Dance movement therapy

CHICOPEE, Mass. (Mass Appeal) - It may seem that the best way to express ourselves is through speech and language - but that isn't always the case. Movement really is the universal language and to explain is Heidi Ehrenreich, board certified dance movement psychotherapist and licensed speech and language pathologist.

It is out of psychotherapy. In the 1940s, when a group of dancers found themselves all over the country being asked to go in to hospitals where people were incarcerated and they found that a lot of these people were non-verbal and non-commutative and by using movement that people came alive and that was the beginning.

It is confusing because people hear the word dance and think of having process and doing it right. That is actually not it the all.

I worked for 40 years. Believe, a big chunk of that time is working with children with autism spectrum disorders. My private practice, I work with adults that have come because the story of their history is not easily accessed verbally. Every memory and everything we learned is in our bodys.

Especially with people with trauma a lot of the stories remain in the body. I also work with people who want to access movement as a source for creativity, movers, dancer, writers, very wide spectrum. I guess the center is, that the body is the source of communication.

The body and the mind lately, there is a lot of talk about that. For 50 years, my profession has known that there is not a connection. There is not a disconnection. That the body, mind is one that are head, example, is a part of the body, radical thought. Not just there, we drag around the rest of us. Actually a body part. Like your knee. That your mind is infused equally all over.

A lot of people in the new year, they are very conscious and this is all good stuff. About making resolutions to exercise more.

Everyone has a movement signature, almost like your written signature. Movement therapy helps people access options.

It is so powerful and it is wonderful that there is such a thing that help people.

For more information email Heidi Ehrenreich at hydeco@verizon.net .