The Origin Of 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 categorized under expressive therapy. It aims to find the correlation between emotion and movement. Movement therapy has been in existence for a very long time. Since early human history, it has been used in healing rituals for issues such as death, sickness, birth, and fertility. The idea that dance was not simply an expressive art began to exist in the US and Europe between the years of 1840 and 1930.

Although the use of dance to heal was in use since thousands of years ago, its actual establishment into a profession and therapy happened in the 1950s. Marian Chance, the founder of American Dance Therapy Association played a major role in the establishment of dance as a therapy. There are two waves of the history of DMT. Chance spearheaded the first wave, whereas American therapists took great interest in the second wave.

The belief that the body and mind are in constant interaction is the basis for the theory of DMT. The dualist mind body premise is what the unconscious and conscious movements people make are based. For that reason, therapists partly base their relationships with clients on body language among other non-verbal cues. Each participant receives a sense of wholeness from DMT session by exploiting the unity among the body, spirit, 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 four stages involved in this therapeutic method are, preparation, illumination, evaluation, and incubation. The preparation stage also goes by the name warm-up stage. It involves preparing a safe and adequate space without distractions or obstacles. The stage also involves participants forming supportive relationships with witnesses. Comfort is needed for the participants to move while closing their eyes.

The leader prompts participants to venture into the subconscious during the incubation stage. Verbal contact is used to make the prompt. The subconscious offers a good environment to allow for the exploitation of emotions. The stage of illumination follows after incubation. Illumination stage is introduced in dialogue. The witness offers dialogue to conscious awareness to let self-reflection to begin.

Through self-reflection, participants can resolve and uncover motivations within their subconscious. There are both positive and negative aspects of excess self-awareness. The session is concluded with evaluation where insights are discussed to understand their significance.




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