Commentary on Movement Therapy as a Psychotherapeutic Tool

We are more likely to keep in mind the crucial importance of motor discharge in childhood when we are treating children psychoanalytically, than we are able to include this behavior and its meaning when we are reconstructing childhood in adult analysis. The behavior of the child, and even of the younger adolescent, normatively is communicated and strongly influenced by movement, motor discharge, and physical expressive behavior. Once the child is in the latency period, we may acknowledge the importance of body-language, of motor discharge patterns, and the movements and posturing of the body, but we tend to overlook or avoid the specific meanings that can be conveyed by these behavioral characteristics and patterns.

This paper by Elaine V. Siegel may go too far in the direction of explicitness, but it is a refreshing reminder of the richness and complexity of children's behavior. Can we use such presumptions and understanding in our clinical and theoretical thinking? The ego functions of control and modulation of neuromuscular movement, of motor discharge, of posture and antigravity behavior, for example, suggest available pathways of influence that can be utilized to strengthen the ego in general through strengthening specific functions of the ego.

Siegel, in her report of how she worked with and assisted a seven-year-old girl with a school phobia, has described how she related to Debby and how she "taught" Debby to assert and practice mastery of her body behavior. Starting with breathing exercises, and gradually introducing the utilization and practice of rhythmic motor activities, of control of her body in space, and of