Table 3.
A group model based on the integration of the four different DMT group processes.
| Theme | Process exercises | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction, start | Circular motion in joints. Improvisation with name gestures. With picture cards, expressing one's expectations of the DMT group. |
| 2 | Familiarizing with the space, moving, and collaboration | Exploring the space/room by moving in it in various ways and acknowledging the others. In a dyad, reflecting each other's movement. |
| 3 | Safety and agency, playfulness | Recognizing how one directs attention: outwards, inwards. Sensing body boundaries. Moving eyes open or closed. Exploring the spatial options in movement. |
| 4 | Playfulness, agency, finding different options | Exploring spine motility. Imagery and improvisation: If you were an animal, how would the animal move? In a circle, moving by holding hands. |
| 5 | Intuition, sensitivity | Activation of the body, starting from the feet. Playing with different movement qualities. Mindfulness skills and breathing: sensing one's walking. |
| 6 | Relieving achievement pressure | Sensing hands through different movements. Breathing exercises. Bartenieff Fundamentals* basic exercises. Mindfulness skills: breathing and seeing the other. Polarity: familiar and unfamiliar in movement. |
| 7 | Boundaries, distances, directions | Activating hands and breathing, sensing body boundaries, sensing center/core also with strength. Movement improvisation with a focus on near space, middle space, far space. Walking in a dyad and sensing the connection. Drawing a picture of one's experience. |
| 8 | Space for motion, boundaries, surfaces—balancing being, and action | Self-nurturing movement and moving on the floor level. Bartenief Fundamentals* basic exercises. Getting into vertical slowly and through different postures. |
| 9 | Emotion—acceptance and agency in one's life and in relation with environment/others | Movement improvisation from the words selected to express one's present state. Exploring earth, water, air, and fire through movement improvisation—expressing and describing associated feelings. |
| 10 | What do I need—attention and focusing in action | In a dyad, hand massage. On a tape line, improvising movement in relation to the line; working with a partner who accompanies the movement in the way one asks for. |
| 11 | Accepting needs—nurturing, simplicity, freedom | Moving with breath, gradually engaging the whole body. Simple qigong exercise (breath, clear movement pattern, a sense of opening/stretching, focusing). Requesting from a pair something one needs in movement and/or presence. Homework: to write a poem of one's experiences in this group. |
| 12 | Closure—what have I learnt? | Activating the body, grounding, being aware of the body. Simple qigong exercise (same as in the session 11) Poems: sharing them, improvising movement on them. Feedback of the process. |
*
See Bartenieff and Lewis, 1980.