Listening to the Body: How Movement Therapy Supports Adoptee Healing
We sat down with Mihyun Lee of Movement Flow last year. Mihyun is a domestic late discovery Korean adoptee who studied Korean dance and choreography in South Korea. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where she practices Somatic Movement Therapy and Laban/Bartenieff Movement, also known as human movement study.
This blog post contains part of our conversation around adoptee trauma and how movement can help process that trauma. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
The first question I had for you is how did your background in dance lead you down this path towards wellness through dance, somatic movement and human movement study?
I can start by speaking to the chronological aspect of my education. I studied Korean dance in South Korea since 1992, and then attended a college for choreography. After that, I moved to the United States and began practicing contact improvisation and pursuing a counseling psychology concentration in somatic psychology. And then I studied Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis, which is a study of human movement. That was the modality where I was able to incorporate all my educational background. When I studied dance in South Korea, we were required to study other dance forms such as ballet and modern dance. After I went to college, I focused on how to choreograph to reflect human experiences in a way that the audience can relate to the abstract movement presented on stage. Then I began studying psychology, philosophy, and aesthetics. That was the point at which I really started to think about my lived experience as a person and how I can authentically translate those experiences and feelings into art.
Compared to music and fine arts, dance is the most abstract form of art to relate to because it uses the human body as a medium to convey messages in ways very different from how we use it in daily life. I learned and practiced various dance techniques, but the gap between them and human experience left me dissatisfied. I became fascinated by the idea of articulating simple movements to uncover one’s story, narratives, and implicit memories. The human movement study finally bridged the gap between techniques and human experience, as well as between non-verbal and verbal expression.
When I saw you at KAAN 2025, you had this very, very basic breathing exercise that was - for me - so, so powerful. Do you build up from something simple like a breathing exercise all the way up until a movement?
Yeah. Because many people who comes to my service like either somatic psychotherapy or psychotherapy - the fundamental need is about connection. So many people think the connection has to happen between me and another person. But I think in order to have more functional and satisfying relationships with other people, we need to know how to relate to ourselves first or make a really good connection with ourselves. But you know because of trauma or lived experiences - it's more about relational trauma about the family configuration or dynamics but also societal trauma and national trauma. (There) are many different levels that would impact our psychological life and emotional life. If we don't resolve those traumas and how it lives in us, it will continue to stay in there with the negative impact. So I believe it is the most important to really connect with ourselves, then our lived experiences and then slowly unfolding all the experiences and impacts that we have by connecting and attuning to our body.
Do you feel that your adoption journey helped shape this path that you're on for movement and connecting with oneself?
I cannot say no. If it has directly connected to that, I'm not sure. But that was the fundamental root to have all the experiences that I was experiencing. When I was young, I think I was seeking something and then I think that curiosity, dissatisfaction or discomfort (that) led me to be where I am now. There was no one around me who would guide me. There was no one who would address that - my parents were not educated - and then when I studied dance, I was experiencing a lot of emotional discomfort. I didn't know what it was and there was no one around me who would tap into that. I felt like all the experiences that I had were the main resources to navigate my life.
If you're working with someone like an adoptee or someone who has complex lived experience or complex trauma, how do you help them? How do you help them tap into that and lead them towards that healing journey?
Like you experienced from the very simple exercise to really listen to our body. That's the first step because I believe when we are experiencing something that has a negative impact, we have a coping mechanism of numbing ourselves so that we wouldn't feel. People use different methods to dissociate psychologically - drinking or drugs so that we numb the pain or have very repetitive negative relationship style with other people because that's what they know. That's what they learned, that's how they were treated. So they have only one method to relate to other people or themselves. Just coming into their body is the first step so that they can know and learn what's there and recognize it first thing and then after they have the recognition, there is an acknowledgement. Acknowledging their lived experiences and what the impact on their body. From there they can slowly uncover what's been there and what's possible to change. This is one way I can do as an instructor or a therapist. But if I'm not in the role, for example, I would meet adoptees at the (KAAN) conference. What I can do as a person is embody the regulation skills and then try to be inclusive with other people and receptive of other people. (I) demonstrate and embody the listening skills so that people (are) kind of unconsciously consciously curious about the way I relate to the space and myself.
Do you ever have instances where other people's trauma affect you in a way that you can't help other people or you have to remove yourself and then come back?
Yeah. I would use different different approaches depending on where I met and with who and what might work for me and also other people. I wanted to regulate myself and I wanted to have a fun in that way because being surrounded by adoptees is just such a privilege for me. As a domestic adoptee, there was no one who would actually speak up or organize things - there was no community at all.
This is just an aside, but I hope you have support for yourself. I'm hoping that there's someone who's taking care of you as much as you're taking care of other people.
Yeah, now I know how to balance. For me, I didn't know how to receive the help because that was not my language. I've never received help and also because of that, I didn't know how to ask for help. So this is the area that I wanted to really foster in this community that some people may not have any experience of getting help or suggested to get help. I learned when I provide some services, there are people who didn't know how to ask for help so I'm helping them to recognize those patterns: asking them to understand what's their patterns, what's lacking, what's their need.
So, this is a great segue to my next question. For adoptees or anyone else who stumbles across this blog, what is the best way for them to start something like human movement? You are on the West Coast, so is there a base that people can start with and then like work their way up to it?
Yeah. So there is a international organizer organization called ISMETA. They are the organization who would connect all the somatic movement modalities. There's a human movement study, there's different modalities that could benefit people. These modalities are not psychotherapy, (they don’t) necessarily contain psychological aspect but because it's a somatic movement - movement exploration through specific activities - with other people in a group context, people can discover something within themselves through this exercise. I'm specifically integrating movement exercise in order to tap into our psychological aspect. But there's some benefits people can have access to body wisdom or your own wisdom that you haven't discovered because the body contains all the narratives and habitual responses and reactions and reflexive reactions. So when they discover that experience, the implicit experiences will kind of tap into your unconscious and then you may be able to find some explicit memories.
Do you feel that some of your clients move back and forth between movement and talk therapy or like I know ketamine therapy is becoming a thing. Do you feel like people move between those like they go from one to the other and this kind of or do you feel like they complement each other?
Yeah, the answer is I will say like 90% of clients who find me as a somatic movement therapist is that they often say they have been doing talk therapy but it doesn't go further. So that's why they were seeking something different and then they ended up finding me. So I think it's complimentary. They were able to get some support through talk therapy and then realize there some development or evolution happened in their psychological life or emotional life that's why they were seeking something more. That's why I studied counseling psychology because it's mostly connected to our psychological concepts and theories and how we can utilize that in the therapeutic context with our clients. They are looking for something to be grounded and find something from their bodily practice. So many people seem to be interested in my work because of that.
Mihyun occasionally holds workshops in Korea for all Korean adoptees. Not in Korea? Mihyun will be presenting Relationship and Movement at KAAN 2026 in Denver, Colorado in addition to offerings at her studio near San Francisco. Follow wearekaan.org for conference information.