Milly Day: Dancing Towards Recovery – The Power of Movement in Addiction Treatment

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:00] Milly Day, welcome to the podcast.

Milly Day [00:03] Thank you for having me again, second time around.

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:07] So, yeah, the first time we discussed, you had a business, you were involved in a business that was about travel. You know, travel is a rehab alternative for people with addiction issues who needed help. And rather than going to rehab or going to other formal, traditional types of treatment, they could go with you on a traveling expedition, you know, to Spain or to other areas of the world and get out of their environment. And it was an incredible idea just that really resonated with a lot of people, even today, a lot of people listening back to that episode. And unfortunately, you were confronted with the biggest world war of all times, you know, humanity versus a virus and all travel stopped. And, you know, I can imagine that it was probably impossible to keep that going at the time. And I know that now you have something new going on. So, you know, we’re back again. And so, yeah, tell me all about it. Tell me what you’re working on now.

Milly Day [00:59] OK, so, yeah, it was a real shame that I wasn’t able to continue the recovery trekking because, as you probably gathered from the last podcast I did with you, I was so passionate about the idea. I just thought it was a brilliant idea. I thought it could have helped so many people. When I did the trek myself, I found it extremely therapeutic. It’s that combination of being out in nature you know the spiritual setting of the Camino de Santiago being with other people in recovery you know the connection I thought it just made it the most wonderful program for recovery but unfortunately yeah Covid came and sort of stole that away from us and I decided that I didn’t want to just sit twiddling my thumbs waiting for something new to come along so I decided to embark on a three-year master’s in dance and movement psychotherapy so I think this is probably more widely recognized actually in the states than it is in other parts of the world you know here I say that’s what I do and people just often look at me with a kind of bewildered expression but anyway it’s a wonderful tool for healing it’s been especially I found it to be especially effective for addicts. I’ve been working in a treatment centre now since 2020, actually. I managed to get work in 2020, which was quite remarkable. I mean, I did actually reach out to quite a few other places. I probably sent about 60 emails in total. And one of the few places that responded with a yes was this treatment centre in Wiltshire. So, yeah, the sort of south-west of England. And I was amazed because everybody else had been saying sorry we’re not accepting trainees because of COVID but they gave me the opportunity and it’s just turned out to be such a success I’m the first person to have done or to be doing dance and movement psychotherapy I’m going to call it DMP because that’s such a mouthful so I’m the first person to yeah to be doing DMP at this rehab and I recently started working in another rehab so I’m doing two they’re both very different and yeah it’s just been really really fascinating because I’ve seen such a transformation in people and bear in mind the first rehab where I started working most clients aren’t there for very long you know most clients are there for sort of four to six weeks sometimes a bit longer and they don’t have to come to my sessions they have to do something in the afternoon but they have a choice between dmp creative writing and exercise for well-being so sometimes they come to mine sometimes they go to something else and so I don’t necessarily see clients for a long period of time or over a long period of time but even just within the space of an hour I sometimes get the privilege of seeing them transform so as you can tell I’m very passionate about this as well yeah and this is what I hope to be doing for the rest of my life not necessarily with addicts although I do think it’s particularly effective with them because a lot of the time in early recovery people tend to be quite disconnected from their bodies and I know from personal experience that you know people you know myself included spend a lot of time in their heads especially if my program slips if I am not practicing my recovery on a daily basis I can really go into my head and this is just a really wonderful way of connecting the mind and the body and helping people come out of their busy minds and into their bodies and listening to feelings as opposed to thoughts the entire time so yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [04:55] It sounds great now now it seems like you know there’s a lot of people that are don’t do any kind of dance they’ve never danced I mean there’s people that are either introverted shy or maybe don’t feel as connected to their body as other people do you know maybe people with certain mental health disorders where they, I don’t know, possibly people on the autism spectrum, I don’t know if I’m saying that right, the spectrum, but also, you know, a variety of conditions and people who may just have, you know, there’s a thing from brain injury, like we talked about before we started, people who have taken psych drugs or benzodiazepines for years, and they end up in a protracted withdrawal syndrome where they feel derealization, depersonalization, they feel disconnected from reality to some degree, and you know and maybe they’re not comfortable with the idea of you know I know me personally you know it’d be like saying you know throwing a cat in the pool I’d be like get you know no way I’m not going near a dance floor a dance class or anything like that but is this something like people who have absolutely no rhythm or sense their rhythm or dance can can benefit from or get involved in

