“We come together in pairs or groups to practice Authentic Movement. We come together to find out what is already within us, waiting for us. We come knowing we don’t know what we will do, what we will find. We come for refreshment, revelation, rest, recuperation. We come for open time, unprogrammed time, in our bodies and in our inner worlds – the unconscious, the imagination, the soul, the psyche, the bones, and the flesh. And we are being our whole selves.”
– Daphne Lowell, 2007:50
Authentic Movement started as a group practice with movers and а witness (Pollaro, 2007). Mover begins by tuning in to themselves. When an impulse from within arises, they can follow and explore it. A witness stays present, keeping the space for the mover safely contained. They maintain a non-judgmental and accepting environment. He/she acquires the role of the Self or the accepting consciousness, rooting movers’ experience in the reality. Anchored, a mover is free to explore other unconscious parts of themselves where is hard to access, especially being new to the practice. Becoming the mind that protects the space, a witness takes the “control” from the participants’ mind, supporting them to sink deeper into their soma (Pollaro, 2007). After finishing the process, movers spend time expressing the experience through drawing or free writing of their current state. Finally, a sharing in a circle concludes the session.
“Where does movement come from? It originates in…a specific inner impulse having the quality of sensation. This impulse leads outwards into space so that movement becomes visible as physical action. Following the inner sensation, allowing the imagination in movement, just as following the visual image is active imagination in phantasy. It is here that the most dramatic phsyco-physical connections are made visible to the consciousness.” -Whitehouse, in Chodorow, 2004:28
With the development of AM, Whitehouse established the practice on the concepts of Jung’s “active imagination,” where one allows images from the psyche to find an expression through an art form providing free rein to fantasy (Chodorow, 2004), while maintaining an attentive awareness. Active imagination in AM ultimately becomes a moving imagination (Chodorow, 2004).