#103 Amber Elizabeth Gray on dancing our way to justice
“Movement is human experience - from the act that creates us, lovemaking, to how we’re born, to stretching to mass migration.
The human experience is one of movement and movement is very deeply wound with breath. Movement is much more satisfying and tends to be more authentically expressed when our breath is part of it. They can become separated or segregated in fear, trauma, distress and overwhelm. So breath, movement, and dance are the continuum that dance movement therapy works with. It’s available and accessible and I think helpful to everyone. ”
Movement forms the basis of life, weaving together components of the wider ecosystem to keep regenerative capacity of our planet intact. Yet, systems of oppression restrict, fragment and control this creative life-force, stripping us away from the very experience that make us human.
How can movement-based psychotherapeutic practice revive the natural rhythms and flows in the systems of our bodies so we can live freely and wildly? In what ways can movement like dance offer us pathways to restorative justice that extend from the liberation of humans to the more-than-human world?
In this month’s episode, we bring onto the show Dr. Amber Elizabeth L. Gray, an internationally recognized psychotherapist, educator, humanitarian worker, and author whose work bridges embodiment, trauma, human and planetary rights, and restorative practice. For more than three decades, she has worked alongside survivors of war, torture, displacement, and collective trauma, while teaching clinicians, organizations, and communities around the world.
Amber is the creator of Polyvagal-Informed Restorative Movement Psychotherapy (RMP), an embodied clinical framework that has evolved through more than twenty-five years of practice, teaching, mentorship, and inquiry. She has been teaching internationally since 2003 and is a founding member of the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs, an inaugural member of the Polyvagal Institute Editorial Board, and the recipient of the American Dance Therapy Association's Outstanding Achievement Award for her humanitarian work.
Whether leading international trainings, mentoring clinicians, facilitating immersive retreats, or working with individuals in psychotherapy, Amber remains guided by a simple conviction: the restorative process is both deeply personal and profoundly collective. Her work invites people to rediscover belonging, cultivate compassionate presence, and restore reciprocity and relationship—with themselves, one another, and the living world.
This episode explores Amber’s work around dance movement therapy, taking a closer focus on the themes of her most recent book Polyvagal-informed restorative movement psychotherapy: roots, rhythms and reciprocity.
What will be covered:
Amber learnt how to dance with the world around her and in her from a very young age
Dance movement therapy as a somatic creative arts therapy that everyone can access, not performance-driven
Human experience as movement-based e.g. rhythm of heartbeat connecting to many systems in the body, lovemaking, birth, migration
How trauma disrupts natural movements in the body
Stretching being a good gateway into becoming comfortable with dance movement
Amber’s journey from anti-colonial psychotherapeutic dance movement practice to decolonial practice
How Amber was able to shape her approach through peer learning and dismantling own assumptions to make practice more accessible and relatable to clients
Polyvagal-informed restorative movement psychotherapy: roots, rhythms and reciprocity: Healing through platforming stories/voices for the human and more-than-human
Amber’s shift in focus from human-focused psychotherapy to tending to the needs of the more-than-human and Mother Earth
Learning from the more-than-human as one of the youngest species e.g. Amber’s whale retreats to connect to the wisdom keepers of the ocean
More-than-human rights extending to domesticated animals
Episode resources:
Discover Amber’s work on her website: www.ambergray.com
Connect with Amber on Instagram @restorativeresources
Read Amber’s most recent book Polyvagal-informed restorative movement psychotherapy: roots, rhythms and reciprocity
Read Amber’s paper on Polyvagal-Informed Dance/Movement Therapy for Trauma
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Mind Full of Everything is a podcast calling for the radical healing of the self and community to outgrow the broken dominant culture of radical individualism and disconnection from our place as interdependent beings, so that we can collectively re-envision a safer, healthier and equitable world. Each episode takes a healing-centric approach to explore the embodied ways in which we can collectively restore and transform our journeys as stewards of community and earth through conversations with writers, researchers, coaches and educators, as well as reflection episodes with the host Agrita Dandriyal on her journey navigating the world as a deeply conscious, culturally-rooted and relational being. Learn more here.
