DMT Single and Group Therapy

Dance Movement Therapy can be done in a single and a group setting. The methods are diverse. The free improvised dance, alone and together with others and the therapist, helps to express emotions and understand individual movement patterns and relationships. Dance and creative movement expression is the central approach of Dance Movement Therapy, The method builds on individual movement resources and works on widening movement repertory with specific movement interventions to support new behavioural patterns and authentic expression of feelings, integrating unconscious parts of ourselves.
The dynamic of relationships on a movement level plays an important role, and the therapeutic relationship is also shaped on a movement level.
The approaches and methods of Dance Movement Therapy are based on depth and humanistic psychology and movement patterns – relationships are analysed according to it. A central tool of movement diagnostics and intervention is Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), based on the work of Rudolph von Laban, the founder of Modern Expressive Dance in the German speaking area.
Dance Movement Therapy begins with a detailed preliminary talk, where information is given on both sides and where it is decided whether DMT is the right approach and method for you.
We can work on certain therapy goals, even though part of the therapy will remain orientated on the process, which means we work on what comes up in movement and in the therapeutic relationship.
Every Dance Movement Therapy session starts with a brief talk about how you feel and what is important to you right now. The issues are then put into a form of movement and dance, mostly structured in a warm-up, a main phase, and at the end a verbal summing up and conscious reflection to integrate what happened during the movement phase.
The group setting is similar. The Dance Movement Therapist introduces a movement theme for the group or takes on an issue that comes from the group, and then puts it into movement so there can be a process of self discovery as a result of a form of movement.
The developing movement themes of the group and the individuals are taken on by the Dance Movement Therapist and then moved to the next level.
The movement process and the group dynamics in movement are verbally reflected at the end of the group session to integrate the individual experiences of the group members.
I offer group settings up from 6 participants. My main emphasis is on the Jungian orientated DMT, influenced by the psychologist C.G.Jung, for example working with archetypes like my “Tarot Dance”.
Together with Fenni Alsmeier, I formed Laban Labor, offering modern expressive Dance based o the teachings of Rudolf von Laban. We also founded the “Network Dance Movement Therapy.” You can join us on facebook under “Netzwerk Tanztherapie”.