5Rhythms Movement Therapy

5Rhythms Movement Therapy has grown out of my lifelong interest in both 5Rhythms and psychotherapy. I first started studying with Gabrielle Roth (the founder of the 5Rhythms Movement Practice) in 1978. Although I have also studied many other movement disciplines (including Anna Halprin’s Tamalpla work, Authentic Movement, Continuum, Hatha yoga, Jazz dance and aerobics) the 5Rhythms Movement Practice has remained and continues to be my primary movement language

In my practice of somatic psychotherapy, and certainly when I began to teach Integrative Body Psychotherapy (IBP), I found that the best and most effective method of communicating the theories, principles and processes of psychotherapy were through an embodied movement language. The basis of Gestalt Awareness Practice (GAP), which I studied for over 30 years, is also deeply body based and lends itself to a movement translation in a very organic way.

After many years of having a fairly strict division between my psychotherapy practice and my 5Rhythms movement programs, I began to integrate the two processes within myself and eventually into my work with clients and groups.

In the last decade, I have worked to structure this integration. During this time, Gabrielle Roth and I have worked together to formalize an extension of the 5Rhythms practice into a recognized therapeutic form: 5Rhythms Movement Therapy-5RMT.

This process is in its infancy. The very first attempt to materialize this work outside of my own teaching and therapy practice was the creation of the 5Rhythms Center for Therapeutic study. Part of that Center was to do a pilot training in 5RMT.

Although too short and incomplete in many ways, this program served the purpose of offering some bare bones structures for which 5RMT can be built upon. This training inspired a handful of pioneering therapists, and health care professionals to take the risk to initiate a movement based therapeutic and healing process into their existing work. To date we have professionals exploring this work: with therapy clients, in hospitals, addiction clinics, domestic abuse shelters, hospice, gerontology, cancer survivor groups, with children, and eating disorder prevention programs.

For now, I am integrating what has been set into motion. I am continuing my own explorations of how psycho-spiritual exploration, growth and development happens through embodied movement and awareness. I am also in the process of designing how I might formulate a training that includes all the components I would wish for 5RMT to be offered with integrity and depth for the next incarnation of this work.

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