ABSTRACT
Adolescence is one of the most difficult periods in one’s life. It is a period of transition that often involves rapid physical changes, includes new self-definitions, leads to loss of familiar ties and connections, and requires difficult emotional and cognitive adjustments. Schools are ideally placed to support adolescents in preventative strategies for reducing mental ill health, as well as addressing issues as they arise. The concepts of holding and the holding environment have particular relevance to adolescents as they are faced, and need to cope with, a number of complex and paradoxical physical, cognitive, emotional and social changes. Dance movement psychotherapists work with adolescents in a range of settings such as residential schools, special schools and psychiatric settings and around 40 per cent work in some form of educational setting. In the creative synthesis the researcher was acutely aware of the level of sensitivity required to be able to be seen and move together.
