The “Art” of Authentic Movement

Authentic Movement is a precious mash-up of three of my favorite things: free-form movement, creative expression & conscious connection. The practice gently guides us into an embodied exploration of the vast realms of interplay between psyche & soma and at the same time offers us communal training in non-judgmental awareness & benevolent presence for one another. It draws from a form of dynamic play called “active imagination” that (according to Marie-Louise von Franz, a close collaborator of Jung’s) is “THE most powerful tool in Jungian psychology for achieving wholeness” and “can achieve miracles of inner transformation.” Combine this individual depth with our collective presencing and you get a richly layered relational practice as well. I sometimes think of Authentic Movement as the most affordable & enjoyable complimentary therapy on the planet (outside of nature itself, though combining Authentic Movement with nature is my absolute favorite version of the form).

“THE most powerful tool… for achieving wholeness.”

I have long been flummoxed by an apparent lack of public interest or curiosity in Authentic Movement (outside of its enthusiastic circles). Given the aforementioned transformative merits of the form, this lackluster interest makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to me. My best guess is that it boils down to two main factors:

Authentic Movement is not a quick practice. Exploration, creation & reflection TAKE TIME.
The average person –even a wellness oriented one– has little to no context for what the practice of Authentic Movement actually IS.

Factor 1: It takes Time

It asks a lot of a 21st century human to carve out a few hours each week for six to eight weeks at a time to explore a practice that can’t be counted in litres of sweat, consumed in gigabytes or checked off their doctor’s wellness list. Yet Authentic Movement asks us to downshift our sense of timing to a spacious and unhurried pace. Accessing, inviting and conversing at the tender junction of psyche & soma requires unfolding the practice slowly in order to nurture safety in the nervous system and to allow ample room for an ecology of presence & care. Authentic Movement is not a “get fixed quick” scheme, nor does it fit easefully into a world of 3 second sound bites, multitasking apps and over-stuffed agendas. Instead, we give ourselves the precious gift of time– to allow, explore, create, reflect and be.

Factor 2: What IS it?

Meanwhile, conveying to a non-practitioner what authentic movement IS turns out to be not so straight forward. In our visually-dominant world we’re used to translating images into action. For a yoga class we see photos of people doing postures on mats and say, “Hey, that looks like it might be good for me.” For arts programming we see actors in costumes on a stage or a potter with clay in their hands and think: “I’d love to explore my creative side.” For sports, we see a child kicking a ball into a net or a woman in a kickboxing ring and exclaim: “Yes! I want to be that agile & empowered too.”

But Authentic Movement doesn’t translate easily into action shots nor does it lend itself to categorization. Is it dance? Is it meditation? Is it therapy? Do I need to be limber or graceful? What if I don’t know HOW to “move authentically”? What does moving authentically even mean? Does brushing my hair in the morning count as authentic? What about driving to work or picking up my kid at school? Paying my bills? Eating a taco? Arguing with my spouse? Falling onto my pillow at night?

So what DOES Authentic Movement look like?

Here’s the dilemma: outside of the essential structures of the form (move, witness, create, reflect), it’s truly impossible to say what “authentic movement” looks like. A human being’s authentic expression in any given moment (even within the established boundaries of the container) is spectacularly unique and infinitely diverse. To offer visual windows into a movement practice that is radically different not only each time you do it but each moment within it seems almost a fool’s errand. Any single image of movement –or even a series of images– actually limits the viewer’s perception of what might actually arise in a session. The “thousand words” we typically associate with photography has an inverse effect, inevitably rendering a limited and misleading representation of the complex intra- and inter- personal embodied exploration that takes place within a given individual or group session.

A Few Fingers pointing to Many Moons

For this reason I have to date prefered to pair the explanation of class offerings not with images of movers & movement but of creative expressions that emerge in relation to what’s being moved. Somehow the “art” of authentic movement feels closer to sharing the essence of our aim. The “art” in this case is what we call “creative forming,” the time in our practice when “movers & witnesses” dialogue with whatever has been somatically moved using paper, pens, scissors, crayons and clay. Since “moving” disappears as quickly as it comes into being, it’s through creative forming that participants bring their inner and outer movements into not-quite-so fleeting form. Through journaling, drawing, sculpting, collaging or painting, we allow the mess of our impressions and narratives, feelings and limitations, insights and inspirations to organically emerge into two or three relatively static dimensions.

But sharing the “art” of authentic movement (or specifically MY “art” of authentic movement, since like movement, the individual diversity of creative forming is vast) also misses the mark in illuminating the rich and varied terrain of this transformative practice. While the practice most certainly can serve as a creative resource, our emphasis is not on what gets “formed” (which is just as often a mess of scribbles and/or incoherent musings) but on what we discover in the process of “forming” it. Our primary intention isn’t our “art” but our exploration of who we are as human beings. Remember those vast realms of interplay between psyche & soma? Our creative forming may offer a window into a moment’s interplay inside us or between us but it’s not the essence of the thing we’re doing. Each image is just one finger of many, pointing to one “moon” among many…

So what’s to be done? Shall I stand empty handed on a cacophonous digital corner hollering: “Step right up Ladies & Gentlemen (and gender non-conforming Humans)– try Authentic Movement where you too can experience “miracles of inner transformation”!“

Well…yes I shall (this blog included). And of course, testimonials like this one help to convey what’s possible & worthwhile about the form too.

Meanwhile, I offer up the “creative forming” on this page as a window into the themes, musings, expressions and textures that this precious practice has evoked IN ME over the past six months (September 2025 – March 2026).

May sharing these bits of dialogue with the evanescent interplay of my personal psyche/soma inspire you to explore & embody (and creatively dialogue) with your own!