Dance therapy with children and teenagers
Dance therapy offers a variety of kinetic experiences, as it includes a wide range of approaches, such as creative movement, improvisation, representation and play. These encourage children to express, communicate (verbal and non-verbal), regain the image of the body and themselves and build relationships.
Through safe kinetic interactions, students have the opportunity to develop new adaptive, communicative and expressive behaviors to discover their abilities, constraints, functionality and independence.
The choreographer can also include parents in the healing process.
Dance therapy with adults
Group dance meetings with adults offer an atmosphere of physical and psychological security where people can feel relief, rejuvenation and relaxation.
Stories and experiences are shared in the group with body, movements, music and poetry to help express the feelings.
What Is Dance Therapy?
Like all forms of therapy, Dance therapy is designed to help us understand ourselves and our feelings.
But while most forms of psychotherapy use verbal communication as the main method, Dance therapy brings the physical movement to help sense the connection between the mind, body, emotions, and the body’s ability to communicate. It is at the beginning that the movement reflects the way the person thinks and senses.
Our body is a great source of knowledge sometimes we see our emotions being expressed first through the movement, attitude and general expression of the body before we even express them verbally.
Also, it is not necessary for someone to have knowledge or previous experience with the movement to attend a number of meetings. One can attend individual meetings or even meetings can be made with the family of the person concerned or with a team.
Who is the subject of Dance therapy?
Because Dance therapy focuses on non-verbal communication it can cover a wide range of people who can be helped. It can help from young children to the elderly as well as be very useful to people who have difficulty speaking or still do not like to talk much.
It is becoming increasingly known as an intervention in people with schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, autism, dementia, learning difficulties, personality disorders, etc.
Dance therapy is also offered in cases where there is no diagnosis, since it aims at self – development, expression and self – care and exploration.
Contact with the movement and with various aspects of ourselves, with non-verbal behaviors, gestures, postures of our body, helps us to gain a greater understanding of how we communicate and how they are perceived by others.
People who attended a number of Dance Meetings had shared that they offered, among other things, the following:
- Relieve stress
- Improving mood
- Understanding yourself
- Self knowledge
- Better expression of self and emotions
- Self confidence
- Better delimitation of personal limits
- Increasing sympathy for the body and the self
How can a Dance Meeting look like?
As with all therapies, individual or group Dance Meetings take place on a weekly basis and last for 45 to 60 minutes, in a private and safe environment, full of understanding.
A meeting combines speech and body movement and usually consists of various parts such as body warm-up, development time of any subject, relaxation and closure.
The choreographer encourages the process of expressing emotions, feeling self-confident and relieving anxiety in order for the participant or group to release feelings of active action and a sense of pleasure “here and now”.
MA Psychotherapy of Dance Movement
University of Derby, Derby