Weight Effort and Weight Loss: A Dance/Movement Therapist's Experiences of Laban Movement Analysis in Eating Disorder Treatment Within New Zealand

Abstract

While dance/movement therapy has been used in the treatment of eating disorders in other countries (Krueger & Schofield, 1986; Padrão & Coimbra, 2011), this application of dance/movement therapy in the New Zealand context is unknown. As a profession, dance/movement therapy is relatively young in New Zealand (Capello, 2015), and as a psychotherapeutic intervention based upon the body and movement, dance/movement therapy is uniquely positioned to treat eating disorders because they are mental health conditions with physical manifestations (Hay et al., 2014). In this research, dance/movement therapy is understood through the use of Laban Movement Analysis as a method of inspecting the qualities of movement (Moore, 2014). This thesis seeks to provide answers to the question, what are a dance/movement therapist’s experiences of Laban Movement Analysis in eating disorder treatment within the New Zealand context? Data was collected through an individual semi-structured interview with one interviewee, then analysed through a thematic analysis of narrative. This involved creating a narrative from the interviewee's experiences of delivering dance/movement therapy to people with eating disorders in New Zealand and abroad, then uncovering the major themes present across the narrative. These results were connected to literature of other dance/movement therapists’ experiences, and further triangulated with my own experiences. The results show that a multitude of relationships were key considerations within this dance/movement therapist's approach. In the New Zealand context, an outpatient client group with homogenous diagnoses within the public healthcare system made delivering dance/movement therapy challenging for the interviewee. The interviewee did not use Laban Movement Analysis in their practice, although they used Laban Movement Analysis terms to describe their clients' movements which aligned with other practitioners' experiences. The therapist's subjectivity was present across all themes. Novel findings were uncovered, such as a developmental progression between the space and effort sections of Laban Movement Analysis, and the conceptualisation of client's movements within Laban Movement Analysis' action drive and diagonal scale. Additionally, this research concludes that Laban Movement Analysis is hardly used by this New Zealand dance/movement therapist working with eating disorders, which may be reflective of the system's disuse in the wider New Zealand context.