Working with unrepresented states in dance/movement therapy for children

Abstract

Developmental delay or an ongoing experience of object loss during pre-verbal infancy can produce unrepresented states. These are areas of the mind which lack form, language, or any capacity for symbolisation. The objective in therapy is to encounter those very experiences and create presence for them. This article will present the unique contribution of dance/movement therapy for children to those areas of the mind. Using a clinical vignette, it will show how the therapist’s invitation to movement and listening to the patient’s body stories facilitate ‘space’ and ‘time’ for primal mental experiences of ‘presence’ and ‘absence’, experienced in the body. Processing them in the therapeutic relationship is the beginning of the representation of the experience in the mind.