What I Learned from Mary: Reflections on the Work of Mary Starks Whitehouse

Abstract

A West coast pioneer of dance therapy, Mary Starks Whitehouse began the work she called movement-in-depth in the 1950s. Based on her dance training with Mary Wigman, and her own personal experiences in Jungian psychoanalysis, she developed a rich and detailed movement bridge to inner experience, including unconscious, preverbal, direct sensation, dreams, and interpersonal dynamics. The core of the movement experience she explored is the sensation of both moving, and being moved at the same moment, activated with attention, allowing and following the authentic movement impulse. She had a gift for translating inner experience into suggestions that furthered her students’ explorations. The recollection of my work with Mary, which occurred between 1975 and 1978 in San Francisco, California, is supported by personal audio recordings, from which all quotes are taken, unless otherwise noted.