Abstract
This paper discuses autism and includes some personal accounts of living with autism. The author then goes on to discuss therapy for autism, focusing specifically on dance therapy as a form of psychotherapy in which patients are encouraged to express their feelings and inner conflicts through dance. The paper stresses that, by aiding and restoring connection and rhythm, dance and movement therapy helps autistic children who are out of sync with other persons involved in their lives and who experience problems connecting between their bodies and their emotional selves.

Table of Contents:
Autism
Personal Accounts
Dance Therapy
From "Out" to In Sync

From the Paper
"Children in the middle range, albeit usually know and prefer their caregivers' company over others, however children at the severe end of autism may experience challenges recognizing their own family members. Asperger Syndrome, which represents the greatest number of individuals with autism, ranks at the high-functioning end of the autism. Many children with Asperger's function well intellectually and verbally. By today's standards, Shore states, he would have been considered to have Asperger's."

Tags:self-destructive, behaviors, self-expression, amplification, mirroring

Abstract
Dance therapy is the use of choreographed or improvised movement as a way of treating social, emotional, cognitive, and physical problems. This paper examines the benefits of dance theory to the patient and how the treatment works.

Paper Outline:
Introduction
The Realm of Dance Therapy
The Solutions that Dance Therapy Provides
Conclusion
Bibliography

From the Paper
"The state of the different components of our body can affect and influence how we emotionally and physically feel (Wholehealthmd Online). This is usually connected to the tensions and patterns of muscles (Wholehealthmd Online). Since movement is a form of relaxing our body, especially our muscles, the effect of movements found in dance can help in treating our body."

Tags:psychoanalytic, self-esteem, choreography

Abstract
This paper is about dance movement therapy as a form of expressive art therapies. The paper focuses on how dance therapy is about the release of emotional trauma or beliefs as well as feelings that have been suppressed, through appropriate movement. There is a brief history of development of dance therapy as well as a personal story about how fears can limit the ability to dance.

From the Paper
"The expressive arts offer a multitude of opportunities for the human spirit to achieve balance, freedom, relief and potentially self-actualization. While great emphasis in class has been placed on the spirit of the human condition and spirit of the soul, after a brief discussion about the spirit, this paper will focus on what movement and dance therapy are about, the use of dance therapy as a way of unleashing burdensome emotions and psychological pathology in combinations of the arts and solely using dance and movement as the expressive medium. This paper will also include comments on the generally fear and shame based reasons why individuals might initially shy away from dance and movement therapy."

Tags:dance, movement, emotional

Abstract
This is a high level overview of dance movement therapy, what it means and how it can successfully be integrated into an individual's life. Part of the overview includes an emphasis on how dance movement therapy can be beneficial for one's daily live even if one is not suffering from emotional or mental health issues. There is also a brief explanation of the role of expressive arts therapy.

From the Paper
"Expressive arts therapy has many components, one of which is dance movement therapy. Halprin (1999) states "movement is the body's universal language...a bridge to the interior world of self and between self and the world." Dance movement therapy has few limitations as to who can do partake in this expressive form of movement and who can benefit from it. This paper will provide a basic overview of what dance movement therapy is and how it is effective. The second section of the paper will focus on how dance movement therapy can be successfully integrated an individual's life. Part of the overview includes an emphasis on how dance movement therapy can be beneficial for one's daily live even if one is not suffering from emotional or mental health issues. "

Tags:dance, therapy, expressive

Abstract
This paper explores the social, artistic, and religious aspects of dance throughout history and how these forms of dance have been a part of human society since prehistoric times. The paper also looks at the health benefits derived from dancing and how dance has been used to tell stories, to record history, and as a form of therapy.

From the Paper
"The skill of dance today is often thought to be reserved for the participants of higher arts such as ballet or for young participants in hip-hop and rave dances. However, dance is an integral part of the history and culture of all humans, and remains alive in many forms within people of all walks of life. "It is the wedding of movement to music. It spans culture from soaring ballet leaps to the simple swaying at the school prom," (Burke) and every kind of human movements, from walking to breathing, are elements that make up dancing. However, dance actually "goes beyond the functional purposes of the movements used in work or athletics in order to express emotions, moods, or ideas; tell a story; serve religious, political, economic, or social needs; or simply be an experience that is pleasurable, exciting, or aesthetically valuable." (Art) Dance is an important and beneficial art in which to participate and to support because of its rich cultural history and diversity, spiritual significance, and health benefits."

Tags:storytelling, explain, tribe, battle, celebrate, commeorate, prayer, choreographers

Abstract
Butoh is a Japanese art form that emerged in 1959 as a response to western oppression. Western political dominance had a serious impact on the aesthetic sense of dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, who developed a new form of dance that comprises strange body movements, gestures and jerks. This paper provides an overview of the history and make-up of Butoh and shows how it is also accepted as a form of movement therapy.

From the Paper
"Artaud rejected the views, beliefs and values of the theater of his time. He was not interested in projecting reality and sanity as they were accepted by the mainstream theater-goers. For him, artistic skills represented the ability to fully embrace the unknown, the untried and the unseen. Artaud did not view insanity as a problem. Everything that treaded on the dangerous was found exciting as it opened a new medium of expression and challenged the classical traditions of Japanese theater."

