Dance and Movement Therapies

Dance and movement therapies focus on personal expression to enhance emotional and psychological healing.

Cancer may result in extensive emotional, physical and social suffering. Current cancer care increasingly incorporates psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life. Creative arts therapies such as dance/movement, music, art and drama therapy have been used to aid care and recovery. Following medical therapies, which can be invasive, people with cancer use dance/movement therapy to learn to accept and reconnect with their bodies, build new self-confidence, enhance self-expression, address feelings of isolation, depression, anger, fear and distrust and strengthen personal resources. It has also been used to improve range of arm motion and to reduce arm circumference after mastectomy or lumpectomy.

Dance/movement therapy is a complementary modality that is being explored for symptom control and for improving the quality of life of patients with cancer, especially pediatric patients. Self-expression as well as the creative and interpersonal aspects of dance/movement therapy can help patients get in touch with their innermost feelings, which can empower and support adaptation and symptom management.

It is a synergy between psychotherapy and the self-expressive, communicative elements of dance, creating a body-mind emotional connection to enable participants to share feelings that may be difficult to express with words. It is defined by the American Dance Therapy Association as “the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being.” Dance/movement therapy in a medical setting provides psychosocial support during conventional and standard medical treatments.

Although dance is in the title of the modality and may be incorporated into the session, dance/ movement therapy encompasses a wide variety of activities, including movement, guided visualization, mindfulness, as well as body and breath awareness, creating an emotionally inviting milieu to support self-expression. Sessions are conducted individually or in groups (and can include family and friends) and may incorporate both movement and verbal expression.