Dance/Movement Therapy with Clergy in Crisis: A (Group) Case Study Sabine C. Koch Ó American Dance Therapy Association 2008 Abstract The article describes dance/movement therapy with Roman Catholic clergy in a therapeutic facility associated with a monastery in Germany. The facility offers nuns, monks, and priests in need of rest the possibility to recollect, recuperate, and reorient in a three-month spiritual and therapeutic program. Dance/movement therapy was offered as one therapeutic modality integrated into a broader concept of psychotherapeutic and bodywork. The article describes a weekend intensive with a group of 18 participants. A single case of an abused nun is elaborated in the context of the description of the bodywork with the entire group. Keywords Dance/movement therapy Á Clergy Á Burnout Á Trauma Á Rape Á Case study Introduction ‘‘Life is getting more and more stressful for us priests, because there are less and less of us and the church thinks we can manage more and more parishes. The workload is already unbearable,’’ says a priest on my first day with the group 1 . ‘‘Everybody expects us to be perfect and to take charge of everything. One of the first things many of us have to learn here is how to say ‘No.’ We need to rediscover HOLY SPIRIT and MARIA SEES ELISABETH stained glass windows: courtesy of Benjamin A. Schmit. Ó 2004 Benjamin A. Schmit ISAAC stained glass window: courtesy of Fre `re Eric. Ó 2005 Ateliers et Presses de Taize ´ S. C. Koch (&) Department of Psychology, University of Heidelberg, Hauptstr. 47-51, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: sabine.koch@urz.uni-heidelberg.de 1 Quotes have been translated from German to English by the author. Names have been changed in order to protect each individual’s rights to privacy. 123 Am J Dance Ther DOI 10.1007/s10465-008-9053-z