Participant-Responses.xlsx

I interviewed thirteen women-identifying dancers between the ages of 20 and 37, all of whom have trained at a pre-professional level or have danced professionally and feel that they have experienced a positive shift in their relationship with dance. To understand the shifts in dancers’ self-conceptions over time and measure the effects of their re-exposure to new dance environments, I first needed to identify the specific beliefs they held before their positive re-exposures. At the end of each of my interviews, I asked participants to complete a standardized Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) worksheet. EMDR is a popular psychotherapeutic intervention used to help patients fully process maladaptively stored memories of trauma. EMDR aims to target negative core beliefs and facilitate an adaptive shift. The list of negative cognitions encompasses the overarching core beliefs that have been identified in trauma patients (Shapiro 2017). These core beliefs serve as an apt framework for identifying the deeply held negative beliefs dancers have adopted as a result of their training or professional careers. Cognitions are categorized into four subgroups: Self-Defectiveness, Responsibility, Safety/Vulnerability, and Control/Choice.

Participants were prompted to reflect upon the time when their relationship with dance was most emotionally challenging and asked to identify the negative cognitions that they held to be true during that period.

In Shapiro's model, an ‘adaptive shift’ – a successful reprocessing – has occurred once the individual resonates with the opposite positive cognition: for example, a shift from the belief that “I am not safe” to “I am safe now.” After having participants identify the negative cognitions that they held to be true during the most emotionally challenging period of their training, they were asked to indicate if they currently perceive the opposite, positive cognitions as core beliefs in the present. Remarkably, the overall rate of adaptive shifts was 69%. Specific cognitions showed very high adaptive shift rates. For example, all nine participants who selected “I am powerless” as a previously held belief reported currently believing the statement “I have choices now.” Other cognition’s shift rates remained relatively low in comparison. Of the thirteen participants who selected “I am not good enough,” only three currently resonate with the belief that “I am good enough.”