What if therapy could include more than talking?
Dance/Movement Therapy
Sometimes you can understand something completely and still feel stuck in the same pattern.
You know why you overthink. You understand where your perfectionism comes from. You know you learned to keep the peace, take care of everyone else, or push your own feelings aside. You may even be very good at explaining your patterns.
And yet, when the moment comes, you still find yourself shutting down, going into overdrive, second-guessing yourself, or doing what you have always done.
Dance/movement therapy gives us another way to explore what is happening beneath the words.
We can pay attention to your body, your movement, your emotions, and the ways you respond in the moment. Sometimes that means moving. Sometimes it means noticing a sensation, changing your posture, taking up a little more space, or becoming aware of how you are sitting in your chair.
And sometimes, we just talk.
What is dance/movement therapy?
Dance/movement therapy, often shortened to DMT, is a form of psychotherapy that incorporates movement and body awareness alongside conversation.
The American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) defines dance/movement therapy as the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration and well-being. The ADTA also describes movement as something that can be functional, communicative, expressive, and part of how we relate to ourselves and others.
In simpler terms, DMT is about becoming curious about how you move through the world, not about learning how to dance.
Your body is communicating all the time, even when you are not consciously paying attention. You might hold your breath when you are anxious, tense your shoulders when you are overwhelmed, become very still when something feels difficult, or automatically lean toward someone when you feel connected.
Rather than judging these responses or trying to force them to change, we can become curious about what they might be communicating and what you might need.
You do not have to dance.
This is probably the most important thing I want you to know.
You do not have to dance in dance/movement therapy.
If the idea of dancing in front of a therapist makes you want to close this tab, you are not alone.
Movement in DMT can be incredibly subtle. The ADTA describes a wide range of possibilities, from ordinary everyday movement to expressive or improvisational dancing.
That might look like:
Noticing where you feel tension or ease in your body
Paying attention to your breathing
Exploring how you naturally sit, stand, walk, or gesture
Trying a small movement that represents an emotion
Stretching or moving while talking
Experimenting with taking up more or less physical space
Using your hands or arms to express something that is difficult to put into words
Moving to music
Exploring an image, metaphor, or feeling through movement
Sitting completely still and noticing what happens
We can move a lot, move a little, or not move at all.
There is no performance, choreography, dance experience, or particular way you are supposed to participate. You do not need to consider yourself a dancer, and there is no “right” way to move.
Why bring the body into therapy?
Most of us are taught to think about our minds and bodies as separate. We talk about what we think and feel, while treating everything happening physically as something happening somewhere else.
But your thoughts, emotions, and body are constantly influencing one another.
Think about what happens when you are nervous before an important conversation. Your thoughts might start racing. Your shoulders might tense. Your stomach might tighten. You might talk faster, become very quiet, or suddenly forget what you wanted to say.
Your body is part of the experience.
The same thing can happen with anxiety, trauma, perfectionism, people-pleasing, burnout, and relationship patterns. You might know intellectually that you are allowed to say no, but still feel a wave of guilt when you try. You might know that you do not have to fix everything, but automatically jump in when someone else is struggling.
DMT gives us a way to explore these experiences as they happen, rather than only talking about them afterward.
That does not mean your body always has the answer or that every physical sensation has some hidden meaning. It simply means your body gets to be part of the conversation.
What does DMT look like in virtual therapy?
You might be wondering how dance/movement therapy works through a screen.
In my practice, it can be surprisingly simple.
You do not need a dance studio or a huge empty room. You might be sitting in a chair, standing beside your desk, stretching on the floor, or moving around your living room.
I might invite you to notice something about your posture, breathing, or movement. We might experiment with a small movement, use music or imagery, or explore how your body responds to a particular thought or situation.
Other times, I might notice something about how you are showing up and bring it into our conversation.
And sometimes the answer is, “I really do not want to move today.”
That is completely okay.
The amount of movement can change from session to session. You are never expected to perform, entertain me, or demonstrate what your body can do. We will find an approach that feels useful and manageable for you.
What if I am not comfortable in my body?
You do not have to already feel connected to your body to try dance/movement therapy.
Maybe you spend most of your day in your head. Maybe you have learned to ignore hunger, exhaustion, tension, or other physical signals because there was always something more important to do. Maybe being aware of your body brings up complicated feelings.
We do not have to force you to suddenly love your body or become hyperaware of every sensation.
We can start small and build curiosity rather than judgment.
We might notice what feels comfortable, uncomfortable, familiar, or unfamiliar. We can pay attention to what your body is communicating without assuming we already know what it means.
There is no particular way you need to feel about your body before beginning this work.
When words only take you so far.
I work with many people who are incredibly thoughtful and self-aware.
You may already understand your anxiety patterns, know exactly where your perfectionism came from, or have spent years reading books and listening to podcasts about personal growth.
That insight can be valuable.
But sometimes understanding a pattern is not the same as being able to change it.
You can know that you are allowed to have boundaries and still feel guilty when you set one. You can know that someone else’s feelings are not your responsibility and still feel compelled to make everything okay. You can know that you are not actually in danger and still feel your whole body tense when conflict starts.
Instead of only talking about the pattern, we can explore what happens when the pattern shows up.
What happens in your body when you imagine saying no?
What changes when you picture taking up more space?
What happens when you pause before automatically fixing, apologizing, explaining, or people-pleasing?
These experiences can give us information that is sometimes difficult to access through conversation alone.
You do not have to choose between talking and moving.
One of the things I love most about dance/movement therapy is that it does not require us to choose between traditional talk therapy and movement.
We can talk, think things through, make connections, laugh, cry, sit in silence, and explore your relationships.
Movement simply gives us another language.
Sometimes words are exactly what we need. Sometimes a movement expresses something before you are ready to put it into words. Sometimes noticing what is happening in your body helps you understand why a situation feels the way it does.
We can move between these approaches depending on what you need.
My approach to dance/movement therapy.
As a Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT), I bring specialized training in using movement and body awareness as part of psychotherapy. I also integrate somatic, creative, experiential, and relational approaches into my work.
I am not interested in making you fit into a particular therapeutic method.
I want to understand how you experience yourself and what will actually be useful to you.
That might mean spending most of a session talking. It might mean experimenting with movement. It might mean noticing a physical response that keeps showing up when we talk about a particular relationship. It might mean using creativity to explore something that feels difficult to explain.
We will figure it out together.
My role is not to interpret every movement you make or tell you what your body “really means.” Instead, I want to help you become more curious about your own experience and develop your own understanding of what feels meaningful.
A different way of getting to know yourself.
You do not have to become a dancer.
You do not have to be comfortable moving.
You do not have to know exactly what you are feeling.
You can simply be curious.
Dance/movement therapy offers another way of exploring the patterns that shape your life, especially if you have spent years thinking your way through everything. It gives us a way to pay attention to the connection between your thoughts, emotions, body, and relationships.
You are a whole person, and therapy can make room for all of you.
Want to learn more?
The American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) is a great place to learn more about dance/movement therapy, what it can look like, and the training and credentials of professional dance/movement therapists. The ADTA also maintains a directory for finding dance/movement therapists.
Learn more about Dance/Movement Therapy through the American Dance Therapy Association
If you are curious about what DMT could look like specifically in your therapy, you can bring your questions to a consultation. We can talk about what you are looking for and whether incorporating movement into virtual therapy feels like a good fit.
Ready when you are.
Email me to get started or request a free 15‑minute consultation if you’d like to talk first.
I read and answer every message myself.