The interface between somatic psychotherapy and dance/movement therapy: a critical analysis

Abstract

Just as a child’s neurodevelopment becomes more sophisticated with life experience, somatic psychotherapy and dance/movement therapy, now in their eighth decade, are approaching a more intricate stage of growth. As each discipline grows in complexity, conflicts have risen regarding the concept of identity. The recent debate of whether dance/movement therapy is one of the somatic psychotherapies or its own discipline is a necessary and exciting ‘growing pain’ in the evolution of embodied psychotherapy practices. This paper provides a historic overview and uses a systems theory framework to compare the disciplines with data derived from original and recent literature. Practices, education and governance of each discipline are presented as they exist in the United States. Findings illustrate the comparison and offer clarity on the current trend towards integration. Suggestions are made for further critical thinking to develop awareness towards an evolved perspective of embodied psychotherapy practices.

Keywords:

• Somatic psychotherapy
• dance/movement therapy
• body psychotherapy
• general systems theory
• somatics
• alternative and complementary medicine

Acknowledgement

A special thank you to Christine Caldwell for her contributions to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Somatic psychotherapy is the preferred term used across academic programmes in the US.

2. Dance/movement therapy is the official title in the US.

3. Gestalt authors and therapists are frequent invited speakers at USABP conferences (Clemmons, 2012; Frank, 2001; Kepner, 1999) as experience in Gestalt process is undeniably tied to the body. The debate over whether or not Gestalt therapy is a somatic approach to psychotherapy is a worthy pursuit that is beyond the scope of this paper.

4. Also called, ‘Expressive Therapies’ in some circles.

5. In 2013, the board of the USABP had discussed a name change for the organisation to replace the phrase ‘body psychotherapy’ with ‘somatic psychotherapy’. The decision was tabled due to other more pertinent issues.