The Weight of Trauma: Exploring a New Method in Dance/Movement Therapy for Trauma Processing with Adolescents

Author

Xavia HawkinsFollow

Date of Award

Spring 5-22-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MA - Master of Arts

Department

Expressive Therapies

Advisor

Dr. Tamar Hadar MT-BC

Abstract

This author developed a movement-based trauma informed method that implemented symbolic play with sandbag weights with light and dark colored scarves, with adolescents at the Boys and Girls Club of Fitchburg and Leominster, MA. This thesis was developed to observe how adolescents prioritize the magnitude of their trauma experiences to serve as additional insight towards treatment planning. Over a four-week process, participants created artistic responses to the trauma they identified most prevalent and engaged in symbolic play with different mediums in order to ultimately choose which prop felt most representative to how they viewed their trauma. This movement-based study supports the needs to expand the props used in the field of dance/movement therapy as well as provide a new form of therapeutic assessment for treatment planning that actively encourages the autonomy of adolescents without violating any ethical codes.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Hawkins, Xavia, "The Weight of Trauma: Exploring a New Method in Dance/Movement Therapy for Trauma Processing with Adolescents" (2021). Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses. 467.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_theses/467