Edited by: Vicky Karkou, Edge Hill University, United Kingdom
Reviewed by: Stergios Makris, Edge Hill University, United Kingdom; Dominik Havsteen-Franklin, Brunel University London, United Kingdom
This article was submitted to Psychology for Clinical Settings, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
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People with a PD suffer from enduring inflexible patterns in cognitions and emotions, which leads to significant subjective distress affecting the self, specifically concerning identity, self-direction, and interpersonal functioning such as empathy and intimacy (American Psychiatric Association,
A PD is associated with physical health problems such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, and hypertension, which are often under-assessed (Sanatinia et al.,
General criteria concern impairments in cognition, affect interpersonal relationships, and impulsivity without specifying details of impairment, while all types of PDs have an onset in adolescence or early adulthood and are stable and pervasive over time (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association,
DMT is defined as the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, spiritual, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual for the purpose of improving health and well-being (American Dance Therapy Association,
A narrative literature review commissioned by the Dutch Federation of Arts Therapies (Federatie voor Vaktherapeutische Beroepen,
A systematic search was conducted across diverse databases following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses, The PRISMA Statement (Moher et al.,
The following four online databases were searched: EMBASE (MEDLINE, PubMed), WEB OF SCIENCE, PsycINFO/OVID, and SCOPUS from the inception of the databases to June 29, 2020. Reference lists of included papers were also screened to extract relevant articles. The following keywords were inserted to screen titles and abstracts: “personality disorder” AND “dance therapy” OR “dance movement therapy” OR “dance” OR “movement” OR “arts therapy” OR “arts therapies” OR “creative arts therapy.”
All retrieved articles were imported into RefWorks citation manager (ProQuest, 2.1.0.1), and duplicates were removed. Based on the titles and abstracts, two reviewers (1, 4) selected the articles for full-text appraisal. These reviewers independently selected articles for final inclusion based on the in- and exclusion criteria listed in
Eligibility criteria.
Study types and design | Qualitative studies, mixed-methods studies, and quantitative studies were included. There were no restrictions in study designs. | Abstracts presented in conferences, book reviews, dissertations, and brief reports |
Dance movement therapy | Articles in which Dance Movement Therapy was a topic of interest and the main intervention | If DMT was considered equal to Psychomotor Therapy or other Body-oriented Therapies or articles in which dance was referred to “as having a therapeutic effect” |
Publication format | Peer-reviewed published articles in English, German and Dutch | |
Participants | Personality Disorder according to DSM-5 from any age, ethnicity, or gender: Cluster A: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal; Cluster B: antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic; Cluster C: avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive | |
Setting and duration | No restrictions on the setting of the interventions offered and no limitation on the length or frequency of the interventions for individuals or groups |
For extracting detailed information regarding the DMT intervention, an a priori template of codes approach was applied as outlined by Crabtree and Miller (
The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (Critical Appraisal Skills Programme,
The data analysis and synthesis were based on the thematic synthesis approach from Thomas and Harden (
The systematic search strategy, outlined in
PRISMA flow diagram: article selection. From Moher et al. (
Seventeen articles were excluded with the following reasons: two articles (Kluft et al.,
The included articles were published between 2013 and 2015 and were classified as a level 5 of “expert opinion” and low-quality evidence according to the hierarchy of best evidence (Oxford Centre for Evidence-based-Medicine-Level of Evidence,
General characteristics of included articles.
Batcup ( |
Qualitative/ Expert opinion | Theoretical discussion of Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) literature relative to psychiatric diagnosis, trauma, violence, abuse, and growing evidence in the form of RCTs, empirical research, government guidelines, surveys, audits, case studies, and unpublished data | Forensic settings | Borderline PD Antisocial PD | 3 | 5 |
Pierce ( |
Qualitative/ Expert opinion | Theoretical discussion of the contributions of trauma psychology and DMT on dissociation; and an attachment-oriented framework is offered for developing interventions to support DMT-therapists in using the integrative power of DMT with dissociation (& PD) | N/A | Borderline PD with symptoms of dissociation of somatic, emotional, and psychological experiences related to traumatic events | 3 | 5 |
Manford ( |
Qualitative/ Case report | Case study: time-limited DMP with a female offender diagnosed with borderline PD looking particularly at the development of the therapeutic relationship and attachment theory | Secure hospital environment | One client diagnosed with borderline PD with an offense for fire setting at home | 3 | 5 |
Röhricht ( |
Qualitative/ Expert opinion | Theoretical overview of how Body Psychotherapy, including DMP, is utilized for the treatment of a range of severe mental disorders. | N/A | Borderline PD; Eating disorder with a borderline organization; Borderline PD in co-occurrence with schizophrenia, Narcissistic PD, Schizoid PD | 3 | 5 |
One hundred fifty-six quotations were identified related to the content of DMT interventions, the components: goals, therapeutic activities, and suggested effects.
Overview of intervention components per article.
