Aspects of Theory and Practice in Dance Movement Psychotherapy in the UK: Similarities and Differences from Music Therapy

Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) is the youngest of the arts therapies with practitioners coming together to form the first professional association in the discipline in the UK in 1982. DMP is currently used in clinical and non-clinical settings with a wide range of client groups (e.g., people with mental health problems, learning disabilities, and medical and/or complex conditions). This chapter highlights some similarities and differences between DMP and music therapy (MT). DMP and MT belong to the same family of arts therapies and practitioners are expected to define their work in similar ways, while sharing similar standards for training and agreed requirements for professional practice and registration. Both DMP and MT, along with other arts therapies, share some common features of practice such as the way they view and use the arts, the central role of creativity, imagery, symbolism and metaphor, the significant place of non-verbal communication in the development of the client-therapist relationship and in the transformative aspects of the therapeutic process.