Mental imagery usage for rehabilitation and recovery purposes – a professional ballet dancers and physiotherapists perspective / Yvonne de Camp (2019)

The purpose of this project was to obtain a deeper insight into the mental imagery experiences of professional ballet dancers, particularly regarding rehabilitation settings. The second part of this study was concerned with gaining knowledge from dance-specialised physiotherapists as to how they experienced similar scenarios in rehabilitation settings. This topic is under-researched in the area of dance science. A qualitative research paradigm was selected in order to collect data that reflected the individuals’ beliefs, knowledge, thoughts and feelings on this topic. This approach is recommended by Mayring (1994) when a research question, as in this study, is ideographically focused (Eatough and Smith, 2008)

This paper examines definitions, perceptions and experiences about mental imagery usage for potential use in rehabilitation settings amongst 5 professional ballet dancers and 5 dance-specialised physiotherapists. Interpretative phenomenological analysis directs analytic focus towards the interviewees trying to express their comprehension of their experiences. But no prescribed or uniform method exists for its analysis. A heuristic framework has been suggested by Smith et al (2009) that offers flexibility by adapting the process to the studies data. For the purpose of this study, Smith’s framework was adapted for analytic purposes.

The effect of mental imagery usage in dancers’ rehabilitation settings has
been understudied so far. Therefore, it would be of interest to see whether mental imagery studies in athletes could be replicated in dancers (Driediger et al.,2006), and how exactly dancers use imagery in general, dance specific and rehabilitation settings. In addition, it has been under-researched whether and how dancespecialised physiotherapists use any mental imagery techniques on a regular basis dancers. It has to be seen whether or not Arvinen-Barrow (2010) applies to dancers as well as to athletes.The results of this pilot study matched closely with mental imagery research and injury impact and rehabilitation research literature that was previously studied in athletes by Driediger et al, (2006) and Arvinen-Barrow (2010). The four W’s of imagery, where, what, why and when, were shown hold true in dancers in relation to the results of this study. It suggests that both studies can be
applied to dancers as well as athletes. It has to be seen whether this holds true for larger populations of dancers and across different genres.

The results of this pilot study matched closely with mental imagery research and injury impact and rehabilitation research literature that was previously studied in
athletes by Driediger et al, (2006) and Arvinen-Barrow (2010). The four W’s of imagery, where, what, why and when, were shown hold true in dancers in relation to the results of this study. It suggests that both studies can be applied to dancers as well as athletes. It has to be seen whether this holds true for larger populations of dancers and across different genres.

The results of this pilot study matched closely with mental imagery research and injury impact and rehabilitation research literature that was previously studied in
athletes by Driediger et al, (2006) and Arvinen-Barrow (2010). The four W’s of imagery, where, what, why and when, were shown hold true in dancers in relation to the results of this study. It suggests that both studies can be applied to dancers as well as athletes. It has to be seen whether this holds true for larger populations of dancers and across different genres.

Evaluating the contributions of the physiotherapists to this current study, it confirmed the findings in Arvinen-Barrow (2010) to be valid for dancers’ rehabilitation settings as well as for athletes. Caution has to be given, as this study was performed only on a very small sample size and it has to be seen whether or not this can be confirmed in a large-scale study.