Dance/Movement Therapy for Infants and Young Children with Medical Illness: Treating Somatic and Psychic Distress

Abstract

Tortora and Keren clearly love very young children. Throughout their book, Dance/Movement Therapy for Infants and Young Children with Medical Illness: Treating Somatic and Psychic Distress, they demonstrate intuitive knowledge of the child’s experience without forfeiting scientific information. They understand and respect the feelings and perspectives of the child and also demonstrate empathy for the quandaries and behaviors of parents who are traumatized by the suffering of their infants and toddlers. The underlying current of their success is how they communicate both non-verbally and verbally in their process. Tortora and Keren challenge medically held notions that young children don’t remember the pain of early childhood. It is becoming increasingly clear that the brain, mind, and body remember psychologically and physically traumatic events, consciously or not. Lifelong behaviors may therefore be greatly affected by early painful experiences, especially those in which pain is repeated such as in medical treatments for childhood diseases or surgery. Each of the 12 chapters focuses on a case study of the therapeutic principles reported. Dance/Movement Therapy sessions with fourteen children, ages prenatal to four, are described with compassion for the infants, toddlers, preschoolers, parents, and medical caretakers. Sessions are private, but there are indications of group gatherings, not described. Studies present not only a “how to,” but a “why to” with examples that depict both simultaneously. Primarily, chapters have a common structure: presentation of a case study, clinical discussion of the situation, introduction to the chapter content, breakdown of content, and conclusion. The final chapter summarizes key points; four appendices provide details about DANCE and MSDMT (see below). The Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) tools described in the book include more than dance. Sessions involve play with objects, music, rhythms, songs, and play-acting. The focus of the techniques is to initially sense the infant/child’s present traumatized behaviors, discretely establish nonverbal communication without intrusion or obstruction, and layer an individual approach to gradually relate more directly and calm the situation. Tortora has developed a structured approach called Dyadic Attachment-Based Nonverbal Communicative Expressions—DANCE. This is a fully developed Multi-Sensory Dance Movement Therapy (MSDMT). There is one difficult aspect of the book for a dance artist such as myself. Perhaps it is customary in scientific/medical circles, but the number of acronyms is dizzying, so I constructed a reference list to help. In the authors’ favor, they repeat their meanings occasionally and title chapters using full names. Drs. Tortora and Keren both write from strong professional biographies with years of experience and recognition for their work. Tortora holds an EdD and is a board-certified Dance/Movement Therapist specializing in the field of infant mental health and development. She has private dance/movement practices in New York City and Cold Spring, NY, and is a Senior Dance/Movement Therapist at Integrative Medicine Service Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where much of the work in this book occurs. Her first book, The Dancing Dialogue, sets the developmental and therapeutic stage for the present publication. Her work is highly respected by the American Dance Therapy Association where she is invited to regularly present. She has also presented at NDEO conferences. Keren holds an MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and a clinical research consultant at the Early Childhood Outpatient Clinic, and is a Clinical Professor Emeritus of Tel Aviv University. She is the former president of the World Association for Infant Mental Health and Chair of the World Psychiatric Association Prenatal Section. In 2013 she was chosen to join the task force to review the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood, Revised Edition DC 0–3 R (Zero to Three, 2005). Reading this book, I reflected on behaviors of some of the young children I taught; I have intuitively used some of the techniques described. The clearly defined layering and progression of tools provides a helpful structure that can engage a class of preschool children. The case studies focus on tools and techniques for dance therapy in hospital environments, but to be realistic, how many infants and children do not carry traumatic events in their bodies? Tortora’s approach, DANCE, is helpful for multiple dance education situations, and potentially a method for the educators, themselves, to gain self-awareness.