What are the different types of dance therapy?

Answer 1

There are different forms of dance and different dance styles that can be learned but dance/movement therapy is not a type or style of dance. Dance therapy is a process. Dance therapy is a creative arts therapy modality (similar to art therapy or music therapy) used by a trained professional to help further the integration of body, mind, and spirit. Dance/movement therapy is a means of expression and is not the imposing of a form of dance on the body. It is a psychotherapy like verbal therapy (counseling). Instead of using conversation between therapist and client, the dance therapist uses improvisational movement in a kinesthetically empathic way to meet a client where he or she is.

In illness, whether physical or psychological, there are movement patterns that often repeat themselves or tensions may be held in parts of the body ( Nemetz, 1995). Dance therapists have a unique set of therapeutic skills that involves acknowledgment and development of the nonverbal language of the body through synchronous rhythm, pattern, and attunement. Dance therapy involves the therapist's interaction with clients to "discover new ways of moving and validating feelings and expressions" (Nemetz, 1995). Blanche Evan sums up dance therapy as something that "seeks to express rather than impress".