African Dance Movement and
Drumming combined with
Narrative Therapy techniques
on the Mental Health Care and
Community Well-Being of
African Americans
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African to African American
Africans brought from various slave
ports such as Goree island in Senegal primarily to the Americas (North,
Mexico, Central and South) and the
Caribbean.
 Left behind rituals, routines and
practices that kept community together.
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Africa – Forced Disconnect
from the Motherland to the
rest of the world
Africans brought to North America, the
Caribbean, Mexico, Central
America and South America.
i.e. Afro-Mexican general Vicente
Guerrero
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Establishing life in the Americas
Forced to reestablished life and norms
during and after slavery.
 “remembered” ways to hold on to history.
For example, all slaves that were able to –
attempted to recreate memories in the form
of dances, rhythms etc.. That matched life
events such as Rites of Passage.
 Purpose is to ameliorate the negative
effects of oppression
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Africans who became slaves adapted:
immortalized and transformed indigenous
practices into various enduring art forms
today - Strengths
Dios de los Muertos – Halloween
 Carnival – Lent
 Capoeira – Brazilian slaves from the Bantu people in
Angola hid this form of Martial Arts by making it look like
a dance. Banned by slave-owners
 The Blues & Gospel
 Spoon & Hand Rhythms (African Americans)
 Samba, rumba, salsa, tap, dance
 Calypso (Jamaica, Trinidad )
 Call & Response
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Historical review
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Europe – Media, Research journals, Art – all castigated
Africans with negative images and “scientific” evidence of
race based inferiority.
Slave Trade & Slavery.
Emancipation officially but many people in rural communities
not informed and kept as slaves.
Birth of Prison industry as a form of maintaining slavery –
Wardens and prison owners incarcerating local men and
women to farm lands.
Minstrel period – Powerful media images that live with us
today.
Jim Crow & Civil Rights
Post-Obama – where we are today
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Impact to the African
American Community?
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The collective experience:
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created a deeply entrenched set of
internalized self-hate that – while on a
continuum - remains today.
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Colorism
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Music & Dance Therapy

Music and Dance therapy is used in
psychiatric hospitals, schools, prisons
and drug and alcohol treatment centers,
and assisted living environments.
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Music Therapy

Music has been found to be helpful with many
psychiatric disorders. It has been used as
complementary therapy in mental health with the
disorders of Autism (Walworth, 2007), Selective
Mutism (Amir, 2005), Schizophrenia (Ulrich, 2007),
Depression, (Morgan, 2008, Lin, 2011, Werner,
2009), Stress, (Labbe, 2007) Dementia, (Guetin,
2009, Takahashi, 2006, Ziv, 2007), Anxiety &
Depression (Choi, 2010; Hernandez-Ruiz, 2005),
Insomnia (Bloch, 2010; Ziv, 2008), and Substance
Use (Aldridge, 2010; Abdollahnejad, 2006, Horesh,
2003). Further, music has even been used to
address pain behaviors in patients with mild to
moderate cognitive impairment (Shega, 2008).
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Dance/Movement Therapy

“Focused on movement behavior as it emerges in the
therapeutic relationship. Expressive, communicative,
and adaptive behaviors are all considered for group
and individual treatment. Body movement, as the
core component of dance, simultaneously provides
the means of assessment and the mode of
intervention for dance/movement therapy.”
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American Dance Therapy Association
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Narrative Therapy

Narrative Psychotherapy assumes that the past can be changed by
creating new narratives or stories of an individual’s past. Narrative
therapists believe that we have the power within ourselves to create
these stories and turn them into more preferable outcomes (Prochaska &
Norcross, 2007).
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Narrative Theorists believes that therapists should not be the ones to tell
clients who they are. In turn, it should be the clients who are free to tell
us who they are and who they want to be (Prochaska & Norcross, 2007).
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Gehart and Tuttle (2003) explain that people use stories to explain their
lives and bring meaning to them. The primary goal is to reform the
narrative that is saturated with problems into a narrative that is more
preferable to the client.
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Narrative Therapy
Reality is socially constructed.
 The world exists of multiple viewpoints
and realities. Our Reality gain strength
and staying power when we give them
meaning with our language.
 The goal of Narrative therapy is for the
individual or family to “re-author” or rescript their life-stories.
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Narrative Therapy
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Deconstruct the original individual or family story.
Begin to question the storyline
Begin to question the meanings
Reflect on the externalizing problems
Begin to look for exceptions in the dominant problemsaturated narrative.
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Ask the individual or family when the negatives in the story did not
loom large or play so large for them. Chip away at the power of
the story.
The creation of a new story – one that is more balanced –
is infused with STRENGTHS
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Narrative Therapy
The problem is essentially the POWER
that we give to the problem – the
power to the dominant stories that
inhibit the individual.
 A Goal is to reduce the Power given to
the continual retelling of the problem
and to re-tell, re-write the story in a
more balanced, strength based manner.
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Working with African
Americans
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Re-connect to aspects of indigenous roots
that can strengthen the soul and selfperception.
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African Dance & Movement
and the Narrative
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African Dance informs the community of what
is going on: Like a newspaper in press or an
email blast out to your friends and colleagues.
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Rites of Passage (equivalent to a sweet 16 or a
Quinceanera)
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Marks the birth of a new story – with new meaning
Births, Marriages, a Death, Courtship
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Pulling it all together:
Exercises
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Let’s Move! Let’s Play!
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