Milly Day [06:02] Yeah absolutely I always say to people that really it’s not about dancing as much as it is about connecting to the body so I’ve had sessions where we spend the whole time seated or even lying down and you know even breath is movement we’re moving the whole time so it’s not necessarily about jumping around the room you know flailing your limbs and dancing in the conventional sense it’s much more about connecting to the body identifying sensations and then working with those sensations and I say to people you know there is no way you can get this wrong it’s not about being a good dancer it’s not about performing it’s definitely not about looking aesthetically pleasing it’s much more about getting your needs met through movement and that might mean not much movement at all it might mean just sitting you know hands on the body breathing I like to do a lot of self-touch to help people become aware of their bodies also it’s a good way if you find yourself going into your head just to come back into the body and you know most people the vast majority of people come through the door saying I feel nervous I feel self-conscious I feel anxious very few people come in sort of brimming with confidence so my mantra has always been you know safety and comfort safety and comfort how can I create a space where people feel safe feel comfortable to express whatever they need to express and not feel judged and I also let people know that more often than not the only people judging them are themselves you know I don’t I don’t see people looking at one another judging each other all that judgment comes from within and it’s towards the person you know towards yeah the only people that we judge are ourselves most of the time so I always say to people at the start you know see if you can let go of some of that self-judgment and that’s often the hardest thing for people and that’s why people come in quite inhibited quite reluctant to move but that’s at the start of the session and usually by the end you see something quite different so over the course of the hour people I think the music obviously helps and people bounce off one another’s energy and you just see people start to relax and enjoy themselves and they’re usually surprised by how much they enjoy themselves or how much they get it’s not necessarily about enjoyment it’s about getting something from the session and so they might come in saying I don’t think this is for me but my counsellors told me to give it a go and by the end they’ve they’ve kind of been surprised by how moved they’ve been by their own experience or by the experience of the group so it’s really powerful stuff you know people hear dance they think oh it’s just going to be you know I think they think it might be sort of something quite trivial quite silly and it can be silly by the way it can be silly it can be child like that’s part of the joy of it for me is seeing people’s inner child come out but it can also be really profound work you see people connect to you know emotions that have been deeply buried for so long and I always say that all emotions are welcome in the space so tears tantrums I encourage people to swear if that’s what they want to do you know I say there really are no rules there is no right or wrong and I give people that freedom that choice and I think you know for addicts that’s so important because freedom and choice are things that they tend to have lost and a lot of people say that they say that it’s just so wonderful to have a space where they can just be themselves they aren’t restricted they aren’t inhibited or you know at least not by anybody other than themselves and they can just be random as one client puts it you know they can just move how they want to move or not move and just be and enjoy that freedom to yeah just express themselves however they want to so I

Dr. Mark Leeds [10:03] I think there you know there must be something to it like some you know scientific basis because I’ve never practiced tai chi or yoga or any of those kind of things but if I pretend I’m doing one of them even though I have no idea what I’m doing, like do some poses, put my arms in the air or something, it changes the way I feel. You know, I feel like I’m doing something that, you know, I feel like I’m doing like a real thing, even if it’s made up, you know, like there’s actually a change of, you know, I guess like mindset or frame of mind or feeling or perspective by, you know, moving yourself around the space, you know, kind of twirling around, putting your arms out in different ways and moving in different ways. So now some someone in their own room right now could try that like oh why don’t I just stand up and move around and move my arms around you know and even if I don’t no one’s told me what to do but I can just pretend I know what I’m doing I’m not gonna hurt anything you know can’t you know it’s harmless but I’m sure there’s also some some direction you know that like once you get beyond you know you get a room full of people and now you tell them you know feel comfortable you can move in any way you want you know whatever you’re able to tolerate what comes next like what as far as the therapy part of it

Milly Day [11:14] Well so I don’t I don’t start the session quite like that what I would normally do is start with a warm-up so there is a structure there’s freedom but you know there’s a structure and within that structure people are free to move how they want but I do start with a warm-up and I like to start with the feet simply because it’s the furthest point from the busy chattering mind yeah and I always stretch my feet in a particular way or move my feet in a particular way and I say to clients you know feel free to copy me or feel free to do your own thing with your feet you know listen to what your feet want how do they want to move today notice how they’re feeling notice what they’re asking for you know and a lot of the time people do just copy what I’m doing which is absolutely fine and then we slowly move up the body until we get to the head and then we do a little bit of shaking just to shake out any residual tension tapping is also a really good one just for bringing life into the body and so once people have done the warm-up they’re already feeling a little bit looser a little bit more inclined to move and they also have a better idea of how they’re feeling once they’ve spent that bit of time connecting to their bodies they have a clear idea of how they’re feeling you know on an emotional level so then we do a check-in and I say to people okay so how are you feeling today at this moment in time you know not this morning or you know any time before now how are you feeling right now and I ask them if there’s anything they want to get from the session if they have any goals or expectations and it might be as simple as I’m feeling tense I’d like to release some tension or it could be you know I’m feeling so much confusion I would like some clarity it could be anything really again there’s no right or wrong with the check-in and then once we do that you know my job is not to tell people what to do or teach them anything you know people so often refer to it as a dance class and I always say this is not a class I’m not a teacher I’m a facilitator I’m here to hold space for you I do play music because I think without music it would be very hard for people to begin moving I also let them know it’s not about moving in time with the music they’re free to move however they want I also let them know that music can bring up emotion of course and then really it’s a process of self-discovery so then my role is to observe I carry on moving the whole time just so that I don’t feel like a voyeur my role is to observe and also to build relationships with people through movement. So I might go approach a person and start attuning to their movements. Mirroring is a very common technique in DMP. We’re essentially copying the person’s movement. And that is a way of connecting with them, but it’s also a way of validating their movements, showing them it’s okay to move like this. You know, you’ve got a right to move this way. It’s okay. But as I say every session yeah every session is so totally different because it really depends what the person’s bringing what mood they’re in who’s in the room how many there are last week I had a session of five men and one of them had been before and the others hadn’t and they were very you could see in their bodies they were very bound quite rigid and so if I just said right do what you want I think they’d have all just frozen so in those situations sometimes it helps to be a bit more directive and one of these clients just was throwing an orange up and down in the air he must have had an orange in his coat pocket or something so I suggested we pass the orange round in a circle and then it turned into a game of piggy in the middle and then the whole session was just one big game of piggy in the middle firstly with an orange which then broke we had to use an apple which then also broke so there were bits of fruit going everywhere but that was quite funny I think that you know I think they appreciated the sort of freedom just to throw fruit around and in the end we did use a normal ball but by the end they looked so much more relaxed one of them in particular you know just looked so much more relaxed and his his whole faces softened his whole demeanor was just completely different to how it was at the start so you might listen to that and think well that doesn’t sound like therapy but actually you know for those clients they said to me later on you know how much they had enjoyed and how much they’d got from it just because they were given that freedom to mess about to be silly to let their inner child out and to get some exercise at the same time so yeah I mean not every session is about picking in the middle of fruit but and then I had I had actually also done a one-to-one that morning so I do one-to-ones as well and I’d done a one-to-one with one of the men who was in that group and you know the one-to-one he was in a very different headspace it was very solemn it was quite heavy he didn’t want to get out of his chair every time we tried connecting to the body I you know he would he would start going back into his head and kind of I think he was struggling to really stay present with his feelings. But then I saw a totally different person in the group session that afternoon when we were with those other men playing that game. So, yeah, it varies so much depending on who’s there, you know, what people are bringing. And so the therapy is going to be different each time. But, and that’s what’s so, I mean, at first that’s what terrified me about it. But now that’s what I love about it. You just never know what to expect you know you never know what to expect you can’t plan for it you can’t predict it I couldn’t even tell you what a kind of typical DMP session looks like because every single one is totally different besides that structure that I was describing and then towards the end of the session you know once we’ve had about 45 minutes or so you know freestyle movement we then come to a close with some verbal reflections so we just share our experience the session what it was like you know I’ll ask clients did you manage to achieve your goal if you’d set one if they’d set one sometimes they prefer not to and that’s just a good way of processing and making sense of the experience before we go into a final checkout and then yeah and then they carry on with the rest of their day but you know I love it because at the beginning I felt like I was having to sell this to people constantly try and get people to come along to my sessions but now I’ve noticed happiness people come along and they love it and then they kind of act as an ambassador for me so they go around the house saying oh you must go to one of me sessions next week you know you must try DMP it’s not what you think and yeah I obviously appreciate that

