MOVING CIRCLE
When words are not enough, let the body speak.
About
My name is Mioi Forster-Nakayama.
(Mioi pronounced as me-oi.)
I am a registered dance movement psychotherapist specialising in body-oriented psychotherapy.
I provide you with a safe and trusting space to find a way to ground the body, explore movements and express yourself. I move with you in empathy, witness your movement, and listen to you with non-judgemental views, regardless of your gender, sexuality, race or religion.
Clinical Experience
Since I qualified as a dance movement psychotherapist in 2015, I clinically worked in primary schools, special needs schools, a pupil referral unit, a prison, NHS mental health hospitals and charities in the United Kingdom and Japan. I facilitated movement-based group psychotherapy groups for teens with neurodiverse backgrounds and psychotic episodes at an NHS psychiatric hospital.
In Japan, I facilitated a dance movement psychotherapy group for women who were socially isolated for a number of years. I also worked at a psychiatric hospital for older people (60+) who were socially institutionalised for a long time. I learnt to become culturally-informed as a practitioner.
After I moved to South Australia in 2020, I worked mainly with NDIS participants at a clinic for about 3 years. I began working privately since 2023 at a private clinical space, seeing children, young people, adults and couples.
In 2021, I began to teach psychotherapy and dance movement therapy subjects at a private institution.
I currently supervise dance movement therapists, art psychotherapists, psychotherapists, counsellors, and social workers.
I am currently undertaking a research project funded by HEMF and researching preverbal trauma and its bodily impact on fostered /adopted children.
Areas of Specialisations;
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Trauma (Complex, PTSD, Preverbal) - I am an approved Blue Knot Foundation service provider.
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Body Dysmorphia and Body Image
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Attachment Issues
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Neurodivergent
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Medically Unexplained Symptoms / Bodily Distress Disorder
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Functional Neurological Disorder
Approach
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Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
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Self-Psychology Psychotherapy
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Attachment and trauma-based practice
Professional Registrations
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Clinical Member of the Dance Movement Therapy Association of Australasia (DTAA) (No.220-03),
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Clinical Registrant of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA)(No. 28712) and
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Professional Member of The Australian, New Zealand and Asian Creative Arts Therapies Association, Professional Member (ANZACATA) (No. 59137275).
Psychotherapy Training
I graduated with a master's degree in dance movement psychotherapy at Goldsmiths, University of London (2013-2015). I also completed the Somatic Body Mapping Mentorship under Annette Schwalbe (UKRDMP, UKCP) in 2018 and became a somatic Body Mapping practitioner. In 2022, I completed a PACFA-accredited advanced course in supervision.
Currently I am undertaking the two-year Somatic Intersubjective Self-Psychology Psychotherapy training in Canberra.
Education
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The Somatic Intersubjective Self-Psychology Psychotherapy Training (2024-2025), Canberra
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The Advanced Supervision Course, the Arts and Science Supervision Alliance (2022)
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Master's Degree in Dance Movement Psychotherapy, Goldsmiths, University of London (2013-2015)
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Diploma Course of the Dance and Mixed Media, Attakkalari Centre for Arts, Bangalore, India, 2010
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Post Graduate Diploma in Child Rights Law, University of India, Bangalore, 2010
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Bachelor of Arts, Sociology, St. Paul's University (Rikkyo, Tokyo) (2002)
The Path to Psychotherapy Work
I was born and raised in Hiroshima, Japan. At the age of 16, I moved to Germany with my parents. This was my first encounter with different cultures. I studied at a university in Tokyo, always travelling abroad to experience cultural diversities and expand my curiosity. At the age of 20, I went back to Germany to study and research Turkish immigrants. I travelled to Turkey as the country offered a blend of the West and the East. I met Kurdish street children in Istanbul and felt emotional and helpless about these tiny workers. I went back to Tokyo and joined a non-profit organisation that works for child rights.
I learnt that India has the largest number of working children, therefore I visited India in 2002. I was very attracted to what India offered me - people, food, dance, music, colours, and just the way they are. I ended up working in India for 11 years; I co-founded an art school for street, working and bonded labour children, rescuing them from the streets, educating them in various art modalities, and putting them back to school (You can see my child labour photographs here). I discovered the strength and healing power of dance and arts through this work and decided to become a movement-based therapist. Dance Movement Therapy is a perfect marriage of psychological help and dance. In 2013, I moved to London to be trained as a dance movement psychotherapist.