26/04/2022
What is Dance and Movement Therapy?
Part of the expressive therapies family, Dance and Movement Therapy requires a trained facilitator and a client or a group willing and open to work on themselves in an expressive way. During a session, clients will bring up relevant topics for themselves and the facilitator will guide clients into a process of inner inquiry or inner discovery using the movement vocabulary of the client and relevant discussions, moments of reflection and drawing. What's different in DM Therapy from other bodywork practices, is that it's a relational therapy, in which the client discovers themselves, is seen, heard, witnessed in a safe space held by the facilitator.
Why Dance and Movement Therapy?
Because it's an approach that gives space for body, mind, emotional, spiritual dimensions the client brings in and because the body holds a rich life in itself that is seldom brought into conversation in this way. The client is encouraged to work with whatever content lies within, with the range of movement and vocabulary that he/she/they are comfortable with at any given time. The practice encourages the client to listen to their own inner impulses to movement, even this means they will sit still, move just a little bit or express themselves creatively using more space.
Who is it for?
Dance& Movement Therapy is not only for those with wide and bold moves, but also for the ones who don't often dance, for the ones that sit long hours, or who are reduced in their movement, for young as well as for elders, for those who work with other people or for those who work creatively.
But I already have a strong bodywork practice. Do I still benefit from Dance and Movement Therapy?
Even if you are a fitness guru, a yoga master or a dance enthusiast, and your body is your home and your space capsule into this world, the answer is still a confident yes. There are different modes in which we operate with our bodies. The body can be technically and expressively rich, however most bodywork practices require you to perform certain moves and get better and better at it with time. In Dance and Movemet Therapy we see the body as it is in any given time, with no pressure to perform or execute certain movements. We work with that which everyBody feels like expressing, that which draws the body into movement. Being a body is a mode that often offers a balance to the perspective of having a body which performs different moves. Moving inner content along with the body, giving expression to inner attitudes, to emotions and thoughts in an open and receiving space often has a vivifying effect and has the potential to enrich your own practice.