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Dance/Movement Therapy is the psycho-therapeutic use of movement that furthers the physical, emotional and cognitive integration of the individual. Practitioners often prefer to use the term ‘dance’ rather than ‘movement,’  as the former is associated with enjoyment and well-being. It is claimed that modern dance is the source of DM yet DM therapists come from diverse dance/movement backgrounds: ballet, contemporary,martial arts, rhythmic-gymnastics, yoga, ballroom, ethnic/folk dance,tango, Pilates etc. Certification requires that the practitioner has trained at least 10 years in their own dance/movement discipline and holds a Masters degree.

 

Non-verbal communication, the bodily sending and receiving of messages is integral to the dance/movement healing process and makes it unique among Western forms of therapy. Because the mind and body interact, a change in the client’s movement expression affects the total functioning of the whole person. The use of somatic body therapies complements much dance therapy.

 

 As well as dancing further into health, an aesthetic component is essential. Some of the partnership dances rooted in the ballroom canon can be best suited to the socio-cultural origins of most Western Europeans. Viennese Waltz induces the same  spinning of  the 'chakras' in the body as the Dervish dances of the Sufis.

 

 Within dance therapy, clients who suffer emotional dislocation or revisited negative emotions from traumatic stress can access their own personality resources to help transform those feelings.

 

Dance therapy has the ability to improve dynamic balance, rhythmic discrimination and memory among the over 60’s.

 

Cardiovascular patients at the onset of recovery have to learn coping skills for the management of stress. Many feel betrayed by their bodies and dance therapy helps them to increase awareness for self-monitoring, self-pacing and physiological control. It also encompasses the physical fitness and reversal of maladaptive habits that contributed to the original problem.

 

Those suffering chronic pain benefit from learning to be aware of underlying affective states and how they manifest in pain. The physical dance experience may also release endorphins and thereby create the body’s own opiate response. It can provide remedial neuromuscular action by lengthening, thinning and relaxing the muscles that tighten in stress/pain reactions.

 

Dancing can ameliorate some of the stressful effects of obesity such as poor body image, decline of physical functioning and agility.

 

Dance is a kinetic discourse that incorporates inchoate ideas and gives them visible form using the instrument of the human body. It can modify inner experience and mediate stress.

 

Pursuing dance as a way into physical fitness and health, requires the client/dancer to be aware of their own body signals in order to prevent injury and avoid physical stress. There should be realistic expectations about what can be done within a given time period, the constraints of flexibility and physical build, of joint mobility and an inefficient cardiovascular system. Carrying existing or suffering from previous injuries should alert one to areas of weakness. Heed the usual warning signs and discomforts associated with physical exercise; abnormal heart activity, cold sweating, dizziness, shortness of breath etc and take a break. For a rapid pulse that persists for five to ten minutes of recovery time, reduce the intensity of the dancing and progress to higher levels of dance activity at a slower rate.

 

 Background from Judith Lynne Hanna's book   'Dancing For Health'  2006