Healing through Movement: Understanding Dance Movement Therapy
To know ourselves is to listen to our bodies. Our bodies hold so much wisdom and guidance that when we listen and connect, our bodies can guide us through deep transformation. Have you ever seen a piece of art, watched a dance performance or listened to a song that emotionally held you and resonated with your emotional process? Various art forms have the power to speak deeply to our experience in ways words sometimes can not. I believe that to be with our bodies expressions and knowledge, is to welcome and be with our whole selves. I will work with you to authentically and compassionately connect to your whole self through your embodied story.
What is Dance Movement Therapy?
Dance movement therapy is a somatic psychotherapeutic approach to further healing and connection to the self through a deepening of conscious connection between body and mind. During session, dance and movement are utilized to help one express and navigate their emotional, mental, and physical beings. Working with a dance movement therapist can help you access an expression of the self in ways that is not always attainable through words. Dance movement therapy sessions can involve music, instruments, props or additional creative tools that help to represent one’s emotional experience.
How does Dance Movement Therapy work?
Dance movement therapy is an approach that welcomes the body into expression, exploration, and self-discovery. Dance movement therapists utilize a number of creative approaches that does not require a person on their healing path to have a background in dance. Some techniques may include movement metaphors, free movement and movement improvisation, breath work, authentic movement, gestural representation, vocalizations, somatic sensing, body scans, imagery sharing, body and spatial exercises, and mindfulness meditations.
Do you need a dance background to enter a therapy session?
To be in a dance movement therapy session one does not need any previous dance training. Dance movement therapy welcomes your body’s expression as is and sessions will be the space for you to connect to your body. Dance movement therapy allows for your body to join the conversation in your healing process by meeting your emotional somatic experiencing. In a world where so much is demanded from our bodies, dance movement therapy invites one to meet their bodies in ways that are compassionate, authentic, and healing through creative expression.
What does Dance Movement Therapy treat?
Dance Movement therapists undergo training programs and certification through verified programs. Dance Movement therapy can be effective in treating physical, mental health, cognitive, and social conditions. These specific areas may include grief, anxiety, life transitions, identity formation, depression, substance use disorders, depersonalization and dissociation, somatic symptoms, confidence and self-esteem building, relationships, chronic pain, arthritis, autism, family conflict, and social interaction.
Movement Mirroring
Dance movement therapists will accompany someone through movement mirroring, a process where one shares their movement expression and the dance movement therapist follows along and reflects your movement . Through the mirroring process one can experience being moved with, emotional holding, and being witnessed in their therapeutic movement process.
Dance movement therapy has been proven to be an effective treatment to improve mental health and well-being.
What does the course of Dance Movement Therapy look like?
The first session will include a mindfulness exercise to invite one to somatically check-in. The dance movement therapist will engage you in questions to understand presenting symptoms and lived experience.
The dance movement therapist will assess the mental, emotional and physical place you are currently to help create a treatment plan based on your therapeutic goals.
The dance movement therapist will work with you to develop a therapeutic movement relationship.
The dance movement therapist will work with the here-and-now and will provide movement-based and creative explorations to invite a deepened understanding of your emotional, social, and physical experience and to support your well-being and healing.
The dance movement therapist will provide somatic tools and interventions to help you on your path to healing.
Your shared treatment goals and treatment plan will be adjusted to meet your needs and healing.
Reach out to us to learn more how dance movement therapy can help you in your journey.
- Noelani Rodriguez, LCAT, RDMT