Dr. Mark Leeds [18:04] Yeah when you talk you had mentioned that I think that the people, you know, that trauma or, you know, feelings or emotions come out. And some people, some experts believe that all addiction is rooted in trauma, that there’s some trauma that led to the addiction. And then in yoga, they say that, you know, trauma is stored in certain muscles, like the psoas muscle. And I think there’s another form of yoga where it’s stored in the spine. And so it makes sense by doing movement that you could free up trauma, you know, that you could bring out those feelings and emotions that are trapped and just feel like you’ve kind of gotten them out I mean can you can you talk about that a little bit

Milly Day [18:47] Yeah definitely I mean I think trauma can get stored in various different parts of the body and for each person it’s going to be a little bit different which is why I don’t stand there saying this is how you should move each person is going to move in a way that’s right for them and it’s instinctive so you’re not going to think like my trauma’s stored here therefore I’ll move this part of my body you know the body knows what to do there’s this fantastic book called The Body Keeps the Score which is all about trauma and the body so the body naturally knows what to do and I think it’s really helpful yeah I think it’s really helpful for anybody that’s endured trauma because a lot of the time trauma you know it’s not linear and it’s fragmented and it’s very hard to make sense of and when you speak about it’s it’s hard to make sense in words you know whereas movement can offer a different way of processing the trauma and a different way of expressing it I had one doctor actually who had worked on the covid wards you know in 2020 and he was so traumatized from all the deaths he’d experienced and you could see the way he was holding it in his body again very bound very rigid and he would come along to the sessions and he was someone who was quite comfortable with movement so he wasn’t particularly inhibited in fact he wasn’t inhibited at all and he really did just let his body do the talking and by the end he would just say you know wow I feel like I’ve had such a powerful release and then when he left he told me that those classes or I’m now calling them classes those sessions had given him the opportunity to express what he was unable to express in words. So, you know, he’d been through all this horrific trauma. He really couldn’t open up about it in group therapy. He tried, and apparently every time he tried, he’d just sort of freeze. But he wouldn’t freeze in the DMP sessions. You know, he would move, and it was like the trauma was coming out through movement as opposed to words. But words are also a big part of DMP. You know, I do encourage people to speak if they feel comfortable doing so. By inviting them to keep it relevant to what’s happening in the here and now so not to speak about what they’re going to do post-treatment or what they’re going to have for dinner or anything like that but to just keep it really relevant to their experience in the moment and yeah no I think it’s I think it’s probably most effective for people who have had trauma but as you say a lot of people when they’ve been traumatized they are afraid to connect to the body they’re afraid of what they might feel what they might experience so you have to tread very gently you know you have to kind of approach things carefully and because you don’t want that person to be re-traumatized but again I think the body will never give more than what that person is capable of doing on one particular day so I think if somebody isn’t ready to process all that trauma then they won’t move quite as freely as for example this doctor but yeah like I said it’s really all about letting the body do the talking and I say to people be easy on yourselves don’t push yourselves this isn’t an exercise class this isn’t about you know strenuous activity this is really about just listening to your body and you know it’s it can be a really powerful release but it’s not necessarily about that either because I think some people think oh I’m in here now I have to let go I have to have this release I have to you know jump around and let go of all my tension and actually it’s not necessarily about that so I invite people to let go of all expectations just to come in see what happens not to obviously it’s good to have a goal or an aim but not to be disappointed if they don’t get what they were expecting to get because you never know what you’re going to get but I always think that the experience that you get is the right one for you and that’s what I tell people

Dr. Mark Leeds [22:47] The doctor that you were working with was the doctor trying to overcome a an addiction to alcohol or another drug?

Milly Day [22:58] Alcohol, yeah.

