Embodiment and embedment: integrating dance/movement therapy, body psychotherapy, and ecopsychology

Abstract

This article presents a vision of an emergent ecosomatic psychology that integrates somatic psychology's theories and practices of embodiment with ecopsychology's insights about embedment. Branches within somatic psychology, dance/movement therapy, and body psychotherapy have honed therapeutic practices for embodying the self, engaging in embodied relationships, and opening up to possibilities of transpersonal experiences through the body and movement. Incorporating ecopsychology's emphasis on the development of an ecological identity, inspired by systems and relational views of health, and drawing from theories of participatory consciousness and reciprocity, an integrative framework of embodied embedment practices are proposed for developing an embodied ecological self.