How the body tells the story: Using the nonverbal cues of trauma between mothers and toddlers to mark change in maternal attitudes during Clinician-Assisted Videofeedback Exposure Sessions (CAVES)

Suzi Tortora^1,2Daniel Scott Schechter^3,4*

• ¹Dancing Dialogue Healing & Expressive Arts, Cold Spring, New York, United States
• ²Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, United States
• ³Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland
• ⁴Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland

This paper aims to examine what a form of video-based analysis of non-verbal communication: "Dyadic Attachment-based Nonverbal Communicative Expressions (DANCE)" can reveal about change in the bodies of interpersonal violence-exposed mothers who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The latter coding system developed by a dance/movement therapist (first author) was applied to video excerpts from a videofeedback-and exposure-based intervention. This intervention "Clinician Assisted Videofeedback Exposure Session(s) (CAVES)", developed by a child and adolescent psychiatrist (second author) involves the filming of mother-infant/child interactions. It has empirically shown change in these mothers' perception of their young children, as expressed verbally, but has not yet been examined for accompanying changes of behavior. Following an introduction to the theoretical premises and historical context of both DANCE and CAVES and the manualized 16-session psychotherapy based on the CAVES, Clinician Assisted Videofeedback Exposure Approach Therapy or "CAVEAT," (Schechter, 2024), two case-vignettes of two mothers that went through the CAVES with their toddlers are presented with their changes in body tone, posture, gestures and facial expression coded by two case-naïve raters including the first author. Implications emerging from these examples for further research will be explored to look 1) at how the DANCE video micro-analysis tool might be applied to the study of progress and outcome by therapists during CAVES/CAVEAT Treatment as it is currently manualized; and 2) how more body-focused therapeutic techniques might further enhance the CAVES/CAVEAT model in future manualized versions and related research.