Dance Movement Psychotherapy, Body Psychotherapy and 5 Rhythms: What's the Difference?

When people hear the words movement therapy, dance therapy, body psychotherapy or 5 Rhythms, it is understandable that the distinctions can become blurred.

They share an interest in the body, movement and lived experience. But they are not the same thing.

In this article, I want to look at some of the differences — particularly between Dance Movement Psychotherapy, body psychotherapy and 5 Rhythms — and explain where my own work sits within this landscape.

There is considerable overlap between Dance Movement Psychotherapy and body psychotherapy.

Both recognise the body as important to psychological experience. Both can work with movement, sensation, embodiment and the therapeutic relationship.

But historically they have developed through somewhat different traditions and professional fields.

Body psychotherapy has roots in approaches that place bodily experience at the centre of psychotherapy and have developed a range of ways of working with sensation, muscular patterns, breathing and bodily organisation.

Dance Movement Psychotherapy developed through the meeting of dance, movement, creativity and psychological practice, with particular attention to movement as communication, relationship and expression.

There are therefore important differences, but also considerable dialogue between the two fields.

In my own practice, I am less interested in maintaining a rigid boundary between them than in being clear about the therapeutic framework I am working within.

My training is in both psychotherapy and Dance Movement Therapy, and I integrate embodied work with talking psychotherapy and Transactional Analysis.

How is DMP different from body psychotherapy?

What is Dance Movement Psychotherapy?

Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) is a psychotherapeutic approach in which movement and dance are used within a therapeutic relationship.

Movement is understood as part of human communication and experience. It can include large or small movements, gestures, posture, rhythm, stillness and the way someone uses space.

DMP is not about learning to dance or performing.

There is no choreography to get right.

The movement becomes part of an ongoing therapeutic process, alongside reflection, verbal communication and the relationship between therapist and client.

This is important because dance therapy can sometimes be used quite broadly to describe activities involving dance that support wellbeing.

DMP, however, is a specific psychotherapeutic discipline with professional training, theoretical foundations and clinical practice.

Is Dance Movement Psychotherapy the same as 5 Rhythms?

This is a particularly interesting distinction.

5Rhythms® is a movement meditation practice developed by Gabrielle Roth. It is commonly described as a form of movement meditation and explores five rhythms: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness.

It can provide a powerful space for movement, creativity, presence and personal exploration.

But 5 Rhythms is not the same as Dance Movement Psychotherapy.

One important difference is the context.

In a 5 Rhythms practice, people generally enter a shared movement space and explore their own experience through the practice.

In DMP, movement takes place within a psychotherapeutic framework and therapeutic relationship.

The purpose, professional role, training and clinical responsibilities are therefore different.

That doesn't mean that one is better or more valuable than the other. They are simply different practices that can have areas of overlap.

So what makes something psychotherapy?

For me, one of the important questions is not simply “Are we moving?”

It is:

What is the purpose of the movement, and within what therapeutic relationship is it taking place?

Movement can be used for exercise, enjoyment, creativity, community, meditation, personal exploration or therapeutic work.

The same movement might appear in different settings but have a completely different meaning depending on the context.

In psychotherapy, movement is part of a process that involves psychological reflection, therapeutic intention, ethical responsibility and attention to the relationship between client and therapist.

This is also why I don't think of movement as a technique that I simply “add” to a therapy session.

Sometimes movement is the focus.

Sometimes it is barely noticeable.

Sometimes simply noticing a change in posture or rhythm can open a therapeutic conversation.

Where does Transactional Analysis come in?

My own work also brings Transactional Analysis into this picture.

TA gives us a way of thinking about relational patterns and psychological processes: ego states, transactions, strokes, drivers, injunctions and script.

Embodied work gives us another way of encountering these ideas.

What does Please Others feel like in the body?

What happens when someone tries to Be Strong?

How might an injunction such as Don't Take Up Space be experienced through movement?

These aren't questions about diagnosing a body or assigning a fixed meaning to a gesture.

They are invitations to become curious about how psychological experience is lived.

This is one of the ideas behind my approach to embodied listening: bringing together psychological thinking, relational awareness and bodily experience.

Why does this matter for therapists?

As therapists, we are trained to listen carefully to what our clients say.

But we also work with everything that happens around the words.

A client pauses.

Their rhythm changes.

They move towards us and then away.

They become still.

We notice something happening in our own body.

None of these observations should automatically be interpreted as a message or a diagnosis.

But they can become part of our awareness.

Learning to notice them can help us become more attentive to the relational field we are creating together.

This is something I explore in my Brighton workshop, Embodied Listening: Body, Relationship and Attunement in Psychotherapy.

Is body psychotherapy the same as somatic therapy?

The terms body psychotherapy, body-based psychotherapy and somatic therapy are sometimes used interchangeably online, although they can refer to different traditions and levels of professional training.

For me, the important distinction is not simply whether a practitioner pays attention to the body, but the professional and therapeutic framework in which that work takes place. In my own practice, embodied work sits within my training as a psychologist, psychotherapist and Dance Movement Therapist.

From understanding movement to experiencing it

The workshop grew out of a question that has become increasingly important in my own practice:

What happens when therapists don't only think about psychological concepts, but experience them in their own bodies?

Across eight experiential sessions, we will use movement to explore Transactional Analysis, embodied self-awareness, attunement and somatic countertransference.

The intention isn't to turn therapists into dancers.

It is to create a space where we can become curious about what happens when we move from thinking about the body towards listening through it.

Embodied Listening runs in Brighton from January to March 2027 and is open to psychotherapists, counsellors and students in training.

Because sometimes a concept changes when we stop talking about it — and begin to experience it.

About Sabine

I am Sabine Tendas, a Counselling Psychologist (HCPC), Certified Transactional Analyst Psychotherapist (UKCP) and Dance Movement Therapist (ADMTE). I work with adults, children, families and couples in Brighton and online. I am also an Embodiment Tutor at The Metis Institute, where I teach embodied approaches within Transactional Analysis.

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psy.sabinetendas@gmail.com

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