What is Dance Movement Therapy?

Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) is one of the Creative Art Therapies, and is defined as the psychotherapeutic use of movement (within a therapeutic relationship) in order to promote the psychophysical integration of the individual. While the healing effects of rhythmic movement were known to the most ancient tribes, the development of DMT as an embodied psychodynamic model for psychotherapy goes back to the 1940s, when dancers and psychotherapists realized the therapeutic impact of artistic body expression. Marian Chace, who is considered the mother of DMT, discovered that the students in her studio came to her classes not only for professional training, but also in order to reach self-harmony through the integration of the body and its movement. Chase led group DMT sessions at St. Elizabeth Hospital, where she would observe the moods, tensions and rhythms in the room, and adapt her movement and the session according to the patients’ needs. Through this gentle approach, patients were able to express a range of emotions through movement and perhaps verbally. The principles that she applied, attunement to the patient’s body movement, and meeting the patients where they are, are still core principles in DMT. Another pioneer, Mary Whitehouse was inspired by her own Jungian analysis, and she worked with higher-functioning individuals with more ego strengths. She applied the Jungian concept of active imagination, by inviting spontaneous body movement that emerged from inner kinesthetic sensations. Individuals could recognize the symbolic nature of their movement, which facilitated self-awareness and possible change. Other pioneers extended the scope of DMT by attending to a variety of individuals, e.g., children with autism or special needs, the elderly, including those with Alzheimer, persons with physical and intellectual disabilities, and trauma survivors. The skillful use of nonverbal communication poses a great advantage in reaching individuals who don’t dominate the verbal expression, but also in helping verbally able patients to integrate dissociated somatic and emotional experiences within a containing therapeutic relationship.

Following the view of the body and mind as inherently connected, the dance movement therapist assumes that the body and mind reflect each other, and thus changes in the mind will lead to alterations in the body, and vice versa. For this reason, the dance movement therapist uses specific tools of movement analysis (e.g., Labanotation, Kestenberg Movement Profile). The way we move reflects the way we relate to the world, so that assessing a patient’s movement vocabulary can give the therapist an idea on their coping mechanisms. Furthermore, the dance movement therapist is trained to observe subtle shifts within the patient’s (intentional and unintentional) nonverbal expression, as these might reflect a shift in the psyche. The nonverbal aspects that the therapist observes include but are not limited to; movement quality (e.g., light, firm, direct, indirect), rhythm, posture, tension, grounding, personal and general kinesphere, tone of voice, differences in body parts. With this knowledge, the therapist can make interventions that feel comfortable to the client, and, if appropriate, aim to gradually extend the client’s movement repertoire. Through verbalization, the client can reflect on the potential meaning of a certain nonverbal aspect in his/her life.

While early dance/movement therapists combined their implicit knowledge with psychoanalytic theory, recent findings in developmental neuroscience provided a scientific framework for DMT, as they revealed the importance of bodily experiences and body memory for psychological functioning on various levels. Some of the key neurological concepts in order to understand the working of DMT include: the mirror neuron system, explicit vs. implicit memory, the autonomic nervous system regulation, and right/left brain integration (for an extensive review see Homann, 2010). The neurological and physiological basis of our subjective experience is built during the first years of our lives, within the nonverbal, embodied relationship with our caregivers. Appropriate mirroring and affective attunement shapes and supports the development of the mirror neurons, while abnormal development can affect the child’s capacity to relate to others. The quality of holding and touch by the caregivers affect the functioning of the autonomic nervous system. Attachment trauma has an enduring structural impact on the development of the right brain, which leads to ineffective stress coping mechanisms. These traumatic experiences might not be processed verbally, however they will be stored in the implicit memory, as the body holds an impression of the experience on a subconscious level. Building upon these findings, it has been proposed that right-left brain integration is necessary for healing. Siegel suggested that integration may occur when affect is shared within a therapeutic relationship, causing neural networks to fire and connect between different areas of the brain. Verbal psychotherapy generally starts with language, and then moves towards more emotionally engaged exploration of memories and self-states. On the other hand, dance movement therapy begins with movement, thus engaging both the left and right brain from the beginning. The focus on proprioception increases body-self awareness and helps the patient regulate states of arousal and rest, thus establishing a sense of safety. Moving together through mirroring and attunement activates the mirror neuron system, and the patient and therapist can share a deep subjective experience of being emotionally connected. Once the patient feels safe and comfortable enough with the therapist, bodywork can be used in order to access the implicit memory. Verbalization is used, either throughout or at the end of the session, to organize the nonverbal experience, and promote right/left brain integration. Entirely based on embodied experiential techniques, DMT may offer corrective experiences to the patient on an implicit, bodily level.