Dance Therapy: Where Movement and Therapy Meet
Christina Motley is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and a board-certified dance/movement therapist, who sees clients from 4 years old into aging adulthood. She has had the opportunity to support clients in navigating through the experiences of depression, anxiety, grief and loss, anger management, and identity development while incorporating dance and movement therapy into her work with clients. Please continue reading to learn more about the intersection of dance, movement, and mental health.
What inspired you to incorporate dance and movement into your mental health practice?
Movement is why I joined the mental health field. My dance has always been my way of processing and working through my own emotions throughout my life. Movement is the primary form of expression that I see others share their stories in ways that cannot be put into words. While I *danced* between my work as dancing artist and teaching artist, I was pulled to support others in connecting to and finding comfort in their bodies, minds, and spirits. I was inspired to become a dance/movement therapist while coordinating a program to bring dance class to children with various access needs and complex emotional landscapes. This program brought me into spaces where I collaborated with various mental health professionals, who encouraged me to join the mental health field as a dance/movement psychotherapist.
Share some specific ways you integrate dance and movement into a therapy session. Do clients need prior dance knowledge for this?
There is no need for prior dance knowledge to engage in a dance/movement therapy sessions and every dance/movement therapy session looks different. I invite the body to be part of the session, which may look like a typical talk therapy session with more micro-movements occurring or may look like bigger movements using the space given. There is no right or wrong way to engage.
Dance/movement therapy is a psychotherapy that supports inner connectivity of the body, mind, and spirit to cultivate outer expressivity with acknowledging, shifting, and increasing movement repertoire. With the primary goal of dance/movement therapy to create space for verbal communication and processing of feelings and thoughts, my work allows clients to find self-expression that may surpass what might be found in strictly verbal therapy sessions.
How does movement help clients process emotions and trauma differently than traditional talk therapy?
Often, movement leads to the ability to recognize and allow for verbal processing of challenging emotions and trauma. Movement-based grounding tools are established at the beginning of the therapeutic movement relationship so that the client can use their body as a grounding resource when moving deeper into processing. Dance/movement therapists are specifically trained to provided trauma-informed somatic approaches to processing emotions so that the body can also be acknowledged, cared for, and supported throughout sessions.
How can people incorporate movement into their daily self-care routines?
A simple practice to incorporate movement into daily life could be intentional breathing, particularly noticing your exhale. You might notice if you can channel attention to parts of your body that hold stress or tension, and intentionally exhale to release that tension, allowing any residual movement to follow.
What can help clients feel more comfortable using dance and movement in their healing journey?
I would encourage folks to remember that our creativity, imagination, and playfulness lead to opportunities of broadening perspectives, seeing new choices, and understanding present moment joy. Movement is something we all do every day; we carry our body with us everywhere we go. There is a dance in how we cook dinner, play with our children/try to get our children to take a bath, walk our dogs, and sit in waiting rooms. If we work to build a connection between the mind and the body, we might find even more glimmers of comfort, hope, and home in ourselves.