How dancing can help heal the mind
A group of people moved with the music, some swirling with abandon, and others in a trance. In the room next door, a circle of people held hands and listened intently to the instructions of the teacher guiding them.
The city’s first International Conference on Creative Movement Therapy (CMT) or dance therapy was received enthusiastically by dancers, teachers, students and therapists, who gathered to explore the psychotherapeutic use of movement. “The body is a metaphor,” declared Tripura Kashyap, dancer and pioneer of the dance therapy movement in India. “Non-verbal communication can provide valuable insights into a person’s patterns of behaviour, beliefs and relationships.”
Dance was integral to healing rituals in many cultures, but was recognised as a therapeutic modality only in the 1940s. Since then, dance therapy has gained popularity in the US and the UK. CMT is still at a nascent stage in India though, and Kashyap has been pushing to increase public acceptance of this therapy. Her exploration with Creative Movement Therapy began in 1990 upon her return from a course in American dance therapy at the University of Wisconsin’s Hancock Centre.
Today, Kashyap is the co-founder of the Creative Movement Therapy Association of India (CMTAI). Unlike structured dance forms like Bharatnatyam or Waltz, creative dance therapy pushes people to improvise movements and break patterns. “Dance therapists differ from dancers in their use of varied forms of movement and innovation, based on the needs of the person seeking treatment,” says Kashyap. Movement therapy can facilitate the recovery of cancer patients, victims of trauma and marginalised communities. It can treat a range of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, and is especially effective in the treatment of children with autism and ADD. In fact the wide range of experiential and theoretical workshops available at the CMT conference attest to its development; movement analysis, Feldenkrais Technique, Alexander Method, CMT application to autism, gender awareness through movement, healing processes in movement therapy and its transformational effects on children, were just a few of the sessions on the agenda.
My curiosity prompted me to sign up for Kashyap’s session on "Personal Movement Process Work", which involved exploration through movement to different kinds of music. At the beginning, my discomfort was acute, since I usually rely on words to express myself. Pushing myself to move instead was challenging. But my self-consciousness disappeared once I let my body take over. The workshop was liberating and enjoyable and I felt euphoric at the end. Most of us think of dance as a fun way of boosting our energy, but scientific evidence attests to its psychological benefits, from greater calm and an elevated mood to an increased sense of control. “Dance helps people express feelings they may not feel comfortable with in conscious, verbal terms,” says Manju Verma, cofounder of CMTAI.
India could derive benefits from introducing CMT into programmes in schools, colleges and healthcare services; especially since our mental health services are in such a shambles. According to estimates, the total number of professional psychologists in India is 15,000. The number of psychiatrists is lower. “We have less than 4,000 psychiatrists in India, a 250 per cent deficit,” says Dr Samir Parikh, director, Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, Fortis Healthcare.