Dr. Mark Leeds [23:01] Okay, which is pretty common. I mean, there’s a lot of mental health issues with doctors, and they can’t talk about it because they’re terrified of being disciplined just for having a mental health issue. So there’s doctors that are suicidal. The suicide rate for doctors is much higher than the general population. Probably the alcoholism and addiction rate is much higher have you worked with other health care professionals

Milly Day [23:28] So many yeah we get so many yeah and they find it very hard to let go of their identity as a doctor or as a health care professional you know a lot of them come in and they continue playing or they try to continue playing the doctor throughout you know their time in treatment yeah and I think a lot of them are just terrified of letting go of the identity because they don’t know who they are beneath it I mean that’s not just the case for doctors but it seems to be especially common in doctors that they are just terrified of getting to know who they are you know underneath the identity of being a doctor yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [24:05] Yeah I wonder if it’s if it might be easier in England for a doctor to get help because I know in the U.S. You won’t you probably almost never see a doctor in rehab, they’re more likely to destroy their career with their addiction and kill themselves. You know, I mean, there are some, but, you know, when you go to like these recovery groups for doctors, you don’t see too many of them there. And, you know, they kind of really keep it, you know, just that their careers are like just really destroyed or they get put into these disciplinary programs where it’s almost impossible to function and get out of again. Or maybe it’s just a social thing that they just don’t want to get help and, you know, because they don’t want to go through that process. I mean, I don’t know. It could be the same where you are. I’m not sure.

Milly Day [24:51] Well, I mean, we’ve seen so many doctors at Clouds. You know, I’ve worked with a lot of doctors. So, I mean, what you’re saying actually makes me feel really sad, you know, about how many of them don’t get help. They’ve just gone to destroy their lives. I don’t think it’s quite the same in the UK. We do also have meetings. There are AA meetings and probably NA meetings as well that are specifically for doctors and dentists. Oh, wow. Yeah. I don’t know much about those, but, there’s certainly, I mean, it might be that in a lot of cases they get sent, you know, by, by their employer. I think a lot of the time the doctors that we get don’t necessarily want to be there. They’ve been, they’ve been ordered to come in, but that’s not always the case. But yeah, no, I’ve seen so many in treatments, so many, probably, possibly more healthcare professionals than any other, you know, any other professional.

Dr. Mark Leeds [25:47] Well, it’s great that they’re getting help and getting a chance to interact with you and have access to this kind of therapy. When you were talking about that not everything can be expressed verbally, it makes a lot of sense because the brain is not verbal. I mean, part of our brain is verbal, but there’s so much more to it. I was imagining someone playing a big piano concerto. I like watching on YouTube these people playing the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto because it’s really incredible and beautiful. But there’s no way that these pianists are sitting there going, OK, A, F sharp, B. I mean, they’re playing so fast and up and down the keyboard with octaves and scales and stuff. I mean, that’s all stored in their fingers. And I mean, I know it’s coming from their brain, but there’s nothing verbal about that. And, you know, so you can imagine the complexity of communication and expressiveness that has nothing to do with verbal communication. Conversation it completely makes sense that movement therapy would be something really important beyond talk therapy

Milly Day [26:46] Yeah definitely a lot of people just find it really hard you know whether they’ve been trauma you know whether they’ve had trauma or not a lot of people just find it very hard to express themselves in words a lot of people find that they can express feelings more effectively through movement or perhaps through art or through drama or music you know I think I’m one of those people I find it a lot easier to express myself through dance and movement than I do through words especially since having COVID I really feel like I had such bad brain fog during COVID and I’m not sure if my brain’s actually fully recovered but my body’s fine you know so I yeah I can I can really empathize with anybody that struggles to express themselves in words and also like I said you know it’s hard to sometimes know how you’re feeling and when I used to do the check-in at the start of those sessions and ask people how they were feeling they’d often look at me like you know like a rabbit in the headlights but once we’d done that warm-up once we’d spent a bit of time connecting to the body they tended to have a clearer idea of how they felt so when they’re sitting there in group therapy in the morning and they’re just expected to talk for an hour and a half about their feelings, I get why they find it hard because a lot of them don’t know how they feel. You know, a lot of addicts in early recovery are so shut off from their feelings. But once you begin to connect with the body and engage with sensations in the body, then you start to understand how you feel. And then you can express those feelings either through words or through movement or both. And actually, I like to do all kinds of creative things in my sessions. You know, I’ve had instruments in there before. Or I’ve brought in props, I’ve brought in, you know, paper and pens, because although it’s dance and movement, I actually think whatever works for you know, this can be a creative session, so it doesn’t necessarily have to involve just dancing and moving. It can be a bit of art, a bit of music, a bit of drama, you know, whatever you want it to be, really. Whatever helps you connect to your body, whatever helps you understand yourself better and express yourself more easily. And that’s another thing that I love about it. It’s so non-prescriptive. It’s really just how can you help? How can you empower this client? How can you enable this client to get their needs met? And really, that’s why I ended up playing piggy in the middle with fruit last week, because that’s what those clients appear to need in that moment in time. I think if I told my team that’s what I’ve been doing, they might not have been so impressed. But you know what? Sometimes you have to break the rules.

