Dance Movement Therapy For Rehabilitation

Introduction

Dance movement therapy (DMT) is the use of movement to promote physical, emotional, social, and psychological health for better overall health and well-being. DMT can be used for many different kinds of rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is a set of interventions designed to reduce the impact of a disability. They work to tackle the underlying conditions that may hinder someone from being able to perform the activities of daily life.¹ 

Anyone may need rehabilitation at some point such as after injury, surgery, illness, or old age. Many aspects of health can benefit from rehabilitation such as movement, speech, sight, and social skills. In this article, we will explore how DMT can be a useful tool for physical, psychological and social rehabilitation. 

Overview of DMT

DMT is often conducted in small groups under the guidance and supervision of a qualified dance therapist. It emerged in the 1940s led by Marian Chace, where dance and movement were used as a way for World War II veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to express their emotions. 

DMT uses three main techniques to achieve the therapeutic effects; mirroring, Chacian movement, and authentic movements.

• Mirroring is when the instructor or a member of the group produces a spontaneous movement and the other members imitate that movement. 
• Chacian movement uses repetitive, rhythmic body movements led by the dance therapist. 
• Authentic movement is when the participant is encouraged to explore their emotions and to express themselves with improvised dance. This is often done with the eyes closed to reduce distractions or embarrassment. 

The role of the dance therapist in DMT is crucial as they must create a non-judgmental environment for the participants to feel comfortable enough to express themselves. They must also be compassionate and pick up on non-verbal cues to understand how the participants are feeling. For the user, it can be a freeing experience as they can connect with themselves physically and emotionally. There are many benefits that DMT can have on different aspects of someone's health.

Benefits of DMT

Physical benefits

DMT is centred around the individual so it can be adjusted to suit the needs of different people. There is often a misconception that you must be a good dancer or that you must have a certain level of physical ability to participate. However, DMT is tailored to fit the physical capacity of the individual, allowing for progress respective to the participant’s ability. It can range from simple gestures to full body movements so there is much scope for development. 

Across multiple sessions, there can be an increase in the range of joint movement, muscle tone and physical coordination. It can even help with chronic pain, high blood pressure, and other cardiovascular diseases (diseases related to the heart and blood vessels). 

Psychological benefits

At a basic level, DMT is known to improve psychological health. Dance has been proven to decrease stress, anxiety, and depression levels. There has even been a study showing that DMT can help with certain symptoms of schizophrenia. The symptoms of schizophrenia can be divided into ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. 

Positive symptoms refer to things that are added to the experience of the condition such as hallucinations, delusions and disordered thinking. Negative symptoms, on the other hand, negatively affect the experience of reality such as lack of motivation, reduced sleep, and becoming withdrawn. DMT has been shown to improve the negative symptoms of schizophrenia such as the feeling of ‘disembodiment’ that these individuals often experience.

Social benefits

The social benefits of DMT include improved ‘interpersonal skills’. These are defined as empathy, communication and the ability to maintain relationships. It has been shown that children and adults can benefit from the social benefits of DMT. The nature of the dance session along with the focus on non-verbal communication helps in improving social skills. A link has been found between the method of ‘mirroring’ which is often used in DMT sessions and improved empathy and attachment to the members of the group.² 

Application of DMT in rehabilitation

The applications for DMT are vast and have been proven to provide benefits to many different kinds of people because of the possibility of personalising the therapy depending on the target group. 

One study looked at the effect of dance and movement in African refugees who had experienced violence and pain from conflict in their countries before they moved to the US. It showed that, following DMT, they were able to integrate better into society with lower tendencies towards violence or anti-social behaviour. A group of young men decided to express the methods of dance that they learnt to perform improvised role-play in public.³

In another study focussed on the effect of DMT on different neurodegenerative diseases (such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s) in older participants. In comparison to other dance modalities, DMT demonstrated an improvement in the general disease condition, balance and movement. More investigations are needed to confidently say that DMT is effective in Alzhemier’s disease, however there are definitely positive effects on mood and quality of life.⁴  

Challenges and considerations

With DMT, there are very few contraindications as it can be accommodating to many different people based on the skill of the dance therapist. However, certain dance methods are not recommended to individuals with certain conditions, such as pregnant women, personality disorder, trauma (mental or physical injuries), and those with autism spectrum disorder. The contraindications for those with autism can be resolved by limiting which exercise they are told to perform. For individuals with more severe autism, free or improvised methods of dance are not helpful as they may feel overwhelmed and insecure with sudden freedom. This can be overcome by implementing methods of ‘authentic movement’ in a structured fashion.  

More challenges can arise from poor management of a therapy group. Poor leadership may result in strain to achieve certain objectives, especially in a competitive environment. The opposite can also be problematic as insufficient guidance can lead to very little progress as the participants are unable to learn from the experiences.⁵

Summary

Dance movement therapy is a method of using dance and movement to improve the physical, psychological, and social well-being of the participants. It involves many methods of dance such as mirroring, authentic movement, and Chacian movement. These involve spontaneous movements triggered by the thoughts of the participants under the guidance of trained dance therapists. They are often conducted in groups, allowing all members to share their emotions through movement. This fosters a closer sense of relation to improve mental and social connections made through these sessions. DMT sessions can be very personalised so almost anyone can participate and experience the benefits as long as a trained dance therapist conducts the sessions.