Authentic Movement (AM) is a movement exercise developed by the dance psychotherapist Mary Starks Whitehouse (1911 – 1979). Whitehouse integrated dance and movement with Jungian psychotherapy, and she developed an expressive and experimental dance and movement psychotherapy working with group processes. Participants are engaged in spontaneous expressive movement exploration. This process later became known as Authentic Movement (AM), which Janet Adler further developed.

AM, compassionate witnessing of movement becoming conscious, is a process grounded in the relationship between a mover and a witness. It is practiced by first having the basic structure of a mover and a witness. The mover, observed by the witness, is a person who moves while the other watches. The person who is the witness “holds” the experience of the mover by watching without judging or interpreting. In this way, the witness is also an active participant.

For both the mover and the witness, work is concentrated in the development of the inner witness, which is one way of understanding the development of consciousness. In this discipline, the inner witness is externalised embodied by the outer witness. The mover embodies the moving self. After moving, the mover speaks her experience while the outer witness listens, and then the outer witness speaks her experience of the movement. In this way language bridges experience from body to consciousness. For both mover and witness the intention toward the practice of thoughtful speech is central to the development of the discipline.

Together with Gindler's work Arbeit am Menschen, AM has many common levels with Buddhist practice and philosophy, emphasising awareness, concentration, and non-judgmental sensing of the body, thoughts, and emotions. AM is not only a therapeutic practice but also a form of movement meditation. The discipline of Authentic Movement can be seen as a mystical practice centered in the development of embodied witness consciousness. The practice is still evolving and in a growing field of exploration.