ABSTRACT
We can move, while at the same time we feel moved. Being moved is part of the affective and the aesthetic experience assumed in dance movement therapy. It is also an emerging emotion concept in social and cognitive psychology and aesthetics research. Being moved is of eminent importance to the theory and practice of dance movement therapy (DMT), since it is presumably one of its most important active factors. While research in the cognitive sciences is still mostly investigating perception, research on being moved is looking at both perception and actions that form the feedback loop of bodily resonance. All creative arts therapies work on the active art-making side and use the transformative power of bodily resonance. Particularly in DMT, being moved cannot be separated from moving: In DMT, the patients can experience self-initiated movement and its beauty (aesthetic experience) as a resource, and the dialectic of moving and being moved guides the therapy progress. This process connects experiencing beauty with an increase in self-efficacy: One can create the conditions that make one experience beauty and in this way contribute to one’s own health
