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Dance Movement Therapy: What is it, Effectiveness & It's Health Benefits?

There are places inside your heart that you might not know are going through emotional turmoil. This is because you might have chosen to deny those emotions, the result of which are stress and depression. To cope with such instances, it is ideal if you decide on dance movement therapy, which allows you to give a voice to your emotions and feelings.

This article will provide details of the therapy and why it is beneficial. Therefore, read on to have a glimpse of the effectiveness of dance therapy.

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What Is Dance Movement Therapy?

Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) is a creative psychotherapy that uses movement to promote social, cognitive, physical, and emotional integration. The American Dance Therapy Association says it helps increase your strength, improve your flexibility, decrease muscle tension, and boost your self-confidence. In addition to these, this therapy assures essential mental health benefits that include reduction of stress and depression.

An extraordinary and holistic approach to healing a human being, this therapy initiates the feeling that our mind, body, and spirit cannot be separated. Therefore, if there is any change in your body, your mind will reflect it, and vice versa. But, first, you must actively engage in dance therapy sessions to understand and experience the process.

What Factors Does Dance Movement Therapy Rely Upon?

The factors associated with this unique therapy include:

Movement is our first language and non-verbal, and movement communication is an essential component that spans a lifetime.
Like verbal language, non-verbal communication is equally effective during therapy.
This therapy teaches that our mind, body, and spirit are connected and dependent on each other. When one is affected, the other is affected too.
Your movement is a significant mode of intervention and is an effective assessment tool.
Your movement can be developmental, expressive, functional, and communicative. A therapist observes these instincts during a session.

What Does a Dance Therapist Do?

In a dance therapy session, your therapist will conduct the following:

Your therapist will encourage you to track your body sensations and breath and help you feel your emotions.
You can explore and connect your movements with your emotions and feelings.
Your therapist will guide you through spontaneous and self-expressive movements.
To promote and initiate healing, your therapist might guide you with specific movements or verbal therapies associated with the movements.
Your therapist will also help you process and tolerate the internal sensations and inner emotions generated by the movements.
To help you to connect with the emotions of others and build feelings of sympathy and empathy, your therapist might use the mirroring technique. This allows you to copy the movements of another person.
This will help you build a sense of choice, and you will feel autonomy and a sense of control inside your body.

What Does Dance Movement Therapy Help to Treat?

Your dance therapist will help you improve your self-esteem and body image. The following are the ways that this movement therapy helps you:

Physical Issues:

Hypertension - It is another name for high blood pressure and might lead to severe health issues increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Arthritis - It is tenderness or swelling in one or more joints leading to stiffness and pain. Arthritis might worsen as you age.
Cancer - This is a disease where the cells of your body grow uncontrollably and tend to spread to other areas of your body.
Obesity (Children and Adults) - When there is an excess amount of body fat in your body, it increases the risk of other diseases. This is obesity.
Cardiovascular disease - Cardiovascular disease or CVD is a condition that involves affecting your heart or the blood vessels. It results in deposits of fat inside your arteries which further increases the risk of a blood clot.
Chronic pain - A pain that lasts for a longer time, usually more than six months, is chronic pain. It might continue even after your injury or illness has healed.

Cognitive Issues:

Communication problems - A communication problem happens when you cannot convey your thoughts into a meaningful message to someone properly. A communication problem may arise when you cannot understand or share the message correctly.
Dementia - When you lose cognitive functioning, such as reasoning, remembering, or thinking, you cannot carry out your daily activities. This is dementia.

Mental Issues:

Depression and Anxiety - Depression is caused when you have a low, sad, and hopeless emotion that lingers around. Anxiety includes feelings of fear and nervousness.
Poor Self-Esteem - When you are overly critical of yourself and ignore your positive skills, you have low self-esteem. Here, you always try to judge yourself with others and use negative words to describe yourself.
Post-traumatic Stress - When a specific event initiates anxiety attacks, fear, and uncontrollable thoughts inside you, it is post-traumatic stress. The event has created pressure on your mental well-being and led you to such stress.

Social Issues:

Autism - ASD or Autism spectrum disorder is a broad range of conditions associated with challenges with speech communication, non-verbal movement, social skills, and repetitive behaviours.
Conflicts and Violence - Conflicts, domestic violence, and societal violence might often create stress and affect the subconscious mind leading to specific behavioural patterns.

How Effective Is Dance Therapy?

Dance Movement Therapy is effective in the following ways:

This therapy proves that it has a positive effect if you are undergoing depression.
It ensures a reduction of aggression and an increase in positive behavioural patterns.
It ensures recall of memory if someone has dementia and helps in treating children who suffer from autism.
Since this therapy comes with physical and social aspects, it is an excellent treatment for childhood obesity.

What Are the Benefits of Dance Movement Therapy?

The benefits of this therapy are:

This therapy promotes calmness in your body, where you can connect with emotions.
It also promotes self-awareness, allowing you to connect with your body and identify the sensations of hunger.
With this therapy, you are actually able to de-stress yourself by focusing more on your skills and passion.
If you are suffering from an eating disorder affecting your body image, you can access self-expression and recover from your eating disorder habits through this therapy.

What Are the Things to Consider Before Choosing Dance Therapy?

Certain things are required to be considered before you opt for this therapy. They are:

Limitations on Health: You might experience low energy levels, fragility, and specific complications due to malnutrition. Therefore, the therapy will vary from person to person. A therapist will first understand whether you can intake the sessions and absorb them. Only then will the professional proceed.
Safety and Comfort: In case you have undergone trauma, going slow is necessary. Your therapist will create a sense of safety and comfort and help you come out of that trauma first so that you can absorb the therapy's positivity.
Deal with Feelings: A therapist might first understand whether this therapy is the one required for you actually to help you deal with complicated feelings. Some individuals have critical situations where they tend to disconnect from their bodies and blame themselves. The therapist will first create a sense of compassion and appreciation within you and then proceed with the therapy.

FAQs About Dance Movement Therapy

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Is jumping involved in dance therapy?

Yes, jumping is a part of dance therapy. People who are under depression do not do much vertical movement. Therefore, therapists believe that jumping can effectively treat depression as it involves a lot of vertical movement.

What are the stages of dance therapy?

Dance therapy consists of various styles and all of them have four stages namely, Preparation, Incubation, Illumination and Evaluation.

Do I need to dance well to undergo dance therapy?

No, you don't need to dance well if you want to choose dance therapy. Anyone can benefit from this unique initiative as it is a freeform, and no one will judge you based on your dancing skills. In addition, it is a place where you can express your feelings freely.