Dr. Mark Leeds [29:23] Yeah. Yeah. And addiction is a really difficult thing that, you know, that, and I think this is why people who are very intelligent and creative tend to get caught up in addiction worse. And that’s why you see a lot of really high functioning people that, you know, who really, and I think they have the hardest time getting into recovery because their best resources of what their brain can do work against them. You know, like if, you know, if you’re a really smart, creative person, you’re going to, you know, you have this addiction thing riding your brain, pulling the string saying, okay, you know how to how to find your way out of this one and, you know, say whatever you have to say to get us back to the drug again. And, you know, I always thought like, you know, if you take this big empty mansion and you hide the drugs or alcohol somewhere, like in a shelf of a closet off in a distant room, and you put the person in front of the door and say, okay, go see if you can go find the drugs. They’ll probably just say like, I don’t even have to go look. I’ll tell you exactly where they are because I figured out where you’re going to hide them already. I mean, the people just, you know, they just become like these brilliant geniuses when it comes to like following their addiction. So now people in that situation have a really hard time recovering. But there’s parts of the brain, I think, or, you know, or parts of us that are not accessible to addiction, you know, like the, that’s why spirituality works so well, because that’s kind of walled off. That’s like a safe space. Addiction can’t cross in there, you know, just like a vampire can’t go in a church or whatever, you know, as soon as it becomes a spiritual situation, you know, you’re safe. The addiction is outside waiting, like they say in meetings. And I think maybe the same thing with movement. It sounds like something that, you know, humor, social connection, you know, communication and being noticed. I mean, that’s another thing, you know, like a person with addiction might feel completely alone. They could even walk into a meeting where people are talking and they’re like, I hate talking. I don’t even want to be a part of this. Seems like they’re all friends and they’re all talking and no one’s looking at me. And so the, you know, the meeting does nothing for them. They isolate, talk themselves out of it. But it seems like you have something going on that also like spirituality gets around the addiction, you know, makes it possible for a person to recover

Milly Day [31:27] Yeah well I think dance dance movement you know I think that is spiritual I think that is you gain access to your spirit through dance through movement because things that are deeply buried in your subconscious come out through the movement you know so you aren’t thinking about it you’re you’re feeling into it so for me it’s always been a very spiritual thing dance movement but yeah what you’re saying just then about somebody walking into a meeting and not being noticed and so the meeting you know doesn’t work for them so well that just reminded me of a client that I’ve been working with recently who absolutely despised group therapy and meetings and any other kind of group group where it was all just about speaking because she’d had quite a bad brain injury and it took her a long time to process what other people were saying and to think about she wanted to say in response and by the time she’d finally figured out how she was going to word it you know things had moved on so she would get so frustrated with herself she’d come out crying you know I really really felt for her really felt for her because I could see how angry she was towards herself and yet this wasn’t her fault you know she had a really nasty brain injury one week her counselor suggested she came to dmp and she did and you I just saw a completely different side of her she was obviously a bit reluctant to come in you know a bit hesitant initially I saw her smile I saw her connect to others her body just seemed to know exactly what to do you know and again you know one of those complete transformations and later on you know clients write journals which which we read because it’s another way of them communicating with us and she wrote that she had had a breakthrough in that session that she’d found something she’d found an outlet you know that she didn’t know that she had access to and she said that later on when she was because she had this real thing about people not noticing her not seeing her not hearing her and yet when you would ask her a question in a group she’d freeze and she’d say, you know, please don’t talk to me. I don’t want to be picked on were often her words. So it was it was hard to help her because she seemed to sort of be begging for attention, but at the same time rejecting it. Anyway, in the session, she had this breakthrough. And then later on, she’d written in her journal that when she was sitting with the other clients in the living room, she didn’t feel like she wasn’t being heard. She didn’t feel like she wasn’t being paid attention to. She just felt comfortable, relaxed and content. And when I read this, I just thought, oh, my gosh. Yes. I mean, it didn’t, you know, there were ups and downs. Sometimes she’d come to sessions and she’d leave crying. And it was, you know, she had she was quite a temperamental individual. And so not always so easy to work with. But I was so pleased that she had found something that worked for her. And actually the art really worked for her as well, because she’s someone who struggles cognitively, but is clearly able to engage in creative means of expression. So the art and the DMP worked really well for her.

Dr. Mark Leeds [34:37] Oh, that’s that’s an incredible story. Incredible case. And it does bring me back to that thought of like, you know, in any kind of group meeting or group situation, well you know whether it’s an addiction meeting or any kind of meeting there’s always those people that dominate the group verbally you know they’re just talking talking to people you know they’re good talkers I don’t know if it’s a right brain left brain thing or what it is but and that’s definitely not me you know if you know if I’m sitting there and people are talking I’m just going to sit there and listen and you know maybe if I had something to say maybe I’ll go and write it later you know I’m not going to try to break into the group and say I’ve got something to say you know because I’ll probably at the time think like what I have to say sounds really stupid or embarrassing or you know let me just let them talk because they sound a lot better than I do yeah

Milly Day [35:26] Snap I do that too

Dr. Mark Leeds [35:27] Yeah yeah so you have all these so now you have like the people getting all the benefits supposedly of the recovery you know that are just talking and talking getting all their thoughts and feelings out and just kind of hijacking the group but what you’re doing they’re that’s it’s completely flipped around here I mean I don’t know if anybody could really dominate a dance group. I mean, they can go off and do some flashy dance moves, but who cares? Because we’re all doing our own thing. And so, yeah, it sounds incredible, you know, because I think people are terrified to go to rehab in some cases, because they’re like, I’m just going to sit there all day in these circle groups of, you know, these annoying people that just keep talking and talking, and I just can’t take any more of that. But to think that there’s something different, something that might be better for a lot of people is great.

