Authentic Movement is a self-guided, body-referenced, and movement-centered awareness practice in which there is a mover and a witness. With eyes closed, the mover listens to, and follows an inner impulse to move in the presence of an accepting witness. Movement may arise from sensation, image, memory, thought, and/or direct experience. Authentic Movement helps individuals align with and move from their essential truth in the presence of another, strengthen their ability to track embodied experience, and practice self-referencing speech as a means to bring to consciousness their body’s wisdom.

Authentic Movement is a simple, but rich form developed from the work of Mary Starks Whitehouse who was interested in helping people find a way to move from a deep truth. Inspired by her work with Carl Jung and depth psychology, she integrated a type of free association in movement that she named Movement in Depth, which was later named Authentic Movement by Janet Adler.

“Any change has to come through consciousness, awareness, first of one’s actual condition and second of possible meaning of that condition.” -Mary Starks Whitehouse