Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Development Of Dance And Movement Therapy

By Karen Carter


Movement/Dance therapy refers to the therapeutic use of dance and movement for the purpose of supporting emotional, motor, and intellectual functions of the body. The term movement/dance therapy is often abbreviated as DMT and is commonly used in the United States and Australia. In the United Kingdom, this therapeutic treatment is referred by the name dance movement psychotherapy. The abbreviated form used in the United Kingdom is DMP.

DMT is a form of expressive therapy. Movement therapy aims to identify the correlation between emotions and movement. DMP is one of the therapies that have a very long history. Dance has been used since early human history in healing rituals in death, sickness, fertility, and birth. The existence of the idea of dance not being simply an expressive art emerged in Europe and the US in the period between 1840 and 1930.

Although dance was used for healing purposes since a long time ago, its actual establishment as a therapy and a profession occurred in the 1950s. The founder of American Dance Therapy Association, Marian Chance was among the individuals that established dance as such. The development of DMT assumes two waves through history. The first wave was spearheaded by Chance, while the second one attracted a lot of interest from American therapists.

The theory of DMT bases on the belief that there is constant interaction between the mind and the body. Conscious and unconscious movements people make base on the dualist premise of mind body. Those movements reflect personality and affect total functioning in people. As such, the relationship between clients and therapists are in a small part based on body language and other non-verbal cues. A sense of wholeness is offered to every individual by DMT by exploring the unity of the spirit, body, and mind.

The participant needs to complete all the four stages entailed in this process. There are smaller goals entailed in each stage that need to be achieved. The smaller goals contribute to a much larger goal. Goals and stages are varied depending on the participant. The stages are progressive, moving from one to the other. However, stages may sometimes be revisited several times as the session continues.

The therapy involves four stages, which include preparation, evaluation, incubation, and illumination. The name warm-up may also be used for the preparation stage. This stage entails preparation of adequate and safe room with no distractions or obstacles. Supportive relationships with the witnesses are also formed at this point. Participants need to close their eyes and still be able to move around.

During the incubation stage, participants are prompted by the leader to venture into their subconscious. The prompting is done verbally. The participant needs the relaxation and serenity provided by the subconscious to exploit their emotions. The illumination stage comes after incubation. Illumination is integrated into the dialogue. Dialogue is offered by the witness to the conscious awareness for allowing self-reflection.

Motivations hidden in the subconscious are resolved and uncovered through self-reflections. Positive as well as negative effects are associated with excess self-awareness. The session comes to a conclusion with the therapist evaluating insights gathered and discussing their significance.




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