Milly Day [36:14] Yeah yeah I think also when people talk this is why you know before we started I was saying I think it’s great that you put these videos on YouTube because when you watch a podcast you can see so much of what’s not being said you know you can see the expressions on people’s faces people’s body language which I think says so much more so often in groups talking groups somebody might be saying something but their body’s saying something completely different because the body doesn’t lie you know the head can lie the mouth can lie but the body does not lie and that’s that’s what I’ve noticed in DMP someone might come in and they’ll say I’m absolutely fine I’m having a great day and it’s just it’s just like well clearly you’re not because you’re standing like this you’re tense as anything and you know you’re you’re saying one thing but your body is just suggesting something totally different so yeah I think it’s a way of people people can be a lot well people are a lot more authentic in movement than they are in talking groups I find

Dr. Mark Leeds [37:13] Do you think this kind of therapy is something that could be useful or accessible like over video like like either in a live video meeting or even recorded

Milly Day [37:23] Yeah do you know you actually earlier in the in the in the interview you asked you mentioned autism or people on the autistic spectrum and I actually my very first placement was with children on the autistic spectrum which which we had to move from I think it was you know one of the many lockdowns we had to move from in-person sessions to online sessions and I thought this is never going to work in a million years I really didn’t have much hope you know it’s quite hard to contain these children when the sessions were in person I thought they’re now in their own homes they’re going to get distracted you know how is this going to work but actually actually it did kind of work I mean it was totally different you couldn’t go in with the same expectations but it does work and it’s now the way that a lot of people practice you know I’ve got a friend who was on my master’s she ended up moving abroad and she’s done a lot of online work and I think personally I’d always rather be in a studio or you know be face to face but I know that for a lot of people it’s preferable to work online or maybe it’s not possible to work face to face I think there are probably advantages and disadvantages to both but yeah it definitely can work more so than you’d perhaps think I mean people even do over the phone you know my tutor when we when we were when I was studying you know she would say that she’s had some of her most powerful sessions just over the phone which again I can’t imagine but there we go.

Dr. Mark Leeds [39:02] Yeah. And also I was thinking of, you know, this is something that I think would be greatly beneficial to, you know, like we had discussed before people with, you know, other brain injury issues, you know, like what they call toxic encephalopathy, people that have been injured by taking maybe antidepressants for a long time, and maybe they weren’t tapered off properly, or people that have been injured by benzodiazepines, which we now know are much more toxic to the brain than anyone ever thought they were. You know, we used to think these are totally safe because they don’t kill people, but, you know, there’s damage that can be caused without killing a person. You know, the, so the benzos we now know in the last couple of years are highly toxic and people get stuck with these protracted withdrawal syndromes. And they, and they, in most cases with the benzo issue, there’s no addiction whatsoever. It’s all, I mean, sometimes family members might, might think there’s an addiction issue and there’s not. They sometimes do get sent to compulsory rehab. They’re forced into rehab. They’re forced into treatment. They’re forced to do things that are meant for people with addictions when they don’t have an addiction. They’re just suffering with a horrible brain thing going on where they have intestinal symptoms. Some people call it benzo belly where they have gas and bloating and all these other things. They have increased histamine sensitivity where they have horrible allergy symptoms. And then the worst is akathisia, which is a movement disorder. And that, I think, it almost seems like that might benefit from movement therapy, where akathisia is where a person can’t sit still. Literally, the word means that they can’t sit. They walk around moving their arms and walking around, pacing around. And it’s a horribly uncomfortable thing. Some people describe it as like an inner pain where they can’t say where the pain is, but it’s horribly painful. And some people say that they just want to claw their skin off and peel their skin away. It’s just so uncomfortable. And there’s people that have suffered with it for years at a time, and then they overcome it. But it’s often a cause of suicidal thoughts, because it seems like there’s no way out, no escape, no treatment. But one therapy that I always thought was interesting is controlled aggression, where a person can beat their pillow or put their scream into their pillow really loud and they say with controlled aggression you want to let other people know I’m going to do this because you don’t want I don’t you don’t want them to think you’re hurting yourself or there’s a problem you know but you can like scream into your pillow or scream as loud as you can or punch a punching bag or a you know one of those karate dummies that you can punch or something like that you know not a real person but you know so that kind of reminded me of like you know maybe there’s some connection maybe people with these protracted withdrawal syndromes might benefit, you know, a lot of, in a lot of cases, they’d only want to get out of bed. They don’t want to even think about moving. They don’t want, they just want to be left alone, which might be the worst thing for them. Maybe in a lot of cases, they need to get out. They need to walk a little bit, get out the fresh air, but, you know, and, but maybe with akathisia, even, you know, maybe, you know, something to help them burn the energy off, you know, they say that helps. So it, you know, it seems like, like that there could be a connection there, you know, of people with these other conditions that are not necessarily, and people with addiction, we should also recognize they have brain injury too. They probably also almost certainly have toxic encephalopathy. Their brains have been injured by chemicals. The difference is, you know, whether, you know, someone might say, well, you chose that way, you know, that, you know, this is different, you know, it’s not really different, you know, I mean, you know, it’s like these chemicals damage the brain and then, and addiction is not, you know, it’s a health condition it’s a yeah mental health issue it’s not it’s not a person’s fault once they’re caught up in addiction you know it’s like maybe it’s inherited but you know but these different groups are in the same situation yeah

