Commonly asked questions

about

Drama Therapy and Dance/Movement Therapy

What is it?

What is dance/movement therapy? The American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) defines dance/movement therapy as “the psychotherapeutic use of movement as a process which furthers the emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual.” (ADTA, 1966). Dance/movement therapists are dancers who are trained in both dance/movement therapy and counseling or psychotherapy. They work in a wide variety of settings, such as psychiatric and medical hospitals, rehabilitation centers and nursing homes, community mental health agencies, schools and special education settings, wellness centers and in private practice.

What is drama therapy? Drama therapy is the intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals. Drama therapy is active and experiential. This approach can provide the context for participants to tell their stories, set goals and solve problems, express feelings, or achieve catharsis. Through drama, the depth and breadth of inner experience can be actively explored and interpersonal relationship skills can be enhanced. Participants can expand their repertoire of dramatic roles to find that their own life roles have been strengthened

Can anyone join a local chapter, the national association and attend a conference? Yes open to all levels. Only certified members can vote but all are welcomed at chapter meeting and conferences.

In your own words, what exactly is drama therapy or dance/movement therapy? In stead of sitting down and talking about your problems these therapies allow you to take on various roles, emotions or feelings you are experiencing and “act” them out. This forms new nero pathways in the brain and allowing for new actions and behaviors to take place. Instead of talking about it you do it. I like to think of these therapies as additional tools to the traditional verbal therapies. Instead of only sitting and talking about your problems, feelings and experiences you can add the opportunity to get up and express them through dance, movement, and drama.

How exactly does drama therapy and/or dance/movement therapy help your patients? The goals and progress is similar to verbal therapy only drama therapy and dance/movement therapy reaches those the verbal therapy does not, for example you don’t have to talk to participate in these therapies, it can help with pre-verbal trauma. Concrete thinkers that don’t get concepts spoken to them understand doing them and achieve healing.

What does a drama and/or dance/movement therapist’s job entail? The same as a regular therapist and this varies from setting to setting. Most basic duties are conducting assessments, leading groups doing individual sessions and leading family sessions and documentation.
What type of patients/clients can benefit from drama therapy and/or dance/movement therapy? Everyone! See my web site dance-drama-therpay.com for a listing of goals addressed in expressive art therapy for specific populations. If you can move and breathe you can do these therapies.

What sort of cases do drama and/or dance/movement therapists handle? All. What each therapist chooses depends on the therapist I for example currently choose not to work in a prison but I have friends that love it. I enjoy private practice, working with children and those that have experienced abuse and substance abuse. This again is just like regular therapist you pick the population you are interested in and get extra experience and certifications with this population the "cool" thing about being a therapist is as you grow and change it is easy to change populations. So if you choose to work with young children upon graduation that does not mean you must work with them the rest of your career, you can change later if you become interested in say adults with memory disorders. This might mean additional training but the state license will allow you to switch populations, settings and modalities.

Does drama and/or dance/movement therapy take the place of regular counseling where the patient and therapist sit down and talk, or do most patients usually participate in both? Drama therapy and dance/movement therapy includes verbal processing of the events so they use both. In order to be a drama therapist or a dance/movement therapist one must be a good verbal therapist, these therapies allow for extra tools to use so that you can help those that traditional verbal therapies can’t.

What does a dance/movement therapist do? Dance/movement therapists work with individuals, couples, families and groups. As therapists, they lead dance/movement therapy sessions, help develop treatment plans and goals, document their work in clinical records and collaborate with professionals from other disciplines. Dance/movement therapists utilize both movement interventions and verbal counseling techniques with clients. Dancing as a form of self-expression, social interaction and experiencing in the present moment is a special and effective form of therapy.

If working in a group session, how many clients do you let participate at one time? Same as with traditional therapies an average group size is 8-10. However if you are working with young children like I do 5-7 is a good number. You have to base it on the function and age of the group you have.

Do family members of your patients ever participate in the therapy sessions?

Yes this is called family therapy and it can be very helpful.

If someone has just decided that they want to pursue drama therapy or dance therapy as a career, what advice would you give them? Go DO it and experience it, it is a experiential therapy so reading about it and hearing about it is good and fine but you won’t know if it is for you and the benefit of it until you do it yourself. Go attend a workshop a conference something go do it and go do it with different therapist everyone is different and has their own style you may click with some and not with others.

Go to a conference. There they will meet people from the different schools and alt route programs, new students and the current founders. They will get to take workshops with different people and experience what drama and/or dance/movement therapy is. It is one of those things that either you get goose bumps at and proclaim “I have found my people” or you slowly back away scarred at what is happening and not understanding it and not wanting to. You have to experience it to discover what reaction you will have. The national conferences are once a year. At an annual conference you will get the best picture of what the field is and if you like it or not.

How do you define dance/movement therapy to your clients?

I tell them that instead ofjustsitting and talking, that we of course can do, we can also get up and movearoundand notice how the depression,anxietyor anger, etc is effecting theirbody'sand in doing socanhelp make changes quicker. I often havepeoplesitin my office and say, "Idon'twant to dance, but I see you have this big space, if I did how would we use this space?" I then follow that up with "well I have an idea" and we start using moving or drama.

How does insurance billing work? There are currently only a few sates that have licenses as a DMT, DT or CAT there one can bill insurance. I mostly bill under the verbal therapy codes and use an interactive complexity add on when doing DMT, DT or CAT.

