Joy Kearney - Profile



I am a Registered Dance Movement Psychotherapist and over the past seven years, I have worked with wide ranging populations from frail elders to teenagers, adults with autism to young children.

My approach to dance movement therapy reflects my life’s learning process to date.
  • It is informed by adult learning principles as I began my professional life as a teacher.
  • It rests upon the foundations of humanistic psychology; my understanding of group work grew from running co-counselling groups.
  • I have been working as a Management Consultant for the past 20 years and from this I have learnt the importance of understanding and questioning the wider system.
  • Personal therapy and co-counselling have given me a deep understanding and appreciation of psychodynamic forces.
  • I have completed a four year advanced training with Paul Rebillot, founder of the School of Gestalt and Experiential Teaching. This has given me an appreciation of gestalt process and the use of myth to embody life stories which is informing my movement therapy work.
  • I have also trained and worked closely with Dr. Sandra Reeve, Senior Registered Dance Movement Psychotherapist. Her “Move into Life” non-stylised movement work has taught me to fully embody my movement practice, to see everyone from their potential, to appreciate the healing power of moving in the natural environment and to trust the wisdom of the body.
I bring to my work a fully embodied sense of safety, warmth, sensitivity, joy and fun, a talent for incorporating imagery and metaphor and a love of working in the natural environment.

For the last two years I have co-facilitated Fairy Tales in the Woods/Forest with Maya Cockburn and we are running the workshop in Dorset again in July 2011. Click here for details.

Contact Joy by e-mail or on +44 (0)7860 261355