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Using mindfulness and dance/movement therapy for emotion-focused coping with adolescents
Thesis   Open access

Using mindfulness and dance/movement therapy for emotion-focused coping with adolescents

Ja'Nae Lewis
Master of Arts (M.A.), Drexel University
Jun 2019
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/7v6f-p286
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Abstract

Dance therapy Movement therapy Mindfulness (Psychology) Stress management for teenagers Teenagers
The purpose of this capstone thesis was to create a method that incorporated mindfulness, body awareness, and movement to facilitate awareness and acceptance of emotions as they arise for adolescents in a school setting. Adolescents are at a complicated time in their development where their identities are beginning to form, they are often flooded with new and uncomfortable thoughts and emotions. Self-expression can be challenging for adolescents, for many reasons including lack of awareness of feelings and cultural stigma around the expression of emotions, especially those such as fear, hurt, anxiety, and sadness. The literature supported the use of dance/movement therapy as a beneficial intervention for adolescents to help with stress management, attending to the body, and emotional expression. Additionally, mindfulness was used as a tool to help the teenagers become more aware of thoughts and emotions as they relate to the felt experience of the body. Through an integration of dance/movement therapy and mindfulness the students who participated in this method became more aware of their thoughts and emotions and were able to pay attention to their bodily felt experience. Case vignettes were provided to illustrate the method in use within individual dance/movement and counseling therapy sessions.

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