Wording the Complexity of Dance Movement Therapy

Abstract

The beneficial role of creative arts therapies, such as dance movement therapy (DMT) in the field of somatic and psychosocial well-being, is increasingly recognized. A complication in the development of evidence-based recommendations for DMT for various somatic and psychosocial problems is that DMT studies often lack a clear description and integration of the DMT interventions applied. This study aimed to investigate in a systematic way which kind of content is described in published DMT studies that could serve to describe specific DMT practices. The chapter first describes the results from a review which inventoried 43 DMT articles. Variety between studies was very broad, from single case studies to cohort studies, from personal records to theoretical essays. Secondly, the chapter presents a structural and conceptual framework of four partly overlapping frames. Ideally, DMT studies would describe a series of choices made, including meta-theoretical concepts and their relevance for the chosen therapy approach. This would enable describing a suitable design of DMT intervention and session structures, and finally, to give rationale for the selection of specific dance and movement activities. This kind of explicit process description would position DMT more clearly in the broader mental health field or a multidisciplinary context.