Can Dance Heal?: Exploring The Body’s Healing Wisdom With Somatic Therapy San Francisco

The talented and insightful Marsha Evans, LPC, interviewed me for her youtube channel, Marsha listens. I loved having the chance to talk to Marsha about dance therapy and its role in healing trauma and helping people live their most embodied lives. Here are some of the topics we were able to cover in our half hour conversation entitled “Exploring Dance Therapy With Lisa Manca; Can Dance Heal?”

Dance Therapy Topics From Somatic Therapy San Francisco

1) What Exactly is Dance Therapy?

Marsha and I talk about what dance therapy is and how a session would work for any people who are curious about trying it. We also explained what dance therapy isn’t (*hint—you aren’t going to learn to dance but you may become more confident in your movement and definitely will become more aware and in tune with your body). Here are some quotes from the podcast:

“My job is not to give anyone rhythm… It’s more about looking at how we move and our non-verbal communication — and how we move affects how we feel.”

“It’s not just movement — because if it were movement alone, it might as well be a dance class or an improv class. The other part is: How did you feel when you moved like that?”

2. Movement as Emotional Expression

“Your body speaks before you even talk.”

Highlighted in our conversation is how essential our bodies are in helping us process emotion and trauma. Much of the time we ignore feelings and sensations in the body, especially in cases of psychological trauma which may result in a person being flooded with scary emotions and overwhelming physical sensations. Movement in dance therapy helps people who habitually numb and avoid feelings begin to feel safe to move and feel again. Movement, as the language of emotion, helps us not only express emotions but learn to feel and thus cope differently.

3. Dance Therapy Creates a Safe Nonverbal Space for Healing AND a Place to Process

Marsha and I discuss how people communicate through posture, gestures, and other movement—especially when verbal expression feels unsafe or inaccessible. At times people are unable to give voice to trauma OR people talk continually and rehash their trauma without ever getting any resolution. Dance therapy allows a person space to find where the trauma lives in their body, and through movement, explore ways that they can change and heal. The therapist also provides clarifying questions and movement interventions so that the client can better understand their experience.

4. Client and Therapist Move Together

Another aspect of dance therapy that Marsha and I cover is how the therapist and client move together in dance therapy. As a dance therapist, movement helps build a relationship. The movement of the therapist also reflects the client’s movement in a way that provides support and empathy. Without the therapist moving, the client would feel scrutinized and the therapeutic rapport would be harder to establish.

5. Somatic Therapy San Francisco for Trauma & Dissociation

There is growing evidence that when people endure psychological trauma, a great deal happens in their bodies. Survivors can become flooded with physical sensations and feelings and due to that deluge will start to feel numb and disconnected from their bodies. The pain that comes with trauma makes feeling difficult. People with trauma often struggle to stay connected to their bodies. Dance/movement therapy gently rebuilds the connection. . .allowing clients to feel all of the emotions they are running from in a safe environment. Once clients face those emotions, they can begin to feel joy and other emotions again.

6. Accessibility for Black, Brown & Marginalized Communities

“Some cultures have a deep legacy of expression through movement. Dance therapy can be a bridge where traditional therapy falls short.”

Somatic therapies may feel more culturally resonant for some clients than traditional talk therapy. Clients may have difficulty coming into a space with someone who ostensibly knows nothing about them or their lived experience AND the expectation that they should bare their problems. The typical talk therapy experience may feel intimidating, whereas, dance therapy, with its roots in movement, may feel more comfortable to those whose cultural or ethnic backgrounds include dance.

Please listen to the full episode in its entirety below and contact me lisa@lisamanca.com if you have any questions or are ready to try dance therapy. I look forward to hearing from you!