Movement, Posture, and Dance in Body De-Armoring Practices

 Published: Mar 22, 2024 | Revised: Oct 2, 2024

Man in deliberate posture and emotional expression

Movement, dance, and posture influence emotional or psychological states (and vice versa), and hence they can be therapeutically used to increase body awareness and better understand the relationships between one’s emotions and physiological experiences.

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It also supplies an opportunity for clients to use movement and posture as tools and techniques with which to express or manage overpowering feelings or thoughts.

Body or Emotional De-Armoring practitioners or other somatic professionals may include dance, movement, and postural therapy and exercises in their sessions because it improves the clients mind-body connection, and can be effective in dealing with stress, anxiety, and anxiety related disorders, while it can also address musculoskeletal issues.

In addition — apart from improved self-awareness and emotional self-management — movement, motion, dance, and postural techniques can help clients to increase their self-confidence, self-esteem, interpersonal skills, and their ability of self-expression.

Movement and motion may also be used by the De-Armoring therapist to work therapeutically on a client — typically to relax them emotionally and physically — which make it rather a form of massage and bodywork. Think of techniques such as applied in Pulsing, like (continuous) shaking, rotating, swinging or rocking of the body or certain body parts.

Movement can also be used as a direct means to break muscular armoring and come to emotional release; the therapist may encourage clients to repeatedly shake, pound, kick, and stamp with the body or certain body areas, such as the head, shoulders, arms, pelvis, legs, and feet, usually accompanied with full breathing, vocalizing, and the appropriate facial expressions.


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