Get Unstuck through Movement Therapy with LCPC Erica Hornthal

Sep 16 2024 • 51 mins

In this episode, you'll hear:

How dance and movement therapy connects us to the present and disconnects us from the worry
The different types of movement therapy and how Erica helps people overcome insecurities
Why Erica created the 52 Movement Therapy Cards
Practical ways to tune with your body today and A.C.E. your mental health

Erica Hornthal is known as "The Therapist Who Moves You." She is a board-certified dance and movement therapist, a licensed clinical professional counselor, and the founder and CEO of Chicago Dance Therapy in Chicago, Illinois. Erica grew up in New Jersey and is an only child who has been independent and wise beyond her years. She was also a rather anxious child who fell in love with dance at a young age. That love of dance taught her how to be in her body rather than ruminate in her thoughts.

On July 4, 2022, a mass shooter targeted a parade in downtown Highland Park, Illinois, killing seven people and physically wounding 48 others. During this time when Erica was offering crisis counseling services to survivors and those impacted by the tragedy, she found the devastation, terror, and utter disbelief on people’s faces were surpassed only by the rigidity, constriction, and tension present in their bodies. It became clear to her that people seeking emotional support, as well as the volunteers, had one thing in common that nobody was addressing—their nervous systems were in utter distress. They needed to relearn how to feel safe in the moment and safe in their bodies. This realization led her to create her 52 Movement Therapy cards, which can be incorporated into a daily somatic ritual or pulled as needed in times of stress, worry, or dissociation. Movement precedes thought patterns and therefore can help us create new thought patterns. It can teach us how to stop overthinking and start deeply feeling, allowing us to move through those feelings. If you are stuck, metaphorically or literally, the only way to get unstuck is to move.

In this episode, Mathew and Erica discuss the story of the body and why the way we move has such an impact on how we feel and how we act. Erica tells us what movement therapy looks like in her practice, how she helps people overcome their insecurities, and how becoming more aware of your body empowers you to develop a better understanding of your feelings. Erica explains movement therapy is for anyone who feels like they have reached a plateau in traditional forms of psychotherapy, don't know how to find the words to express how they are feeling, or do not have access to formal language.

“If you want to change the way you think, you have to change the way you move.”

Follow the podcast: