Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) is the use of dance and movement as a somatic therapeutic tool, based on the idea that the body and the mind are inseparable.
It’s thought that gesture, posture and movements express the person and allow for body awareness, self-knowledge and self-development, and can be utilized as a way to enter into the subconscious or unconscious and reveal deeply hidden emotional distress or trauma.
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DMT states that body movements reflect inner emotional states and that changes in movement behavior can lead to changes in the mind thereby promoting health and growth. The other way around is also true, that is, becoming more consciously aware of one’s repertoire of movements we can more easily change our way of moving.
One of the important goals of DMT is to revitalize the body and reestablish body-mind connections that may have been blocked. Another goal is to broaden options of how we can move our body. In fact, over time a person’s body creates a certain set of movements, and often the body’s repertoire of movements is molded by the person’s experiences (which includes emotional distress and trauma).
Some movements may have been a mode of coping or psychological protection but are no longer needed or working for a person. DMT can be used as a therapeutic Body De-Armouring tool helping a person to acquire other more appropriate body movements or helping them in getting rid of obsolete, non-functional, or trauma-reminding i.e. trauma-reinforcing movements.
DMT can also help in learning to move one’s body more in alignment with one’s felt gender identity, for instance by exploring ways of moving that feel more masculine, feminine, or gender neutral.
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