Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) is a form of therapy, which uses movement as well as body language and expression as a means and instrument for the integration, growth, psychophysical, emotional, social and spiritual cure.

Dance Movement Therapy is based on psychodynamic theories originated in the 1940s form the studies of M. Chace, M. Whitehouse, T. Schoop and L. Espenak, and is connected with more recent developments by J. Chodorow, J. Adler, J. Kestenberg, P. Lewis Bernstein and Dosamantes Alperson.

To the above we must add the technique of codified observation, a reading of movement proposed by Rudolf V. Laban as well as the studies on the body and its movement by I. Bartenieff in the 1950s and 60s with the most recent developments on clinical practices.

The presumptions on which Art Therapy Italiana's approach to DMT are based on the relationship and integration of mind and body, the profound connection existing between the development of movement and the psychological, the interdependence of corporeal/motor elements and psychological/emotional elements, as well as the importance of movement as expression of one's own personal traits.

Movement is a privileged source of observation, valuation and intervention within the therapeutic session.

The therapeutic process of Dance Movement Therapy uses the creative process in order to form a holding environment (Winnicott 1971) which permits the expression and organization the body's lived experience and affections, and to establish a sense of continuity in the psychic-soma.
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