Dance Movement Therapy

By: Edward Rubio-Cazares and Melanie Meza

What is Dance Movement Therapy? (DMT)

Dance movement therapy uses dance to promote psychological and physical wellness. It combines many different vocabularies of dance to form a regimen for a group of patients directed by an instructor. It is commonly used to treat depression and immobilizing disorders.

History of Dance Movement Therapy(DMT)

Dance rituals have been used therapeutically for thousands of years, it's resurgence came in 1950's when the American Dance Therapy Association was founded by Marian Chance. However, it wasn't until the 1970's that therapists began to use dance as a form of psychotherapy.

DMT Process

Four Stages Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Evaluation.

Preparation - Consists of warm-up exercises.

Incubation - Patients focus on relaxing and awareness.

Illumination Patients learn the movements and their significance.

Evaluation Finishing the session while processing what they've gained.

A Session of DMT

Movements in DMT

Movements from different dances are incorporated into the therapy depending on the needs of the patients in the session. These movements come from dances such as the waltz, ballroom, modern, line, tango, and the foxtrot.

Bibliography

http://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/treatment-for-eating-disorders/types-of-treatments/body-movement-dance-therapy

http://www.healthpronet.org/ahp_month/04_05.html

http://www.adta.org

http://samples.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/9781134934263_sample_512862.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22164813

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlp6GBdDc-o

Click to edit the title text format

Click to edit the title text format