Dance/Movement Therapy
Dance/Movement Therapy is an expressive psychotherapy developed by Marian Chace in 1942. Its core mechanism: using the body in creative movement within a therapeutic relationship to access, express, and integrate emotional experience that exceeds verbal capacity. This catalogue links it to PTSD, complex trauma and psychosis, typically in individual or group format, open-ended.
Related condition topics
These links support exploration. They do not establish that Dance/Movement Therapy is effective or recommended for each condition.
How Dance/Movement Therapy works
Using the body in creative movement within a therapeutic relationship to access, express, and integrate emotional experience that exceeds verbal capacity
Ontology
The body is the primary site of emotional experience; movement is the first language, before words, and for some experiences, the only adequate language
Therapeutic Voice
"What happens if you let that gesture get bigger? Follow it wherever it wants to go."
View of the Person
An embodied, moving being whose emotional life is expressed through gesture, posture, rhythm, and the quality of movement through space
Epistemology
Evidence
2 condition assessments available
An overall effectiveness assessment has not been completed. Completed assessments for specific populations appear below.
Condition-specific assessments
Each conclusion applies to the population and use described. These source-based assessments do not certify the full entry or replace expert clinical review.
Eating Disorders
Population and scope: Young women with AN, bulimia or EDNOS receiving dance/movement therapy alongside specialist eating-disorder care.
Limited evidence
A small nonrandomized pilot allocated participants by timetable and examined body image and alexithymia; some body-image scores improved. A separate uncontrolled inpatient study examined emotion regulation and interoception. These are adjunctive process/body-image findings, not demonstrated eating-disorder remission, weight restoration, or superiority to specialist care.
Source assessment dated
Psychosis & Schizophrenia Spectrum
Population and scope: People diagnosed with schizophrenia receiving dance/movement interventions alongside usual care.
Randomized studies
Small direct randomized trials report mixed results. A 31-person ten-week pilot found no quantitative clinical improvement despite positive interviews; a 32-person single-session study reported immediate symptom improvement. These findings do not establish sustained relapse prevention. NICE arts-therapy guidance concerns a broader category and is not automatically a DMT-specific endorsement.
Source assessment dated
Guidelines and official sources (2)
2 clinical guideline checks
Read the recommendation and its scope. A source may discuss an approach without recommending it.
- Psychosis and schizophrenia in adults: prevention and management (CG178)
Discussed in the source
NICE says to consider arts therapies within specified delivery standards. This is a broad category recommendation, not a separately graded recommendation for dance/movement therapy or other conditions.
Scope: Arts therapies for psychosis or schizophrenia, especially negative symptoms.
- Clinical Practice Guideline for Management of PTSD and Acute Stress Disorder
Discussed in the source
VA/DoD gives creative arts therapies a neutral recommendation, naming dance as an example. Specific protocols are not separately graded.
Scope: Creative arts therapies for adults with PTSD.
Recorded material under review
The existing notes below are retained separately from assessment records. These recorded claims await source checking, including study design, recommendations and numerical estimates.
10+ RCTs
Koch et al. (2014, 2019)
One of the creative arts therapies with its own board credential (BC-DMT), earned through a master's degree and supervised clinical hours rather than a weekend certification. The research base is small but growing, strongest in depression; the psychosis recommendation it is usually cited for is a recommendation for arts therapies generally rather than for DMT specifically.
Training and certification
Master's in dance/movement therapy from ADTA-approved program
BC-DMT (Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist); R-DMT (Registered)
Master's + 3,640 hrs supervised practice for BC-DMT
Graduate degree
Find a trained therapist
Equity & Cultural Adaptations
Clinical cautions and blind spots
Assessment and precautions
Medical conditions contraindicating physical movement, active psychosis where movement intensifies agitation, severe dissociation triggered by body awareness, clients with physical disabilities not accommodated by the specific approach
Blind spots
Evidence base still developing; Laban analysis requires extensive training; may not suit clients uncomfortable with body exposure; limited access outside urban centers
Philosophical roots
Merleau-Ponty (embodiment); Laban (effort/shape); Winnicott (play); phenomenology of the lived body
Compared with other approaches
Test Yourself
How does dance/movement therapy differ from somatic therapies like SE?
Show answer
DMT uses creative movement and the therapeutic relationship as primary vehicles for change. SE tracks involuntary nervous system responses. DMT is expressive; SE is regulatory.