On the Practice and its Evaluation of the Dance Therapy to Psychiatric Inpatients

Abstract

The purpos of this study is the investigation of the practice and the evaluation of the dance therapy practiced with the psychiatric inpatients in the purpose of the creative self-expression. Taking three points i. e. 1) deliberation of the mind-body, 2) creative representation of the individual, 3) communication with others, as the functions of the dance as therapy, we constructed one session (60 minutes) with 5 parts, i. e. 1) folk dance, 2) movement exploration , 3) a practice of expression, 4) performing individual dances, 5) impression. From April 1991, we practiced the sessions twice in month for five to thirteen patients of different pathologies, as one class. VTR was recorded in every session , and, the data were the observation and evaluation of dance by the leader, patient's impressions after sessions and research about dance, and also observations of the treating doctors and impressions get after having seen the VTR. Folk-Dance was began in the form of a circle, by the verbal and non-verbal communication, an ambience (Ba), of Qi, is formed around the leader as a center. And when a medical doctor (=the author) was assisting there, "Ba" was slightly changed. This is because most of the participants were treated by the author. Between the beginning and the end of one session of dance, the great change of "Ba" took place, and after more sessions, the spiritual relationships between the patients and the leader became more intimate. The modification of patients after many sessions, is not caused simply by the physical repetitions. The characteristic of our dance sessions is the fact that this ambience of Qi (communication of spirits) is stressed and cared. In this study, the cases were 33 years old, and 42years old female patients. These two have commonly the tendencies of sensitive to the music, of finding pleasure in expressing them-selves freely, of appreciating others' dances, and of wanting include the good points of others' dances in their own. This common point is, in fact, of the same quality as the impression of the students in the experience of dance, and thus it became clear that for both A I. and K. O. the dance is a way of communication with others, and something that brings them desire and contentment of the self-expression, as for the students. Also, the treating doctor of these two says that attending to their dances is a chance of encounter to the aspects of the patients that the doctor had not known, and that the dance have a temporary effects on the affective and behavioral aspects of patients. Thus, we could say that the practice of the dance activity of the author with the patients is possible to be a psychiatric therapy in feeling the pleasure of creative self-expression which is a purpose, and this makes possible to call this activity dance therapy. We must add that the leader has not seen the medical documents and likings before to prevent the preconception, and the patients are of Bipolar disorder with personality disorder, and of schizoprenia. In this study, we have investigated the practice and the evaluation of dance therapy: afterwards, we will investigate the relationships between dance therapy and the evaluation of the disease, and its significance in the view of treatment.