Mirroring, an exercise practiced in Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT), is considered by practitioners and patients to enhance emotional understanding and empathy for others. Mirroring involves imitation by the therapist of movements, emotions, or intentions implied by a client's movement, and is commonly practiced in order to enhance empathy of the therapist for the client. Despite enthusiastic claims for its effectiveness, a clear theoretical framework that would explain the effects of mirroring on empathy has not yet been presented, and empirical research on the topic is generally lacking. In this review, we propose that mirroring in DMT enhances understanding of others’ emotional intentions through enhanced use of mirror neuron circuitry. Research on the mirror neuron system (MNS) suggests that the brain areas involved in perception and production of movement overlap, and that these brain areas are also involved in the understanding of movement intention (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). One important route to emotion recognition involves a neural simulation of another person's emotional actions in order to infer the intentions behind those actions, and empathize with them. Future research is proposed in order to systematically explore the effectiveness of mirroring in dance therapy, the neural mechanisms behind it, and its applicability to patient populations who have problems with empathy.
It has been hypothesized that unconscious and automatic imitation of another's motor processes, referred to as mimicry, modulates emotional understanding through muscle feedback to the brain (Berrol, 2006, Dimberg and Petterson, 2000, LeDoux, 2003, Levenson et al., 1990, Livingstone et al., 2009 and Molnar-Szakacs and Overy, 2006). Mirroring, which involves imitating qualities of movement, is an exercise employed in Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT) to enhance emotional understanding between a therapist and client or among members of a group (Adler, 1970, Berrol, 2006 and Mills and Daniluk, 2002). DMT is a form of therapy which focuses on movement behavior as it emerges in the therapeutic relationship, in order to promote emotional, cognitive, physical, and social functioning (ADTA, 2010). Mirroring occurs when two people make similar body movements that are coordinated or slightly echoed in time. The therapist may echo the exact movements of a client, or may imitate the quality of the movement; for example, if a client is moving with a slumped posture, the therapist may adopt these movement qualities as well. The DMT is trained in movement analysis, and is able to study a client's movements, and extract and imitate particular movement qualities. At the finest level, the client may be unaware that imitation is occurring, and at its most obvious level, exact movements are imitated or movement themes are exaggerated. The end result is an enhanced degree of somatic and emotional understanding in the therapist for the client. The client may also be encouraged to engage in mirroring for the purpose of enhancing empathy in the client for others. The effects of mirroring on empathy enhancement are considered important by DMT therapists, but have not been extensively researched (Berrol, 2006 and Mills and Daniluk, 2002). A critical examination of the underlying mechanisms involved in mirroring and empathy has the potential to provide insights that may be used to enhance the effectiveness of DMT.
Growing research suggests the presence of neural circuitry called the mirror neuron system (MNS) that is activated to a similar extent when an individual performs or simply observes an action (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004), leading some researchers to believe that the same processes underlie movement production and perception. This system appears to be sensitive to the intentionality of movement (Rizzolatti, Fogassi, & Gallese, 2001), responding similarly for different movement patterns where the intention is unequivocally the same. The present paper proposes a neuropsychological model, involving motor simulation and the MNS, which can elucidate the benefits of mirroring in DMT on empathy. This model leads into suggestions for future research and possible clinical applications.
