An Introduction to Dance Therapy

Dance Therapy is a form of Creative Arts Therapy, such as Art, Psychodrama, and Music Therapy. According to the American Dance Therapy Association (A.D.T.A.), Dance/Movement Therapy is “the psychotherapeutic use of movement as a process which furthers the emotional, social, cognitive and physical integration of the individual” (American Dance Therapy Association).

Dance/Movement Therapy emerged as a distinct profession in the 1940s with the work of pioneers such as Marian Chance, Mary Whitehouse, Franziska Boas and, Liljan Espenaki. Today there are over twenty universities and institutions in the United States and abroad offering post-graduate academic programs in Dance Therapy. Presently, the A.D.T.A. is represented in forty-eight states of the U.S. and in twenty-four countries. In the academic, psychological, and medical research fields, Dance Therapy is currently accepted and valued as an effective treatment for people with developmental, medical, social, physical, and psychological impairments. Dance/Movement Therapy (D.M.T.) is practiced in educational, medical, and mental health rehabilitation settings, nursing homes, day cares and in health promotion programs, as well as in private D.M.T. clinics and studios, with patients raging from normal, to neurotic, to psychotic. D.M.T. is implemented in individual, couple, family, and group therapy formats.

The practice of Dance Therapy delves into the use of somatic psychology by applying the body-mind interface to find alternative means for therapy. The body-mind interface refers to the in-depth understanding of how the body and mind interact in health and illness, whether physiological or psychological. Dance Therapy utilizes Laban Movement Analysis as a means of patient-therapist communication, and as an assessment, treatment, and diagnostic tool. It is rooted on the premise that the body, spirit, and mind form an integral human being in contrast to the dualistic concept of body and mind as opposite and independent parts of a being. Dance Therapy is based on the fact that body movement reflects inner emotional states; likewise, alterations and adjustments in movement behavior can lead to transformation in the psyche.

The use of dance as a cathartic and therapeutic tool or medium is an ancient concept, universal to many cultures, times, and societies. So is the use of body movement as a means of expression and an instrument to communicate feelings. D.M.T. does not always exclude therapeutic techniques based on verbal communication, but adds and builds on to the meaning and usefulness of words within the realm of actions. Movement allows individuals to express, and therapists to notice, that which words sometimes cannot convey fully or vividly enough.

Dance/Movement Therapy can be used with depressed, anxious, and even schizophrenic clients or in-patients; with patients in recovery from illnesses such as cancer in hospitals; with children who are hyperactive, suffer from attention deficit disorder, autism or have motor development difficulties; with the mentally retarded and the physically handicapped; with individuals in the process of psychosocial rehabilitation and reintegration; with mothers that suffer from post-partum depression, as well as to assess and cultivate the mother-child attachment; with families in group therapy; with the elderly; with women who suffer from eating disorders and/or were sexually abused; with people in body image building, substance abuse and addiction, trauma recovery, stress management, and personality development programs, etc. Such are some of the many current common uses of Dance and Movement Therapy and contemporary focuses of research.

The concept that movement can be an acceptable healing force, an effective way to take care of our physical and emotional well-being, and an adequate treatment for illness, might seem revolutionary in our present Western society. Nevertheless, it is both a valid and ancient concept, as well as an idea clearly reflected in the words and movement of our present times dance masters:

• Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease. (Hippocrates)
• To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak. (Hopi Indian Saying)
• We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams. (Albert Einstein)
• In my dance (..) the profundities of consciousness are given a channel to the light of our social day. (Isadora Duncan)
• I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what it’s too deep to find for words. (Ruth St. Denis)
• Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain. (…) Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather. (Martha Graham)