Body as Voice: Polyvagal-Informed Movement Therapy for Trauma

Instructor: Dr. Amber E. Gray, PHD, MPH, LPCC, BC-DMT, NCC

This intensive trauma and polyvagal-informed course series for clinicians and alternate route students provides a thorough introduction and strong attentional skill refinement for the clinical use of Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) with survivors of complex and interpersonal trauma.

This course is an amalgam of structured practices, somatic and movement processing, and grounded theory, based on the instructors 25 years of ongoing work with survivors of war, torture, and political, racial, ethnic, historic and collective trauma who seek refuge. It is an in process evolution of a moving, breathing, engaged approach to DMT and soma-movement therapies organically developed through a reciprocal alliance with clients who come from globally diverse socio-economic, socio-political, geographic, socio-cultural and socio-spiritual contexts. The embodied human rights framework integrates the latest neuro-scientific wisdom with ancient traditional dance and rhythm-inspired healing practices from the instructors ancestral lineage.

This three part series on working with trauma is offered over three four day weekends.

The three part series in Restorative Movement Psychotherapy is taught as:

1. Body-Mind, Beginners Mind: Focus on embodiment, self care, self compassion and self-practice. Emphasizes body and movement based stabilization sequences for working with traumatized clients.
2. Body Wisdom, Body Narratives: Focus on dyadic healing, reciprocal alliance; clinical intuition and clinical reciprocity to facilitate processing traumatic histories and wholistic integration.
3. Body as Voice: The Collective Body: Focus on group work, from small groups (including families) to large groups and community-based mental health. This “playshop” is a dynamic synthesis of Creative Arts, Dance and Movement, and Rhythm and Voice.

The series emphasizes dance/movement therapy and soma-moving therapies as a self-compassion practice for DMTs working with trauma; DMT practices to support safety, stability and reconnection, and embodied depth trauma processing, all based on a contemporary, evidenced-based approach to working with complex and interpersonal trauma.

This approach to facilitating the restorative process for survivors of complex interpersonal and violence-based trauma has been described as “truly accessible for all cultures, with deep respect for all people” as shared in “a compassionate, humanitarian trauma-informed DMT course”.   It provides DMTs (both experienced DMTs, and alternate route students) with the foundational skills to address the unique clinical needs of survivors of trauma. 

Dr. Amber Elizabeth Gray, PHD, MPH, MA, LPCC, BC-DMT, NCC brings Dance/Movement Therapy to areas of social trauma, disasters, and complex humanitarian emergencies. She has established clinical programs for refugees and survivors of torture in Colorado and New Mexico, and a program for victims of violence in Haiti. Amber provides training and consultation nationally and internationally on somatic and creative arts psychotherapies with survivors of war, torture, and natural disasters. One of the primary focuses of her work is staff care and support programs for humanitarian workers in complex humanitarian emergencies. She has taken her work to almost forty countries. She is the Western Region MAL for the ADTA Board of Directors, and was the 2010 Outstanding Achievement Award recipient. 

Visit Amber’s website here.