New Rider Program Concentrates On Dance Movement Therapy

LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ - Rider University will offer a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a Dance/Movement Therapy (D/MT) concentration beginning in the fall, university officials announced on Thursday.

Anyone who graduates from this program will earn the requirements needed to become licensed counselors and will qualify for the entry-level credential as registered dance/movement therapists (R-DMT).

The curriculum is aligned to be approved by the American Dance Therapy Association. Currently, only seven programs nationally hold this distinction.

“Graduates can practice essentially in either discipline or in a combination of both. They can build their own unique practice using the dance modality, but can also do some talk therapy,” Rider Graduate Education, Leadership and Counseling Department Chair Dr. Christina Peterson said. "This program is ideal for those who have always had an interest in mental health, but who also have a passion for dance and the arts."

Eri Millrod, a board certified dance/movement therapist, helped create the program. Millrod said the premise of dance/movement therapy is that the mind and body are not dichotomous.

During her 25-year career, she has served on the task force that worked with New Jersey state legislators to create a license for D/MT practitioners, and currently works at Princeton House Behavioral Health.

Associate Professor of Dance Dr. Kim Chandler Vaccaro said dance and movement are inherently conducive to therapy.

“Traditional cognitive behavioral therapy is predicated on the idea that people can talk about what’s wrong with them, even though that’s often not the case,” she said. “But everybody moves. They don’t necessarily have to be dancers, but their movement exhibits dynamics and tensions that, once examined, can be catalysts for further therapeutic work.”

Students enrolled in the program will be required to complete 60 credits of coursework, as well as 800 hours of fieldwork. Prospective students are not required to have an undergraduate degree in either dance or psychology. However, there is a dance audition as part of the application process.

“We’re not looking for performance-level skill in dance. What we are looking for is an individual’s connection to the body, awareness of movement and the meaning of movement, and their ability to communicate through movement,” Peterson said.

Dance/movement therapy developed into a mental health profession during the 1940s as demand for psychiatric care increased with the return of veterans from World War II.

It is now used to treat people suffering from a wide range of disorders, including disordered eating, addictions, dementia, autism, post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety.
Dance/movement therapists work in psychiatric hospitals, medical facilities, rehabilitation centers, schools, nursing homes, prisons, and drug treatment centers, as well as in private practice.

Millrod has seen firsthand the positive effects dance movement therapy can have.

“I remember one client in particular who said to me, ‘Thank you. I feel like I finally got to say through dance what I couldn’t say all my life.’ That was so moving to me,” Millrod said. “We’re expected to express ourselves verbally — she couldn’t express what it was like to be mentally ill, yet she was self-aware enough to know that she had this illness and that she couldn’t convey to others what she was feeling.”

For more information about the program, visit www.rider.edu/dance-movement-therapy.

The attached image was provided by Rider University.