A psychiatric unit in New York is exactly what you’d imagine. The room is rarely calm, as patients tumble in from emergency departments, incarceration, states of mania, depression, withdrawal, or disorientation. “It can get very overstimulating and busy,” says dance/movement therapist Misha Bernas.
There are days when no one wants to speak, and others when everyone speaks at once. Some patients remain completely still. But during a session with Bernas, the air in the psychiatry room changes.
A circle of patients forms, and someone starts a gesture. The next person mirrors it. Then a rhythm emerges, tentative at first. At one point, a ball could bounce through the group, passed in an exercise of coordination and trust. Maybe even an egg shaker, used to express how they’re feeling without the need to put the emotion in words. By the end, there’s laughter and release.
“If I can make as many moments feel safe or safe enough for them to feel brave in a space that can be filled with overwhelm, then I feel like I did my job,” Bernas says.
Teaching the body to speak
Bernas, a registered dance/movement therapist and creative arts therapist, moves between clinical, educational, and performative worlds—but the foundation of her work is teaching.
After graduating from Ateneo with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, she returned as a professor during the pandemic, designing a course where students built choreography from the ordinary. “You can make movement out of simple things… like picking up a water bottle,” she explains. “It’s really more of finding other ways to move and acknowledging your own movement patterns.”
This approach was rooted in Feel Good ’n Flow, the dance movement program Bernas developed and founded during her early years, through touring internationally with the Young Americans. Drawing from her experience across psychology, dance, voice, musical theater, and improvisation, the framework became the basis for the modules she later designed for her Expressive Dance and Movement Exploration course at Ateneo.
Bernas would go on to refine this work further, completing a Master of Science in Dance/Movement Therapy at Sarah Lawrence College in New York.
Psychology in motion
At present, Bernas works in an inpatient psychiatry unit as a Creative Arts Therapist specializing in Dance/Movement Therapy at one of the esteemed New York City Health and Hospitals.
Each session begins with a check-in to see how the patients are feeling. Apart from verbally sharing, “it could be a sound or a gesture… and then everyone mirrors it.” This act of mirroring builds “kinesthetic empathy,” a body-level understanding that helps regulate the nervous system and builds therapeutic rapport.
“When we all do it together… that builds empathy on a body level. And then that helps slow down the nervous system, making them feel safer or at least included,” she says.
The art of dance/movement therapy is many things. “From an outside perspective, it may look like we’re just dancing.” But there are pauses, too, and the conversations debrief what emotions arose and the relation to the body. Often, the patients share how it connects to their own lives, which they bring out of the session.
Bernas cites dance/movement frameworks such as the Laban Bartenieff Movement Analysis, Marian Chace approach, Authentic Movement, and Kestenberg Movement Profile, all of which map internal states through rhythm, effort, spatial dynamics, and active imagery. “You pay attention to how their body is engaging with the environment—what is their movement like? More direct or indirect? Which body parts are more dominant? That way, you can understand patterns and at times even predict behavior,” she explains.
From a tightly held object to a repetitive gesture, even small details matter. “There’s something going on inside… and it’s important to be given the opportunity to externalize one’s internal experiences, on a creative level, on an embodied level,” she says.
“There’s something going on inside… and it’s important to be given the opportunity to externalize one’s internal experiences, on a creative level, on an embodied level”
Melding the clinical and the creative, Bernas asserts it’s crucial not to force change. “Sometimes the best response in therapy is to acknowledge and just go, ‘wow’ or ‘that’s hard,’ and just sit with the heavy feeling, rather than provide something didactic,” she adds.
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Improvisation, inclusion, and the Filipino sensibility
Bernas doesn’t over-plan her sessions, either. “I want to see what the group is bringing. I trust that my dance training will provide me with a toolbox of options that I can readily use in real time. Similar to performing with a cast, paying attention and adapting to different cues from the individuals I work with goes a long way,” she shares.
There are parallels to improvisation, the spontaneous performance art. One of the foundations of improv is “yes, and,” where you accept what the other person said, and build on it to move forward (but with discernment). “Sometimes ‘yes’ is just holding space, welcoming one’s presence and creative ideas,” she reflects.
Bernas also brings in a Filipino sensibility. “I always bring pakikisama… that value of harmony.” Every participant, no matter what state they are in, active, withdrawn, or resistant, is considered part of the circle.
“I always bring pakikisama… that value of harmony”
It’s perhaps this instinct that allows her to navigate even the most difficult environments, using these tactics for herself, especially while working in what can sometimes be an unpredictable environment/with the individuals in care. “If you don’t feel safe, then it shows. And then it translates. This is where the importance of being attuned to your body comes in, and I learned this from years of practice as a choreographer and director. I am grateful for the power of dance for helping me learn how to relate deeply with others on an embodied level.”
Rather than treating these worlds as separate, she integrates them, allowing stage experience to inform her dance and movement-based facilitation while experiences engaging with patients deepen her humanistic perspective and embodied insight.
This reciprocal relationship continues to shape her choreography, direction, and performance practice, positioning dance/movement therapy as an extension of dance artistry, where the same movement vocabulary is held through listening, storytelling, and embodied attunement within therapeutic contexts.
From stage to therapy, and back
Bernas’ artistic practice continues to inform her clinical one. Early on, she trained in ballet, jazz, and contemporary at Halili Cruz School of Dance. And as a young adult, she toured internationally with the nonprofit The Young Americans, performing dance and musical theatre productions and leading workshops that use performing arts to empower others.
And with 28 years in the creative arts under her belt, she’s worked with learners from infants to seniors. Having lived with over 80 host families in Japan, Europe, and the UK through her tours with The Young Americans, she is culturally flexible and able to connect with all kinds of people.
More recently, she performed in “Buong-Buo Binali,” an experimental theater production in New York staged for international audiences. Performed in Filipino without subtitles, the piece relied on communal dance, using gesture, rhythm, and participation to communicate meaning. “Even if we were using a different language, there was a way we were able to make it inclusive. I think that’s the beauty of movement and the power of dance,” she says.
“If you expand the way you move, then it also expands the way you interact and see the world,” she adds.
At the end of our call, I realized something had shifted in me, too.
I had started the morning feeling unwell and unmoored. But somewhere in the conversation, through her cadence and way of holding space even through a screen, I felt steadier.
“I’m not in the business of changing someone’s life,” Bernas states. “But if I can sit with someone and just hold space for them, it’s such a gift, because it’s not just one way.”
“I’m not in the business of changing someone’s life. But if I can sit with someone and just hold space for them, it’s such a gift“
Contrary to what Bernas says, it’s clear that she actually is in the business of changing many lives, and all for the better.
This story was originally published in RED 2026 Issue 2
