Date of Award
Spring 5-21-2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MA - Master of Arts
Department
Expressive Therapies
Advisor
Dr. Jena Leake, REAT
Abstract
For children in therapy, emotional regulation is frequently a focus of treatment. Identifying, understanding, and managing emotions are all key tasks in one’s development. Developing these skills at a young age has proven to be beneficial for one’s overall wellbeing. Approaching emotional regulation through a dance/movement therapy lens requires a focus on not only one’s cognitive perception of emotion but one’s physical sensation of emotion. Dr. Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System provides a means of systematically creating the sensation of emotion. An individual can experience a physiological response by creating universally identified facial expressions. This thesis introduces a method for children utilizing Dr. Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System to elicit emotion and explore how one experiences and understands their feelings. The intervention was tested in a session with a child in a mental health center. The case study demonstrates the therapeutic benefits of eliciting emotion and the strengths of approaching emotion from an embodied perspective.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Parker, Kimberly, "Exploring the Intersection Between Facial Movement, Physiology, and Emotional Regulation: Developing a Method for Children" (2022). Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses. 537.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_theses/537
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