Can a persons own history of trauma hinder their work as a DMT or DT? Yes as with verbal therapy a therapist needs to be aware of their own struggles and "issues" and have these under control the therapy session needs to be about the client not the therapist unresolved struggles. It is strongly advised and often required that therapist undergo their own therapy.

What does it look like?

Does drama therapy and or dance/movement therapy work for everyone or does it work better with specific behaviors or experiences that the person has faced? With drama therapy a person need to enter the imagine realm and “play” anyone that can or is willing to try this can do it. In my experience it is most powerful with children, adults that need to SEE something to understand its meaning and with men in recovery from addictions. With dance therapy all you need to do is move (if you are breathing you are moving) movements can be simple like a breath or involve free expression using the entire body.
What is the difference between dance therapy/ drama therapy and therapeutic dance or therapeutic drama? I would say themeasurabledifferences would be that (1) the qualifications of theleader (only a R-DMT or a BC-DMT can do dance therapy) where anyone trained in dance ortherapy candotherapeuticdance. Also (2) it is looked at by the intent of the leader for I could do both but notevery timeI leadsomethingit is DMT. for example if I amteachinga dance class and my intent is to teach a special turn and I do creative movement activity and get the class to do self exploration and work on self esteem so that they are ready to handle the challenge of learning something new, but all along my intent is focused on teaching the turn, then it is therapeutic dance (a dance goal). if in the same class my intent is to help the students explore what it is like to struggle with learning something new (a therapy goal) then it is dance therapy. Both might look similar esp to the untrained eye but the difference is really where my intent is and where I lead the individuals to go. One using therapeutic dance needs to be careful not to lead the individuals someplace they can't help them go or get back from for example if in the process of that class someone stated that they had been sexually abused and began to cry a therapist might be able to help them but a dancer would not have the training to help them process that experience as therapy. Now they could encourage the individual to "dance it out" but this could be triggering and the dancer might get stuck. What if that lead to a panic attack or suicidal thoughts? Would the dancer be able to help and calm the person? So these are questions one needs to ask as the leader of a group or class and find their intent and goals and practice with their scope of practice (only with what they aretrainedinhandling).

One more example when I was in SC I wasteachinga cheer leading class and needed to teach a stunt. One child told me she could not cheer for her grandmother had died and she was "too sad". As a cheerleadingcoach I might have said so sorry, gave her a hug and asked her to sit and watch. ButbecauseI am alicensedtherapistI instead shifted my focus tohelpingher and the group talkaboutdeath and what it is like to loosesomeone then I asked "how as cheerleaders can we help?" the group then crated a cheer and a stunt supporting the girlshowingtheirsupportand understanding or the event (the stunt I wanted them to learn). We latter used the stunt in competition. I did nothaveconsentsfromparentsto do therapy so I could not do "therapy" but I was able to use mytherapyskillsto help them process intherapeuticmovement but my intent never left needing to teach them the stunt. So sometimes it is confusing the thin line but the basic difference is a non DMT can not do DMT.

Are there specific drama therapy techniques that you use? (masks, puppets, storytelling)? I use several techniques such as play back theater, sand tray enactment, choreography of object relations, psychodrama and many others. I use props such as masks and puppets.
Through your experience, do girls or boys respond better to this therapy and are there specific techniques you use with the different ages and genders? I find drama therapy and dance/movement therapy is gender neutral, sometime men/boys will work with drama more than dance. As for age yes what I do follows developmental frameworks so my presentation and techniques changes a bit from age to age but once someone reaches say around 15 they can use all of the techniques.

Will I be able to dance at my job as a dance/movement therapist? Or use my theater skills? Yes! You will be using your artistic dance skills, your gifts of dance expression and your movement expertise every day at work as a dance/movement therapist. You also will be communicating about dance/movement therapy verbally, with other professionals at work, with your clients and in your clinical documentation and other writing about your work.

How often do your regular patients come to sessions? Same as with verbal therapy it depends on what is needed, several times a week, once a week, once a month, ect.

Like other types of therapy, would insurance cover some of the costs of drama therapy? Yes you can bill under traditional codes if you hold licenses in your state (in NC the LPC, LCAS, or LCSW) and there are “play therapy” and “expressive art therapy” codes as well.

Can I come and observe one of your therapy sessions? Sorry No, with the confidential nature of therapy I can't have observers. But I do teach and supervise others and you can sit in on these sessions. I also plan several workshops a year that you can attend and so doe the Carolina Chapter. I am also just now completing some short DVD clips where I show what I do etc. that I can load out to you and show.

Critics have questioned dance/movement therapy because research on it is not exceptionally scientific in nature.How would you defend the effectiveness of dance/movement therapy?I would say thosecriticshave not doneproperresearch for there are many research articles written about DMT that are very scientific and usetraditionalresearchprotocols. TheAmericanDance Therapy has it's ownresearchjournalthat comes outtwicea year full ofarticlesthe American Dance TherapyAssociationhas it's ownresearchcommunitythat keeps the standards high. Some people justassumethat because it is grounded in dance it is not valid or able to follow properresearchguidelinesand that is incorrect. Also the American Dance Therapy Associationislisted as aspecialtyunder the NBCC (national board ofcertifiedcounselors). DMT isvalid!