Jung's Active Imagination in Whitehouse's Dance: notions of body and movement
Carl Gustav Jung (1875 1961) one of the greatest intellectuals of his time, brought up important questionings for human thought, without restricting them to Psychology. He distanced himself from Sigmund Freud's theory and started creating his own theory for the functioning of the psyche, presenting us with Analytical Psychology. The researches he performed in the clinical scenarios, with his patients and with himself, were extensive and in depth, leading him to consider, in a certain moment of his professional life, that the structure and the process of a certain artistic production drawing, painting, writing, among others could be therapeutic instruments capable of giving form to the symbolic images originated during the treatment. The construction of a theory for the functioning of the psyche and its proposal for therapeutic intervention through art, which he called Active Imagination, allowed him and other people to create epistemological bridges for their works, one of which is the therapeutic resource through dance. This resource enables us to get closer to two fundamental elements of the process: the body and the movement. Dance as a therapeutic resource reaffirms our bodily motor condition and the need we have of staying in movement, whether to treat corporeal processes, psychical processes, or both simultaneously in the imbrication of their relationships. Mary Starks Whitehouse was a pioneer in the use of the principles of the Jungian theory in dance as a therapeutic process. Although at first she resisted to term therapeutic, Whitehouse contributed greatly to the studies that Abstract: This study presents the notions of body and movement found in Mary Starks Whitehouse's dance, known as Authentic Movement. Whitehouse was a pioneer in the construction of therapeutic meaning of dance for using Carl Gustav Jung psyche theory. The analysis has been carried out after Whitehouse texts written between 1958 and 1979 and re edited by Patricia Pallaro in 1999. These research findings suggest that, in Whitehouse's view, the body is the physical aspect of the personality, becoming visible through its movement. This may be generated in a continuum between subconscious impulse and Ego control, not only to make the visibility of the current state of psyche possible, but also to generate changes in it. It is expected that this study brings contributions to both the Analytical Psychology and the Art Therapy field.