Vancouver Museum of Anthropology UBC

Vancouver Museum of Anthropology UBC
Another mask...

Friday 10 September 2010

What's going on...

I work with an NHS Trust in West Yorkshire (see profile) as a part-time Dance Movement Psychotherapist. I have been doing this for 5 years now. I work in 3 day centres and on an 'acute assessment & treatment ward' at Calderdale Royal Hospital. I love what I do which is to use music, movement, dance, song, reminiscence and drama within a rehabilitative or remedial context, supporting older people 're-member' parts of themselves that they may think and/or feel they have lost access to or forgotten. Following 9 years of doctoral study & research at Roehampton University I was able to place myself and the work in a context related to what has gone before, from the early pioneers of Dance Movement Psychotherapy, to the pioneers in the field of Dementia Care practice today.

I like to think I am 'Building Bridges of Understanding' between people, between the 'known' & the 'not-yet-known', as people with dementia have so much to teach the rest of us about what it means to be fully human, living life to the full, in spite of this woundedness. As Peter Ashley says, 'I am living with dementia, not dying from it'! On with the dance!! More when we land in Toronto.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Richard,
    Good to see you have a blog up and running. I have recently set mine up and have started posting items aimed at my colleagues at Somerset Care. It is in preparation for my Winston Churchill Travel to Canada and the US next month. (andrewlarpent.blogspot.com)
    If you are going to Vancouver you might consider getting touch with the Center for Personhood in Dementia at the University of British Columbia. I am in touch with Dr Deborah O'Connor the Director and am hoping to meet some of her colleagues during a short stopover in Vancouver. See www.crpd.ubc.ca
    Regards Andrew

    ReplyDelete
  2. Richard!
    You are an inspiration...I am about to embark on my own choreographic journey of De Mentis: Silent Stories I,II and III which I hope to be able to share with you upon your return. I will certainly keep in touch with your updates...wishing you an enriching journey!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have featured your blog in my own www.livedbody-embodiedlife.com, see here:
    http://www.livedbody-embodiedlife.com/2010/09/dancing-doctor-and-his-adventures.html
    Regards

    ReplyDelete
  4. A problem I see with dementia is not so much for those that are living with it but for those who are living with a person who is living with it. Some times, for them, it can be frustrating and devastating.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @ richetal65: a fantastic book I read on the very subject is Andrea Gillies',The Keeper...brilliant!

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/01/andrea-gillies-mother-in-law-alzheimers

    ReplyDelete