Getting our Beat Back
Restoring Core Rhythmicity Through Movement-based Expressive Arts
The events of the past two years have been individually and collectively life-changing. Whether our personal experience has been one of grief, fear, extreme stress, trauma, loss, or to most all of the above, we may feel like we’ve lost our beat. The human body is a sea change of rhythm and movement; an embodied creative process. In this presentation, we explore Neuro-physiologically based Dance/Movement Expressive Arts Therapy approaches to re-regulate and restore balance and connection.
Learning Objectives
1. Describe the importance of rhythmicity.
2. Describe two ways to help someone connect with their body.
3. List at least three ways that abusers disrupt core internal rhytmicity.
4. Describe Adaptive Self Regulation, according to Polyvagal Theory.
5. Enumerate the three meters of well-being.
Presented By
Dr. Amber Elizabeth L Gray, BC-DMT, LPCC
Dr. Amber Elizabeth Gray is a licensed human rights psychotherapist, innovative movement artist, board-certified dance/movement therapist, master trainer and educator, Continuum teacher, and public health professional.
Dr. Gray's expertise is represented in many published articles and chapters, keynote addresses, professional collaborations, and presentations around the world. She has provided clinical training on the integration of refugee mental health and torture treatment with the creative arts, mindfulness, and body-based therapies. Her work has traveled to more than 30 programs for survivors worldwide since the late 1990s.
Her professional path traverses education, social change, international relations, public health, deep tissue bodywork, cranial-sacral therapy, aromatherapy, and energy medicine. Clinical influences include somatic psychology, dance/movement therapy, eco-psychology, contemplative psychotherapy, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, somatic experiencing, and narrative exposure therapy.
