Dancing Away the Childhood Blues

Using dance, not as a skill, but as a means of liberating hidden angst within children, is what the dance therapists have in mind while implementing techniques of this art form.

Dance Psychotherapy Defined

To put it in simple terms, dance psychotherapy is a creative arts therapy that uses movements and dance as a means to communicate, as a means to diagnose and also as a means to conduct therapeutic intervention.

According to Sohini Chakraborty, dancer and activist, who is engaged in helping sexually abused children or little prostitutes from Kolkata, through a creative use of body, “. Many of them abhor their body as they consider it impure after having been repeatedly violated and abused by strange men. Dance therapy goes where Occupational therapy cannot.”

Who can Benefit from the Therapy
Dance therapy has a broad range of health benefits. It has been established to be effective at improving body image, self-esteem, attentiveness, and communication skills. It is helpful in reducing stress, fears and anxieties, as well as lower feelings of isolation, body tension, chronic pain, and depressiondefine. In addition, it can augment the functioning of the body's circulatory and respiratory systems.

Dance therapy has proved beneficial to all those children and even adults, who are suffering from:

• Interpersonal and communication problems
• Neurotic disorders
• Psychotic disorders
• Physical incapability
• Fear of being bullied at school / college
• Learning disabilities
• Substance abuses

How the therapy works?

When a child suffering from a mental, psychological or physical disorder approaches a dance therapist, the first thing that he does is, get an insight into his personality traits and attitudes through his natural movements. This therapeutic tool is based upon the idea that one’s body and psyche are completely unified. This is precisely why; body movements are competent enough to reflect the psyche or the inner state of a human being.

What follows is – by moving the body in accordance with the guidance of a therapist; a healing process can be initiated, thus bringing all the inner discrepancies to the fore front. Eventually a rapport is established between the child and the therapist on both verbal and non verbal levels which aims at bringing about a desired change in the child’s overt as well as covert behaviour.

A significant change in the child’s dance movements affects his overall behaviour even outside the therapy and helps him unlearn the undesirable behaviour.

Dance Therapy and its Effect on ADHD
According to the findings of a research project conducted by Karlstad University and the University College of Dance in Stockholm, Sweden, during 2001-2005; discovering an effective or sufficient treatment for some psychiatric problems faced by children may be a difficult task. These include boys with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and depressed, self-destructive adolescent girls.

“At the end of the research it was found that the hyperactive and unruly boys with ADHD became calmer and played better with playmates. Depressed and self-destructive teenage girls were better at setting limits, and their depression was alleviated,” said an overjoyed Erna Gronlund form University College of Dance in Stockholm.

Dance Therapy and Violence Prevention
Children are becoming alarmingly violent and neither school authorities nor their parents know how to address this problem.

Rena Kornblum, a lecturer of Dance Program and author of the Violence Prevention Through Movement curriculum, helps schools meet this problem head on. She conducts dance classes, where she instructs schoolchildren on the techniques of calming down, managing stress, empathizing with and showing caring for others, controlling impulses, increasing concentration and redirecting aggression.

"There are fewer outbursts and tantrums. Tattling has decreased, and frustration tolerance has increased. The children are able to calm themselves down and come up with positive problem-solving ideas when things aren't going their way. In general, the class seems confident in their ability to handle most situations safely," announces a proud Kornblum at the end of the program.

It is in this form of non-verbal communication, where the most effective solution to all problems, whether psychological, mental or physical, lies.