Couples Dance/Movement Therapy: Bringing a Theoretical Framework into Practice

Romantic relationships have a highly-charged nonverbal component making dance/movement therapy (DMT) an ideal treatment modality. While a handful of dance/movement therapists have written about work that explores romantic partnering and some dance/movement therapists offer therapy for couples, couples DMT remains a new theoretical frontier. As of 2017, no theoretical framework exists to guide therapeutic intervention in the relational dances of romantic partners. Borrowing from counseling and marriage and family therapy theories, integrated with DMT theories and supported by recent neuroscience, the authors propose a theoretical framework for therapists and educators to consider. Much of couples counseling theory comes out of attachment theory which dance/movement therapists understand kinesthetically if not yet in specific application to couples movements. The field of DMT and counseling both note that relational dances are influenced by cultural context and thus this proposed theoretical framework acknowledges the importance of therapists maintaining cultural awareness. Finally, healthy sexuality requires the kind of embodiment that DMT facilitates, which supports the authors' proposal that couples DMT contributes such a valuable addition to traditional couples therapy that the development of a theoretical framework for that work will serve DMT practitioners as well as the therapeutic field as a whole.