Moving Grief: Exploring Dance/Movement Therapists’ Experiences and Applications with Grieving Children

摘要

Current studies in children’s grief and bereavement illuminate that creative arts therapies may support children in the sharing and healing of their experiences with a death loss. However, theories or models suggesting the specific role of dance/movement therapy as a possible creative intervention for this population have not yet been published. This qualitative study is designed to explore the experiences of dance/movement therapists who have worked with children grieving a death loss. Second, this research seeks to elucidate how dance/movement therapists’ experiences with this population may inform their choices to use specific clinical interventions. The results of this study highlight themes that may be relevant in dance/movement therapy applications with grieving children, and is meant to provoke further discussion and continued research that may allow for the development of new dance/movement therapy models within grief studies.