Self and body-self: Dance/movement therapy and the development of object relations

Abstract

This paper links parallel notions in object relations theory and dance/movement therapy processes. Within this frame, dance/movement therapy carries forward its process of integration utilizing the notions of body-self and spatial self as configured by Wyman (Pallaro, 1993; Wyman, 1978) who proposed a model for individual growth and therapeutic process in movement therapy based on object relations concepts of “merging” and “differentiating.” The process of merging and differentiating is present throughout one’s life, but is primarily determined by one’s earliest experiences in infancy. According to Broussard (1984), Buie (1981), Kohut (1971), Mahler (1968), and Winnicott (1958, 1960), the ability to be empathic originates and develops in the process of merging that takes place between mothers and infants. Broussard (1984), Burlingham (1967), Sander (1975), and Winnicott (1958, 1960, 1964) considered mothers’ ability to meet their children’s needs, “to read the infant’s cues and facilitate his/her emergent sense of potency, of being able to have an impact on the environment” (Broussard, 1984, p. 82) essential for the optimal development of the children. Merging and bonding of infants with their mothers consequently allow the children to experience both separateness and identification, resulting in differentiation (Fairbairn, 1976; Kohut, 1977; Mahler, 1968; Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975; Winnicott, 1957, 1964, 1965, 1971); without merging and bonding there is no possibility for infants to acquire a distinct sense of self. In the relational model, merging with and consequently differentiating from the mother allow infants to merge with their own body and thus differentiate their physical identity from those of others. When personal identity is thus established, the individuals will again merge, this time in groups, first in the family and then in the socioculturally determined group, identifying themselves with the values of that group, and eventually differentiating themselves by choosing only those values that the individuals feel befit their own needs and convictions.