Dance Movement Psychotherapy - MA

Why study at Roehampton

• Build a rewarding career as a professionally-qualified registered dance movement psychotherapist. Graduates are eligible to register with the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK (ADMP UK).
• Benefit from our established network of psychotherapists and gain work experience within a supervised clinical placement in a range of settings. 
• In the Research Excellence Framework 2014, the leading national assessment of quality, 100% of the research we submitted was rated “world leading” or “internationally excellent” for its impact.
• The only institution in Europe to offer training in all of the arts and play therapies, including dramatherapy, art and dance movement psychotherapy, music and play therapy.

Course summary

This course is designed for people who have prior dance experience and professional or volunteering experience with people in need, and would like to practise as a dance movement psychotherapist.

Dance movement psychotherapy is a relational process in which a client and therapist engage in an empathetic creative process using body movement and dance to assist the integration of emotional, cognitive, physical, social and spiritual aspects of self. We believe that focusing on the creative potential of individuals in a relationship creates a sound ethical basis for psychotherapeutic work.

You will be taught by leading experts who will equip you with the skills, experience, and confidence to work as a dance movement psychotherapist. All graduating students are eligible to apply for registration with the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy (ADMP UK). Graduates often create their own positions; facilitating dance movement psychotherapy sessions within settings including: social services; special needs; schools; psychiatry; probationary and rehabilitation units; forensic psychiatry.

The course offers opportunities for you to explore and expand movement preferences, ways of interacting with others, belief systems, prejudices and values. Emphasis is placed on development of your own style as a dance movement psychotherapist. You also have the opportunity to perform and exhibit your ongoing work in a yearly Arts Therapies exhibition.

The MA in DMP benefits from cutting edge research conducted through the Centre for Arts Therapies Research (CATR) and this feeds directly into teaching. The programme ethos emphasises a critical consideration of different descriptions and explanations of bodies, human systems and therapeutic practices in different places and times. In the context of an individual student's experiences, beliefs, values and different 'cultures', our teaching actively promotes a participatory ethic, self-reflexive practices and the ability for critical reflection on: creative processes, intersubjectivity and the construction of social and power differentials, in learning and in psychotherapy.

Content

The uniquely interdisciplinary MA course in Dance Movement Psychotherapy integrates theoretical, experiential and clinical learning, preparing students to practice as dance movement psychotherapists. Cutting edge research cascades into teaching emphasising the social, biological and psychological construction of the moving body and meaning-making. Students are encouraged to develop a self-reflexive practice and the ability for critical reflection on creative processes.

Key areas of study include Contemporary DMP and psychotherapeutic theories, Feminist embodied reflexivity, clinical placement and supervision (for one-two days a week), dance movement improvisation skills and interventions, embodied performance practice, experiential anatomy for clinical practice, human development, movement and growth, Laban Movement Analysis and video observation.

Embodied practice and working with attention to the art of dance is placed at the centre of the programme. Drawing from Feminist, Psychoanalytical, Phenomenological and Systemic frameworks, the training emphasises the creative role of curiosity and a 'not knowing' position, a respect for difference, and appreciation of the effects that mutual influences have in all relationships.

Modules

Here are examples of modules:

• Creative Processes: Reflexive Movement Improvisation
• Theoretical Approaches in Dance Movement Psychotherapy
• Psychopathology: Alternative World Views

Career options

Graduates can enter a variety of roles including: NHS clinical practice within in and out patient services, community services, prison services, special needs schools, performing arts contexts, drug rehabilitation, in social services with immigrants and asylum seekers, in shelters with women who have suffered domestic abuse, dementia services, learning disabilities services, child and adolescent mental health services.

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Visit the Dance Movement Psychotherapy - MA page on the University of Roehampton website for more details!