Milly Day [42:44] Definitely I yeah I haven’t I haven’t come across anyone with any of those conditions that you mentioned which by the way all sound horrific terrific but we do do a lot of I’ve never referred to it as controlled aggression but I guess catharsis in sessions where you know people do just scream shout punch the air punch pillows or obviously you know it’s safe I don’t I don’t allow people to punch each other or the window or the wall or anything you know but you know I think catharsis can be really useful but on the flip side sometimes I’ve noticed it can also wind people up more it can kind of rile them up you know further and a lot of my sessions I’d say the sort of the kind of the you know the core of what DMP is about is acceptance accepting what’s happening in the body not judging it’s really easy for me to say that as someone who’s quite healthy and isn’t experiencing a lot of pain isn’t you know experiencing any of these nasty conditions that you described but if I were to work with someone like that I guess my job would be helping them befriend their body helping them accept and learn to be with what they’re experiencing as opposed to fighting it or trying to get rid of it or trying to but again it’s so easy for me to say that I’m aware because I’m not experiencing the kind of pain that they are but you know I have other things that I don’t like about the way I feel well you know I often experience feelings that I don’t want to feel yeah and you know it’s what recovery is isn’t isn’t it recovery is very much about feeling those feelings, being with those feelings, accepting those feelings. And that’s another reason why I think DMP ties in so well with recovery. It’s so great for addicts because it does teach them to be okay with their feelings. And, you know, I’ve had many sessions where we just sit and we just talk about what’s going on in the body. So a client might come in and say, I’m really anxious. You know, I’ve had this call from my wife and she’s threatening to divorce me or whatever it might be and rather than getting kind of fixated on the narrative I’ll say okay what’s happening in your body right now and they’ll say oh god I’ve got butterflies in my tummy and I’ll say okay let’s just be with those butterflies for a bit shall we and as you know I’m sure you’re probably aware once you sit with the feelings the feelings do eventually pass I know obviously that’s not the case when you’re in a lot of pain but fighting the pain fighting those feelings is of course only going to make it worse so I’m a big advocate for catharsis but I also think sometimes just the simple act of sitting and trying to be with and accept what’s happening what you’re experiencing even if it is really nasty and uncomfortable it’s simple but it’s powerful and

Dr. Mark Leeds [45:31] I would imagine also and you probably have worked with patients in these situations other conditions like and things that are often associated with you know you have these groups of conditions that are in fact now that they’re talking about all these different psychedelic therapies they have a list of standard conditions that seem to respond and addiction is one but then there’s also chronic pain depression anxiety yeah obsessive obsessive compulsive disorder post-traumatic stress disorder I know I don’t migraines would help but you know migraines are usually thrown into that group you know just just this collection of you know nine or twelve you know there’s a list of different conditions that always seem to get grouped together that along with addiction and

Milly Day [46:12] Fibromyalgia isn’t that another one

Dr. Mark Leeds [46:14] Yeah yeah that would be yeah probably a subcategory under chronic pain but yeah definitely fibromyalgia and that is that complex regional pain syndrome which used to be called rsd and but yeah I mean I definitely you know like I was thinking ocd because I get those kind of ocd things of like you know check the door make sure it’s locked then like well let me check it three times let me check a multiple of 12 or something you know like you know like get caught up in these thoughts you know which I think is similar to the it’s an you know another kind of movement disorder you know your brain just feels like you just can’t you don’t feel comfortable until you’ve done this thing and now you feel bad about it and I feel like somehow what you’re doing would help with that

Milly Day [46:56] Yeah you know I’ve never really thought about about the benefits for people with ocd but I think you’re right I think I’ve got a bit of ocd actually I’m always doing things like I’m always straightening out my you know I haven’t actually done it I’ve managed to resist doing it so far in this interview but my boyfriend always takes the piss out of me for pushing back my eyebrows like all the time but again I think you know I do that when I’m in my head I do I have these OCD tendencies which tend to kind of come out or be worse when I’m in my head when I’m in my body that doesn’t happen so again simply by connecting to the body and being with what’s going on in the body rather than attaching to the thoughts I think yeah I think that can be a huge help for people with OCD but as of yet I’ve not actually worked with anyone with OCD at least not to my knowledge no one’s ever brought that to a session but yeah I think just that simple act of connecting to the body could definitely help

Dr. Mark Leeds [47:54] Yeah yeah I imagine like you know probably not now but like in the distant future once they’ve figured out how to how all these psychedelic things work and how they can actually be used therapeutically that there might be a connection there, you know, that right now, you know, the idea is that someone takes a certain amount of psilocybin or MDMA, you know, in a controlled setting with a therapist, but it’s always a talk therapist. And I’m like, well, why talk therapist? Why not? Why not a movement therapist? You know, so that there could be like a, you know, maybe, and then maybe that needs to be studied. They’re doing all these studies now with these things and, you know, and there’s ayahuasca and ibogaine. I mean, maybe some of them people aren’t able to move during the treatment but you know definitely some of them and maybe limited movement at least you know if it’s not getting up and dancing around at least you know moving the arms and I think it definitely needs to be part of that

Milly Day [48:46] I agree I’d never again never thought about that but definitely because also like I say you know when you’re moving it’s not just moving you know words come with that so it’s incorporating everything it’s incorporating movement words you know noises and yeah I think that could be extremely helpful for people you know going going through that so yeah okay maybe that’ll be my next project yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [49:11] Yeah definitely so anyway yeah let me I don’t want to keep you all day here let me wrap this up and I really appreciate you joining me I mean this has been really I really didn’t know what to expect in talking about this I’ve learned a lot and I think it’s a really intriguing therapy and it’s an important especially therapies that don’t have side effects and adverse reactions like medical you know drug therapies you know there’s there’s no there’s really no downside you know and it can really it sounds like it can really work well with a lot of other therapies you know like like another one I like was aromatherapy aromatherapy there’s there’s sound therapy you know there’s there’s so many great things that are proven to be effective yeah and they’re not harmful at all so yeah

Milly Day [49:53] Yeah and I you know I have to say I’m really lucky working at this particular rehab because they offer all of those things that you’ve just mentioned oh you know and you see the clients benefit because they’re being given what they need you know there’s something for everybody there and so clients that struggle with one thing will get their needs met in a different way you know they’ll struggle with talking therapy for example but then they’ll they’ll be able to express themselves through art or through movement or you know playing music you know I’m a big advocate for all of these alternative therapies I wish we wouldn’t even call them alternative. I think they should be mainstream. I think everybody should be doing them all. I think we should all be doing, you know, exploring the different therapies and finding what works for us.

