Embodied Cultural Competence Framework: A Body-Based Method to Examine Cultural Identity Development and Bias

Adopting an embodied approach to cultural competence provides a method for practitioners to engage the body’s knowledge in exploring identity and perceptions, while supporting advancement towards healthy and responsive relationships. The Embodied Cultural Competence Framework provides a concise method to explore past (history), present state, and develop future intentions related to bias and capacity for healthy and adaptive relating, and delivery of clinical interventions. This framework was developed by Board-Certified Dance/Movement Therapists, Licensed Professional Counselors, and Licensed Clinical Professional Counselors. The framework uses concepts from dance/movement therapy theory related to the dimensional scale from the work of Rudolf Laban, as well as organizational psychologist Chris Argyris’s Ladder of Inference. Grounding the framework in embodied exploration and creating an understanding of thought processes produces an expanded capacity for self-awareness and yields an opportunity for exploring race, culture, and bias on a multitude of levels. With intentionality towards compassion, growth, and honoring body knowledge, this framework explores personal cultural constructs from an embodied perspective for furthering the development of cultural competence.