What Is Dance Movement Therapy? The Body as a Path to Healing

Can moving your body actually change how you feel? “Butterflies in the stomach”... “sinking hearts”, “weight on my shoulders”... Movement metaphors have long been integrated into our language but its effects are beyond metaphorical – it’s physiological, emotional, relational – and there's a growing body of research behind it.

That's the premise of Dance Movement Therapy (DMT), the clinical practice I’ve trained in and now build Move & Mend around. If you've never heard of it, or you've only encountered it as "dance but therapeutic," here's what DMT actually is, and why I think it deserves a place in how we talk about mental health.

What actually is Dance Movement Therapy (DMT)?

The American Dance Therapy Association defines DMT as the psychotherapeutic use of movement to support emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration (American Dance Therapy Association, 2020a). In plain terms, it means using the body and its movement as the primary language of therapy, not an add-on to talking. It traces back to pioneers like Marian Chace, who recognized that movement communicates emotional experience, symbolic meaning, and relational dynamics in ways words sometimes can't reach (American Dance Therapy Association, 2020b; Chaiklin & Wengrower, 2016).

In session, that looks like: Embodiment work, non-verbal attunement, movement observation, mirroring, rhythm, improvisation, and kinesthetic empathy, the practitioner's felt sense of another person's movement (Chaiklin & Wengrower, 2016; Koch et al., 2014, 2019). Through mirroring and synchrony, a client can experience being seen and accompanied without needing to explain themselves first. Through improvisation, they get room to experiment, express, and make meaning, often before they have the words for what they're processing.

This matters because the body isn't just where symptoms show up. It's where regulation, connection, and change happen too (Rosendahl et al., 2021). For people whose therapeutic needs include emotional regulation, body awareness, interpersonal connection, or a rebuilt sense of agency, movement offers an experiential route in, one that doesn't depend on verbal fluency or readiness to talk (Koch et al., 2019).

What does the research say it can do?

For the data-driven modern thinkers, yes, DMT is evidence-based, and there’s a growing database as we bring this to light in more spaces. 

Meta-analytic research links DMT and dance-based interventions to reductions in depression and anxiety, and improvements in quality of life, interpersonal skills, cognitive skills, and psychomotor function (Karkou et al., 2019; Koch et al., 2019). Body psychotherapy more broadly has demonstrated effectiveness across a systematic review and meta-analysis (Rosendahl et al., 2021), and there's a strengthening theoretical case for embodied approaches in clinical psychotherapy generally (Fugate et al., 2024).

For people carrying trauma, this matters in a specific way. Body- and movement-oriented interventions have shown meaningful efficacy for post-traumatic stress symptoms (Van de Kamp et al., 2019), and dance therapy specifically has demonstrated impact for adults processing psychological trauma (Tomaszewski et al., 2023). A recent scoping review also points to dance-based interventions supporting embodied mindfulness and mental wellbeing in everyday, non-clinical populations, not just clinical ones (Zafeiroudi et al., 2025).

The newest piece of this puzzle comes from a 2026 meta-analysis by Xing, which reviewed 19 randomized controlled trials (1,375 participants total) published between 2014 and 2024. The findings: Dance-based interventions, including DMT, produced a statistically significant reduction in depressive symptoms, with comparable effects across different dance forms. The strongest, most consistent results came from moderate-duration programs (four to twelve weeks), and benefits extended to people managing chronic pain and mild cognitive impairment, not just those without other health conditions (Xing, 2026). 

What I've seen in my own work

Since 2024, I’ve been running an eight-week DMT-infused Acroyoga program with adolescent females in residential care. These girls were placed in out-of-home care for safety reasons. So it is clear that they’ve been through significant adverse childhood experiences. We’re hoping that our intervention could help improve the quality of their lives, support nervous system regulation, help them re-engage in supportive co-regulation and improve vitality and social skills. 

In 2024, we managed to get consent from the children and the residence to conduct research for 2 specific runs. We measured quality of life before and after using the KIDSCREEN-10, and tracked session-by-session experience using the Dunphy Outcomes Framework.

The results: A statistically significant improvement in overall quality of life, with the single largest gain in perceived energy, participants reporting they felt more alive, more capable, more switched on. Participants also reported significant improvements in doing things they wanted to in their free time and getting on well at school, suggesting the effects weren't staying inside the studio. Session ratings showed significant gains in enjoyment and in participants' ability to cope with challenges. Furthermore, in their written reflections, themes of trust, communication, courage, and emotional regulation showed up again and again, not because I asked them to write those words, but because that's what the work surfaced.

None of this proves causation on its own; it's a pilot study, small sample, with no control group. But it adds a real, embodied data point to a research base that's already telling a consistent story: Moving the body, in a held and attuned way, changes how people feel.

If you're curious what this could look like for you, your team, or the young people you work with, reach out to me via email sqasity@gmail.com and follow our instagram page @movemendsg. I'm always glad to talk through what an embodied, DMT-informed approach could offer your context and tailor programmes to your needs.

References

American Dance Therapy Association. (2020a). What is dance/movement therapy? https://www.adta.org

American Dance Therapy Association. (2020b). Marian Chace biography. https://www.adta.org/marian-chace-biography

Chaiklin, S., & Wengrower, H. (Eds.). (2016). The art and science of dance/movement therapy: Life is dance (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Fugate, J. M. B., Macrine, S. L., & Hernandez-Cuevas, E. M. (2024). Therapeutic potential of embodied cognition for clinical psychotherapies: From theory to practice. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 48, 574–598. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-024-10468-y

Karkou, V., Aithal, S., Zubala, A., & Meekums, B. (2019). Effectiveness of dance movement therapy in the treatment of adults with depression: A systematic review with meta-analyses. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 936. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00936

Koch, S. C., Kunz, T., Lykou, S., & Cruz, R. (2014). Effects of dance movement therapy and dance on health-related psychological outcomes: A meta-analysis. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 41(1), 46–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2013.10.004

Koch, S. C., Riege, R. F. F., Tisborn, K., Biondo, J., Martin, L., & Beelmann, A. (2019). Effects of dance movement therapy and dance on health-related psychological outcomes: A meta-analysis update. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1806. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01806

Rosendahl, S., Sattel, H., & Lahmann, C. (2021). Effectiveness of body psychotherapy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 709798. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.709798

Tomaszewski, C., Belot, R.-A., Essadek, A., Onumba-Bessonnet, H., & Clesse, C. (2023). Impact of dance therapy on adults with psychological trauma: A systematic review. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(2), 2225152. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2023.2225152

Van de Kamp, M. M., Scheffers, M., Hatzmann, J., Emck, C., Cuijpers, P., & Beek, P. J. (2019). Body- and movement-oriented interventions for posttraumatic stress disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 32(6), 967–976. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22465

Xing, Z. (2026). Effects of dance movement therapy and other dance-related interventions on depressive symptoms: A meta-analysis of evidence in the past decade. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 276(4), 1505–1519. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-026-02205-1

Zafeiroudi, A., Tsartsapakis, I., Trigonis, I., Kouli, O., Goulimaris, D., & Kouthouris, C. (2025). Embodied mindfulness through movement: A scoping review of dance-based interventions for mental well-being in recreational populations. Healthcare, 13(17), 2230. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare13172230

Ong Si Qi, S., Lebre, P., & Schoenenberger-Howie, S. (2026). Embodied support and relational challenge: A preliminary study of an Acroyoga-infused Dance Movement Therapy approach [Unpublished manuscript]. Move & Mend.