Susan Imus on the work of creating language as scaffolding for the field of dance/movement therapy.

In this conversation, I am speaking with Susan Imus MA, LCPC, BC-DMT, GL-CMA, about her attempts to create language and theoretical scaffolding for the field of dance/movement therapy. Susan was motivated by a question: how does dance/movement therapy work? In her most recent article, Creating Breeds Creating. In H. Wentgrower and S. Chaiklin (Eds), Dance and Creativity Within Dance Movement Therapy: International Perspectives. Susan suggests several models for understanding the work of dance/movement therapy including Nine Funamental Mechanisms, A-FECT Model of Aesthetics and Culture, and The Continuum of Interdisciplinary Approaches. Susan writes about how the field of dance/movement therapy spans the realms of the somatic, the aesthetic, and the psychological, and each of these realms explain aspects how dance/movement therapy works. Susan has created these models as offerings to the field, with the hope that they can bolster education, research and collaboration within the field internationally.

Susan is Associate Professor and the former Chair of the Department of Creative Arts Therapies in the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago. Susan has practiced, educated, and consulted in dance/movement therapy and the creative arts throughout the U.S. and abroad for 33 years. Susan is the former chair of the Education, Research, and Practice Committee for the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA). She received the first Excellence in Education award by the ADTA in 2006. Susan, originally trained in nursing, has been employed as a dance/movement therapist by 10 different hospitals throughout her career in the Midwest and on the East Coast. Prestigious institutions include Harvard University’s McLean Hospital and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, where she was recruited to assist in the development of chronic pain services through the Department of Medical Specialties. Susan teaches a course called Embodiment: A Way to Know Your Patient at Rush University Medical College and in the recent past at the Bioethics and Humanities Department in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Susan is active in the Arts in Health community working with Rush Generations; a wellness program through the Social Work and Community Health Department at Rush University Medical Center. Susan and the studentsa (arts in health minor) received the Community Engagement Award by the organization in 2017.

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