back from the client/patient. If the counselor is trained as a
dance movement therapist the evaluation/assessment may include many areas such
as verbal sharing, drawings and movement. Movement assessment can include
observing ( which can be considered seeing someone move objectively) and
witnessing (which can be considered seeing someone move subjectively) a person
move. I look at:

  • Space, how does the person
    move in the environment, up/down, do they use space or stay small.
  • Time, do they move fast/slow.
  • Force, what is their muscle
    tension like, are they contracting/expanding, hard/soft, light/heavy.
  • Flow, is the movement
    continuous, unrestrained, restricted.
  • Sound, do they talk, use
    vocal sound, create sound with their body.
  • Congruent, how are the
    movements related to the intention.
  • What do I feel while
    witnessing, what and how do I feel like moving when witnessing .
  • How does this compare to
    other people I have observed, the same/different.

emotion

I first learned and applied these techniques while studying the movement based

group creative arts modalities know as the Halprin Method and Motional Process
in the 80’s and early 90’s. If you would like more info I recommend 4 books I found useful:

Dance/Movement Therapists in Action: A Working Guide to Research Options

Artistic Inquiry in Dance/Movement Therapy: Creative Research Alternatives

Meaning of Movement

Dance Therapy and Depth Psychology: The Moving Imagination.

These books helped me to strengthen my assessment techniques and to discover new
methods.

About RichardB

I am trained and work as a Creative Arts Therapist. I have passionately studied, worked, and taught as a hands-on practitioner of the Creative/Expressive and Healing Arts since 1983. I have integrated trainings in modalities which include Swedish Massage, Jin Shin Do, Trager Work, Hatha Yoga, Gestalt Therapy, Halprin Method, Group Creative Arts Therapy, Tai Chi, Meditation, Motional Processing, Rituals, Interfaith Celebrations, Progressive Early Childhood and Adult Education, Addiction and Recovery Services, Counseling and Psychotherapy, Dance/Movement Therapy. I currently provide Creative Arts and Counseling services to a local nonprofit agency as well as teaching local classes and workshops. I use compassion and acceptance to create an environment that is safe and nurturing for individual clients and/or groups.
This entry was posted in Dance Movement Therapy and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s