Trudi Schoop's dance therapy

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Trudi Schoop · 1948 · Los Angeles, USA

What it is

Trudi Schoop (born 9 October 1903, Zürich; died 14 July 1999, Los Angeles) was a Swiss dancer, mime, choreographer and cabaret performer, often called a female Charlie Chaplin. She toured her comic dance pantomimes internationally in the 1930s and performed with the Cabaret Cornichon during the…

Format

• No published phase model by Schoop is available; her book (1974; German 1981) and Levy's 1988 chapter on her, the likeliest places for one, have no open text. A 1994 Ewha Womans University thesis reviewed the early pioneers (Chace, Evan, Espenak, Whitehouse, Schoop). It identified three stages…
• Emotional warm-up. Goal: let feeling enter movement through rhythm, dynamics, posture and shared group movement.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Professional frame. This is DMT, a graduate-level discipline; ADTA treats the master's degree as the field's terminal degree. Use the method only within that training: in the USA, ADTA credentials (R-DMT, BC-DMT); in the UK, membership of ADMP UK (dance movement psychotherapy); in Germany, the BTD. Psychotherapists without DMT training should not run fantasy improvisation or touch-based work with psychotic…
• What it is. Trudi Schoop (born 9 October 1903, Zürich; died 14 July 1999, Los Angeles) was a Swiss dancer, mime, choreographer and cabaret performer, often called a female Charlie Chaplin. She toured her comic dance pantomimes internationally in the 1930s and performed with the Cabaret Cornichon during the Second World War. She then settled in Los Angeles and began dancing with psychiatric patients at Camarillo, one…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Overload from too many changes. It is working when the patient starts movements of their own outside the old range.
• Unsteadiness, pallor, breathlessness, or agitation-driven speed. Stop the movement, seat the patient, and get medical help if needed.
• Patients leaving still aroused. Extend grounding and inform staff. It is working when the ending is calm and patients anticipate the next session.
• Movement observations are clinical impressions. They are not diagnostic evidence of a disorder, abuse or trauma history, and must not be reported as such.
• Patients freezing when it is their turn. Allow "pass" or "same as the last person". It is working when patients watch and answer each other rather than only the therapist.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.