Course description

What is Dance and Movement Therapy?

Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT) is defined as the therapeutic use of the body and authentic movement with the aim of enhancing the individual's emotional, cognitive, physical, and social integration. DMT includes some common principles and features found in all psychotherapies, while also having its unique and theoretically supported processes. Based on the Gestalt approach, which adopts the principle of 'mind-body unity,' DMT regards the body's spontaneous movement and authentic dance as a means of expressive expression, functional, communicative, developmental, and integrative processes. The feature that most distinguishes DMT and its mechanism of change is its focus on the expressive movement and the body in the therapeutic process. In DMT, emotions, images, thoughts, sensations, and information that are not consciously perceived by the individual's mind are dynamically concretized, shaped, and worked on through non-verbal, expressive dance and movement.

Dance and Movement Therapy began to take shape in the United States in the 1940s, influenced by the theories of Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, and Gestalt theorist Harry Stack Sullivan. In the 1950s, the works of pioneers such as Marian Chase and Mary Whitehouse helped develop it as a therapeutic approach. In 1966, the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) was founded, and it gained attention as an expressive therapy applied in various fields.

Dance/Movement Therapy is applied in specialized settings such as education, healthcare, psychiatric clinics, nursing homes, educational environments, alternative health centers, and rehabilitation centers. It is particularly applied to children, adolescents, adults, and elderly individuals, often through group activities. Numerous research studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of DMT in addressing issues such as anxiety, depression, body image, eating disorders, self-esteem, rehabilitation of victims of physical and sexual violence, improving communication skills, reducing stress, body tension, chronic pain, and depression.