Dr. Mark Leeds [50:35] I’ll just say one more thing. I had an idea for a therapy that I don’t know if anyone else has done this, but if you’ve ever played with like music software, they have like you can do or a drum machine and it has a quantizing feature where when you play, it puts it in rhythm for you like even if you’re off in rhythm it’ll line it up in like 16th notes and there’s software that’ll loop through like one or two measures and you just keep hitting the drum pads and it adds whatever you hit to the to the measures as it loops you hear what you just played and you can add to it and keep adding to it and it quantizes it so even if your rhythm’s bad it fixes it and I always imagine yeah so I thought like what if you set up this software and then maybe some actual drum pads you know like a drum set that’s electronic and then people can sit down and they have no rhythm or drum talent whatsoever and they can sit there and just keep adding stuff and like wow that sounds really good and then you know now they’ve created these incredible rhythms that I don’t know that’s like one of my I imagine if I ever like suddenly had a billion dollars that could make my own rehab center I would definitely have the drum room

Milly Day [51:34] Yeah no that’s really cool although I have to say when I when I talk to people when they come in and they’re feeling a bit anxious because they don’t think they’re very good they don’t have a talent so to speak I always you know I wish in this country we were less fixated on being good at things and being skilled and just and enjoying them for what they are rather than what we can you know enjoy the process rather than the outcome because I would I would say you know I’m not particularly musical I’m certainly not very good at art but all these things can still be useful to me because I can still use them as a way to express myself so I love what you’re saying but at the same time I think even if it doesn’t sound good it’s still effective because people are still getting something from the process of drumming or they’re still getting something from the process of making music no matter how it sounds how it sounds is kind of irrelevant in my opinion what the person’s dancing looks like is irrelevant what the person’s artwork looks like is irrelevant it’s about the process you know it’s about how you feel as you’re engaging in that particular creative activity and I think actually being really skilled at something can almost hold you back because you then feel frustrated if you’re able to produce a particular piece of art for example or a particular piece of music and people who come into DMP sessions having already done some sort of training I think will they tend to kind of resort to the moves that they know because that’s what they’re used to do and that’s how they’re used to moving rather than actually listening really listening to their body and moving in more random ways perhaps does that make sense

Dr. Mark Leeds [53:15] Yeah that makes sense yeah maybe maybe my idea is like going off track as far as like yeah if you like have the computer fixing the rhythms and like you know it’s not really what you actually played and maybe it’s you’re right it’s more about you know expressing yourself and expressing your feelings and letting your body do what it needs to do rather than hearing some artificial fixed up version of it coming back at you

Milly Day [53:36] Yeah because then it’s not it’s not really from you it’s not really from it’s yeah it’s artificial so it might sound nice it might be more pleasing on the ear but then it’s not really your own creation I mean this course that I was the reason that you know my name was Millie Assistant before we started this podcast was because I’d been co-facilitating this course and it was absolutely brilliant in fact you should this should be your next guest the woman who the main facilitator of this course it’s called life art and it’s for people in recovery doesn’t have to be 12-step recovery but people in recovery from any addiction so it can be alcohol drugs sex gambling food whatever and each week we’d explore a different theme so it might be exceptions or surrender or forgiveness or love or whatever and we’d explore that theme creatively so we’d do some movement we’d do some artwork we’d do some poetry or some other form of writing and you know a lot of the time the most powerful images because we’d often you know show our images show our artwork read out our poems and the most powerful ones are not the ones that were technically good but the ones that you could just tell there was so much meaning behind them you know the emotion had come out in the picture or in the in the piece of writing and so I think it’s hard for people to let go of the idea of producing something that’s very that’s kind of perfect but instead just to just to let you know let whatever it’s let whatever is inside them come out in this work and you know I like I say I’m not arty but my drawings my pictures they had meaning there was meaning in those pictures so yeah I think I’m probably waffling on a bit now but you get what I’m trying to say.

Dr. Mark Leeds [55:21] Oh yeah. Yeah. It’s like, you know, and I was just having this conversation with somebody the other day that, you know, when, you know, a band that, you know, that you like, you know, when you hear like your favorite hit song, a lot of times like the big hit songs are the ones that they like threw together like in a day, you know, it’s like, you know, we need to, we need to fill three minutes on this album, you know, let’s quickly get a song done and, you know, you know, it’s never the ones that they really planned out and thought out. Those are like the ones that the one they thought was going to be the hit doesn’t make it and the one that they just did by feeling really quickly you know like maybe like in a minute somebody quickly wrote the music and the words so yeah I mean the things that are just coming naturally like our real feelings and real expressions that’s what’s valuable and that’s what’s really the art

Milly Day [56:03] Totally I totally agree with that

Dr. Mark Leeds [56:05] So okay Milly Day thank you very much for joining me today

Milly Day [56:10] Thank you for having me it’s been great