This book focuses on Somatic Movement Dance Therapy and the importance of self-regulation and co-regulation.  The chapters attend to self-regulating different tissues through movement, breath, sound and the imagination.

Throughout the book the author shares processes and practices that support participants to balance their living tissues, moving from sympathetic arousal into parasympathetic ease and release. The study of the autonomic nervous system and how to innervate the parasympathetic through breath awareness, heart-sensing and intero-ception is the central through-line in the book.

Uniquely, Williamson attends to the anatomical and physiological complexity underlying the apparent simplicity of somatic movement dance practice. How to sense-perceive and move with attuned awareness of specific body tissues, such the skeletal-muscular and craniosacral system invites the reader into a deep anatomical and physiological excavation of self-regulation. The interconnectivity of fascia, and the importance of cardio-ception, breath awareness and gravity lie at the heart of this book. Sensory-perceptual awareness of the heart is foregrounded as the most important ingredient in the efficacy of practice, as well as gravi-ception, soft-tissue-rolling and fascial unwinding.

Includes a collective foreword from Sarah Whatley, Daniel Deslauriers, Celeste Snowber and Karin Rugman 

This is a must-read practice-as-research book, for under- and postgraduate students, researchers and educators and especially important for practitioners who feel the weight and condescension of the mechanistic paradigm.

"

Dr. Amanda Williamson is a master teacher and opens up a deeply pedagogical space for understanding on multiple levels, with the sensitivity of an open heart and a poetic eye.  This book will be a companion for me and for chiropractors, dancers, somatic therapists, doctors, philosophers, educators, body workers, musicians, therapists and all those who want to nurture the body, mind and soul will find this a magnificent resource.

"

An exceptional artist and compassionate teacher, Amanda Williamson brings a rigorously researched knowledge of the body to this book. The wisdom she has gained through her many years of practice infuses her writing: she shares her insights with generosity and sensitivity. It will be a primary source for all those interested in how to tune the body’s sensory-perceptual pathways to support a profoundly holistic approach to health and well-being.