(Dis-)Embodiment in Schizophrenia

Abstract

A research team from the German National Project Body Language of Movement and Dance conducted a feasibility study on the influence of mirroring interventions on the self-experience and interaction skills of patients with schizophrenia in a psychiatric hospital setting (N = 14). They investigated how a manualized dance movement therapy (DMT) intervention influenced (1) body awareness, (2) the sense of wellbeing, (3) empathy, and (4) social skills in the patients compared to a control group. In this chapter, the authors define the terms, briefly describe the method of therapeutic mirroring, compute the results, and discuss the findings. The results suggest that wellbeing and empathy were strengthened through mirroring in movement. The intervention further increased positive affect (and coping), and decreased depressed affect and anxiety as aspects of wellbeing. Future studies should improve the DMT intervention for schizophrenia, integrate changes in body image, body self-efficacy, embodied intersubjectivity, expression of emotion, and increased numbers of participants.

Social dance and movement for mental health: A narrative review

“…DMT has additionally been used for the mental health of adults with schizophrenia (Gökcen et al, 2020;Koch et al, 2017) and Parkinson's disease (PD; Lee et al, 2015). For participants with schizophrenia, Koch and colleagues (2017) found improvements in empathy preintervention to post-intervention, and Gökcen and colleagues (2020) found significant improvements in schizophrenia patients' negative symptoms, general psychopathology, and functional remission after et al, 2021).…”

“…In addition to the alleviation of depressive symptoms, DMT interventions have also been associated with decreases in anxiety and stress, and improved QoL in adults (Arman & Turkmen, 2021; Koch et al, 2017; Moula et al, 2022) as well as improvements in well‐being and emotional and behavioral difficulties in children (Kella et al, 2022). DMT has also been investigated as an adjunct to other treatments for depression.…”