Child soldiers: the Art and arts of healing (Part 2 of 2)Child soldiers: the Art and arts of healing (Part 2 of 2)
All In The Mind
In Sierra Leone, child soldiers committed acts that words can barely describe. At the war's end, ravaged communities responded to them with terror and stigma. A minority of former child soldiers, many orphaned, have access to reintegration programs. Dance and movement therapist David Alan Harris describes an extraordinary project to respond to the traumatised psyche through engaging the body.
29:57•6 Jun 2009
Body, Memory and Mercy: Healing Former Child Soldiers Through Dance
Episode Overview
- Dance movement therapy can help reconnect body and mind where verbal therapy feels impossible.
- Shared games, music and mirroring build "kinesthetic empathy" and a sense of being seen.
- Role play lets young people witness their own stories and realise they weren’t to blame for atrocities committed around them.
- Acknowledging both victimhood and responsibility can support genuine accountability and change.
- Creative public rituals, like community performances, may reduce stigma and help former child soldiers be accepted back into their communities.
“"We want you to accept us as your children, and we will accept you as our mothers and fathers."”
How do people find hope in the darkest times? This episode of All In The Mind follows dance and movement therapist David Allen Harris as he works with a group of former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, using the body as the starting point for healing when words feel impossible. Host Natasha Mitchell talks with Harris about how these teenage boys, once forced to commit horrific acts, had learned to shut down emotionally just to survive.
He explains how dance movement therapy is built on "the assumption of an essential oneness between body and mind," and how simple group games with music, mirroring and shared gestures helped build what he calls "kinesthetic empathy" – a felt sense of being seen and valued.
You’ll hear how role play and movement gave the boys a way to re-create their stories safely: watching others act out their memories, questioning "parents" who’d been murdered years earlier, and slowly allowing grief to surface. Harris describes a turning point when "there was never the sense, until that point, that they would give themselves permission to grieve," and how that moment shifted the whole group.
The episode also looks at the ethical tightrope of revisiting trauma, the tension between seeing former child soldiers as victims and as perpetrators, and the limits of large-scale disarmament and reintegration schemes.
It all leads to an extraordinary community performance where the boys present their story, kneel before local elders, and ask: "We want you to accept us as your children and we will accept you as our mothers and fathers." This is a powerful listen for anyone interested in trauma, recovery, body-based therapies, or how creativity can help people face unbearable memories.
It may leave you asking: what could change if more healing work started with the body, not just with words?
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