Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) is a form of psychotherapy under the Arts and Play Therapies umbrella. This approach involves body and movement, and is practiced as both individual and group therapy in a range of settings. 

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My core training in DMP integrated several frameworks and emphasised the creative role of curiosity and a ‘not knowing’ position, a respect for difference, and an appreciation of the effects of mutual influences in relationships. DMP is an embodied intervention in relationship with others: meeting clients in body and movement, assessing through embodied observation, working with both our own and our clients’ embodiment. Key DMP principles such as body-mind integration, body memory, relational connection, embodied emotional expression and kinaesthetic empathy are incorporated within my psychotherapeutic approach. These constituent elements remain present in my clinical work and, since training, I have been expanding onto other psychotherapeutic approaches to enhance my DMP base which I want to acknowledge as a discipline which continues to be expanding as well. I have experienced myself connecting with a more in-depth understanding of embodiment and have gone on to develop a position and a rationale and a criteria for my work that is really important to me.

I would describe myself as an embodied (movement) psychotherapist. For me, this started as a response to making my approach more accessible for people who might find the idea of dancing ‘off-putting’ or threatening in their embodied expression. My embodied, relational and creative psychotherapeutic approach pays attention to and invites the continuum of body-mind in action into the process. My clinical approach draws upon a range of techniques, for example, from the practices of body-oriented psychotherapy, DMP and expressive arts therapies.

 

I have an interest in working integratively with clients through movement, art and words. My core DMP training offered an integrative approach to practice which encouraged me to privilege neither language nor movement but to work with both equally and according to the context. Whilst the term ‘integrative’ means the amalgamation of two or more different theoretical schools, my work has an integrative foundation and what I offer has an underlying integral body-mind perspective.

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The embodied relational element
One of my core beliefs is that therapy is a two-persons space. Working relationally assumes a two-person psychology – a bi-directional influence – as well as co-construction and multiplicity of meaning. Relationality/relational practice promotes the development of the whole creative potential of the client-therapist dynamic within the therapeutic relationship. It places emphasis on the mutuality of the relationship and, rather than the therapist holding a position of authority to define reality, both of us bring our own perspectives to the relationship, and each perspective is equally valid. 

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The person-centred, process-oriented element
My core DMP training introduced me to person-centred therapy – a model with which I felt personally and politically comfortable. The absence of threat in the person-centred therapy relationship embodies unconditional positive regard, establishing an environment that humanists believe supports positive growth. The humanistic school encourages me to explore, be collaborative, hypothesise and monitor my practice. Involving myself in the therapeutic process, combining non-verbal and verbal participation, observing and reflecting on what is witnessed, forming relationships with my clients continues to wake me up, challenge and nourish me. The humanistic approach emphasises understanding existence, experience and being in the ‘here and now’ as well as body language and the unity of body and mind. It is not about confronting defences or interpreting unconscious process but that the empathic therapeutic relationship is mutually created, mutually involving and evolving.

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