Date of Award
Spring 5-16-2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
MA - Master of Arts
Department
Expressive Therapies
Advisor
Meg Chang
Abstract
Since its development in the early 20th century, dance/movement therapy has sought to help individuals strengthen communication, deepen empathy, build trust, and experience physical closeness. Incidentally, couples counseling tends to address many of the same goals. This Capstone thesis investigated the overlaps between the fields of dance/movement therapy and couples counseling to the effect of understanding how those fields may work together. An initial review revealed that the current research only examined dance/movement therapy with couples who are privileged in the areas of race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status. Thus, the review broadened to explore how dance/movement therapists work with marginalized individuals and how couples counselors work with couples in which one or both partners identifies with an oppressed community. The result of this review is an increased understanding of an important gap in the existing literature. It is recommended that dance/movement therapists strive for greater cultural competence by developing a deeper understanding of global dance forms and their healing abilities, integrating queer and feminist theories with dance/movement therapy, and continuing to fight for greater access to higher education for oppressed individuals. Ideally, the result of this action will be a stronger body of research and a broadened capacity for healing both individuals and couples.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Kuntz, Rachel, "Moving Towards Intimacy: A Literature Review on the Use of Dance/Movement Therapy with Couples" (2020). Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses. 296.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/expressive_theses/296
Included in
Counseling Commons, Counseling Psychology Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Multicultural Psychology Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons
Rights
The author owns the copyright to this work.
