Date of Award
Spring 5-16-2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MA - Master of Arts
Department
Expressive Therapies
Advisor
Theresa Benson
Abstract
An eight-week curriculum developed by this researcher was implemented with a group of women in the Spring of 2018. The goal was to provide evidence, create resources, and demonstrate the effectiveness of Expressive Art Therapy and Dance Movement Therapy as an embodied practice to create connection, promote self-expression, empathy, embodied awareness, and healthy coping skills so that embodied childbirth seems obtainable and do-able. The shift away from embodied wisdom has moved women away from embracing their bodies and created risk in childbirth. In the United States of America, the maternal mortality rate is on the rise, which is unusual for developed countries. One way of providing preventative care and proactively addressing the issues of current birthing culture is to promote and normalize embodiment for birthing mothers.
This review of literature and development of a method can be utilized within the perinatal period to promote a better understanding of maternal mental health including childbirth education and history, theories of embodiment, and mindfulness techniques to further develop self-awareness and a deeper sense of identity and self for the birthing mother. Embodiment seems missing from our current birthing culture and that implementing a method to incorporate embodiment practices, as well as partaking in standard medical care with access to screening for perinatal emotional issues, could greatly impact maternal mental health.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Johnson, Kayla, "Utilizing Expressive Art and Dance/Movement Therapies as an Embodied Practice to Inform Childbirth" (2020). Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses. 653.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_theses/653
Included in
Rights
The author owns the copyright to this work.