Tags:ohno, kabuki, koto, artaud, deconstruction, theory

Abstract
This paper looks at two different types of psychoanalysis, or 'talk therapy,' as it is known. The author contrasts and compares the work of two different therapists in the field. Molly Young Brown's text on psychosynthesis, entitled "The Unfolding Self: Psychosynthesis and Counseling," deals mainly with the treatment of adults, while Fran Levy's book "Dance Movement Therapy: A Healing Art," covers the treatment of children. The author looks at the differences in their approaches and how important it is to treat each patient as an individual. These two therapists' theories cannot be applied to each other's patients as the author demonstrates how each of their approaches are targeted to specific age-range and take into account the needs of this audience, whether it be adults or children. Children use dance and movement as a way to express themselves, in the same way that an adult uses their verbal skills in therapy.

From the Paper
"Dance therapy is not only of use to those impaired from birth, however. Levy also uses dance therapy to help children who have sexually abused express what was done to them, their feelings about the abuse, and to recover a sense of empowerment over their bodies. It is important for those who experience damage to their bodies and thus damage to their sense of self and to their sense of sexual well-beings, to experience a newly positive sense of their empowerment, sexuality, and physical self. This issue of empowerment of the self is dealt with in a more extensive fashion Molly Young Brown's book The Unfolding Self. Brown makes it clear that therapists must not only treat the person as a mind, they must also treat the person they are counseling as a body. She stresses the need for individuals who come to therapy to establish a connection with themselves and the larger world, to not see their suffering as an isolated, purely psychological affliction but something that has roots in larger social problems and attitudes."

Tags:psychological, counseling, mind, body, children, dance, development, autistic, emotions, sexual, self, adult, holistic, health, awareness

Abstract
The paper explains that although dance does not directly cause arthritis, improper techniques in dance can cause injuries that result in arthritis. The paper relates, however, that dance can also serve as a means of physical therapy for arthritic sufferers by increasing their range of motion, muscle strength and overall physical and mental health. More specifically, the paper discusses the relationship of dance at a young age to the development of arthritis as well as dance's therapeutic effect on arthritic sufferers.

From the Paper
"Many dancers experience aches and pains though out their dancing careers. Despite the cause of the pain, many find it commonplace, and therefore ignore it. Others choose pain-dulling drugs to overcome the pain. However, pain and "discomfort should not be considered a normal result of dancing. If an ache or pain recurs after a few hours of rest or a good night's sleep, it must be confronted and the source examined." (Horosco, Cures and Myths about Arthritis 108) The causes of these pains are too many to number, but one that many do not realize may be linked to arthritis."

Tags:athletes, sport, exercise, injuries, fibrositis, syndrome, osteoarthritis

Abstract
The paper relates that for enslaved African-Americans, art became a form of expressionism, hope, history and therapy. The paper discusses the slaves' tools, songs, dances and their stories that all demonstrate how they are survivors. The paper also looks at the literature from this time period, specifically the narrative of Frederick Douglass, that conveys a strong American spirit that refuses to let anyone or anything beat it down.

From the Paper
"Oral traditions go back as far as Africans do. While it might have been frowned upon in America, the tradition can be continued with songs and story telling. These stories and songs became specific to the African-American experience and they tell us so much about the endurance of slaves. Songs were used as tools of education as well as entertainment because reading was discouraged. Songs were not always sad as one might guess. While some songs told tales of agony and oppression, many were songs of hope that obviously lifted the soul in difficult times. We can learn about the tenacity of the human soul thought some of these songs. For example, one song asks, "didn't my Lord deliver Daniel . . . and why not every man." 1 Similar songs of freedom might have been the only hope that slaves could cling to when their lives seemed the darkest. How African-Americans sang is also significant because dance is very much a tradition that lives today."

Tags:Frederick, Douglass, slavery, tools, songs, dances, stories

Abstract
While acknowledging the contributions of medication, behavioral and social therapy, neurological/cognitive/brain-based training and environmental changes, this paper focuses on the evidence supporting the use of physical exercise as a treatment option. The author presents a case for children who have ADHD and suggests that making use of their inability to sit still can be channeled into specific, patterned movement (i.e. dance, martial arts, exercise) to stimulate brain activity and reinforce neurological connections that will facilitate focus and learning. Besides a review of scholarly journal articles, the paper also includes a case study that illustrates how one child with ADHD has benefited from spending half his day at school and the other half in a professional dance program (20+ hours a week).

Outline:
Definition, Prevalence, Comorbidity, Symptoms and Outcomes of ADHD
Neurological Information
Treatment Options
Case Study

From the Paper
"The frontal lobe region of the cerebral cortex allows for the planning and execution of complex and complicated tasks. We often refer to the activity of this portion of the brain as executive function, and we think that children with ADHD have deficits in executive functioning" (Schlozman & Schlozman, 2000). ADHD brains develop in fundamentally different ways. Yong (2007) reports how researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health found that ADHD brains develop on a delayed schedule. While the brain's four lobes develop in very much the same way, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed that that the thickness of the child's cerebral cortex differed from those of typical children. Life experiences make connections between nerve cells and the cortex thickens, with unused connections being trimmed away. Because these researchers found that ADHD brains matured about three years later, they consider ADHD a "disorder of delay, not deviance". Delays in the lateral prefrontal cortex in particular explain why children with ADHD have trouble "suppressing inappropriate thoughts and actions, directing attention, short-term memory and controlling movement." On the other hand, the primary motor cortex which helps to plan and control movements matured faster. These differences in maturation might neurologically explain the various characteristics displayed by children with ADHD."

Tags:impulsivity, inattention, disorganized, over, activity