Disorder-specific motion behavior in the process of a psychotherapeutic-psychosomatic therapy

Background: Mental disorders, e.g. affective disorders, also find their expression in body and motion based symptoms. (Michalak et al., 2009). The international classification systems of psychological disorders, e.g. the ICD-10 by the WHO (Dilling et al, 2011), defines body and motion based symptoms for numerous disorders. Body and motion based therapeutic concepts gain more and more attention in psychotherapeutic-psychosomatic complex therapy. (Heimbeck et al., 2011). Thereby the diagnosis of motion behavior can often not be objectified and the therapeutic allocation and approach often stay intuitive and eclectic, although motion-analytic concepts exist e.g. the categorical motion analysis according to Laban.

Methods: A sample of n = 52 patients from the general day-care hospital of the clinic and polyclinic for psychotherapy and psychosomatic of the Universitätsklinikum Dresden performed standardized motion tasks from the „Bewegungsanalyse Skalen und Test“ BAST (Lausberg, 1998) based on the motion analysis according to Laban. Thereof n = 39 patients replicated the examination at the end of the therapy, on an average 11 weeks later. Certified raters valued the motion behavior on BAST scales.

Outlook: Aim of statistical analysis is on the one hand to explore connections between motion behavior and psychological disorders respectively variables and to identify typical motion based features of certain disorders. Furthermore the processes of motion based features within psychotherapeutic-psychosomatic complex therapy should be investigated. So it is possible to investigate the usability of features from motion behavior as possible secondary success factors in a psychotherapeutic-psychosomatic complex therapy and also to evaluate motion-therapeutic interventions in the usual therapy in manner of ex-post-facto, to facilitate selective allocations of motion-therapeutic interventions later.

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