Goals 52 | 26 | 11 | 12 | 3 |
Activities 52 | 27 | 4 | 12 | 4 |
Effects 49 | 16 | 2 | 13 | 18 |
Total | ||||
148 Quotations | 70 | 17 | 37 | 26 |
From the thematic synthesis, 15 overarching descriptive themes were constructed, resulting in the following six overarching analytical themes: Self-regulation (57 quotations); Interpersonal relationships (36 quotations); Integration of self (25); Processing experiences (15); Cognition (13) and Expression and Symbolization in Movement and Dance (10) (see
Overview of descriptive and analytical themes.
Regulation of emotions and thoughts (16) | Awareness and regulation (22) | Regulation of emotions and thoughts (10) | Self-regulation (49) |
Relational engagement (12) | Shared movement (10) | Relational engagement (14) | Interpersonal relationships (36) |
Integration of self (13) | ——— | Integration of self (12) | Integration of self (25) |
Non-verbally processing experiences including (developmental) trauma (5) | ——— | Non-verbally processing experiences including (developmental) trauma (10) | Processing experiences (15) |
Mentalization/Mindfulness and thinking (4) | Thinking and verbalization (7) | Thinking and verbalization (2) | Cognition (13) |
——– | Expression and symbolization in movement and dance (9) | Expression and symbolization in movement and dance (1) | Expression and symbolization in movement and dance (10) |
Total | |||
50 | 48 | 50 | 148 Quotations |
Most quotations concerned the client's awareness and the regulation of emotions and thoughts, leading toward the overarching analytical theme of self-regulation. Self-regulation, a major goal emphasized by all authors, supports clients in tolerating internal experiences, including emotions and thoughts while moving. Within this context, Pierce (
In all of the articles, the conclusion was drawn that the client must feel safe with others in DMT for achieving successful therapy outcomes. The often disturbed early dyadic attachments, which affected the client's capacity to relate to others in a healthy way, can be repaired through the interactive regulation between the dance movement therapist and the client as in early parent-child non-verbal communication. Pierce (
Many activities for relational engagement were identified. Pierce (
All articles relate the origin of PD to early relational-attachment trauma, which can cause dissociation, projective identification, as well as unconscious, splitting off from painful experiences, resulting in a declined capacity of clients with a PD to integrate frustrating but also satisfying experiences (Manford,
An important goal emphasized in all of the articles is to support clients in processing past and present experiences that surface in DMT, thus facilitating the re-establishment of trust, intimacy, social skills, and self-esteem. According to Pierce (
Batcup (
According to Batcup (
This study brings together available information on DMT for clients with a PD. The four reviewed articles are all expert opinions and offer essential information on specific themes to focus upon in DMT when working with clients with a PD. Nevertheless, more and higher-quality studies are necessary to explore if DMT is an effective intervention for these clients and which factors contribute to positive change. A few general characteristics of the articles are noteworthy. The main focus in all of the articles was on borderline PD, which is consistent with the fact that most studies on PD concern a borderline PD (Eurelings-Bontekoe et al.,
Although the reviewed articles did not systematically describe a DMT intervention, specific information on the applied DMT activities in relation to the intended goals and suggested effects could be composed from thematic synthesis. A full series of intervention components were identified across the articles for the analytical themes, self-regulation, interpersonal relationships, and cognition. These synthesized methodical lines offer consistent, essential, and detailed information, which is mandatory for systematically describing interventions for treatment guidelines and research (Fraser and Galinsky,
This is the first systematic review of published articles on DMT and PD, which includes detailed information for promoting DMT as a possible effective treatment for clients with a PD. The chosen methodology focusing on identifying intervention components appeared to be very useful to systematically analyze, identify, quantify and synthesize qualitative content. It also revealed important change objectives to focus on in DMT for PD and offered substantial and in-depth information regarding DMT interventions for PD. The retrieved data from this study can support the development of systematically describing interventions essential for the purpose of treatment guidelines and research. Certain findings from studies on body-oriented approaches that were excluded for review might have supported the effectiveness of DMT for clients with a PD. Nevertheless, the choice was made to focus on DMT only to clarify what is available within this modality. Consequently, this approach revealed the limited information available, with the absence of strong evidence for prescribing DMT for clients with a PD. This shortage of findings on DMT and PD limits the findings' accountability. Notably, the focus in the expert studies is mainly on clients with a borderline PD or comorbid with another PD, and therefore the results cannot be generalized for all PD categories.
The intervention content consisting of “goals-activities –effects” was rather implicit in the reviewed articles. Systematic descriptions of DMT interventions for clients with a PD would be needed to support the application, evaluation, and replicability for clinical practice and research. Future research on practitioners' expertise of the application of DMT interventions for PD could support the development of systematic intervention descriptions, while the suitability of the identified themes for the clinical application of DMT with PD could be explored. The clients' experiences of the DMT could offer essential insights on how DMT interventions should be tailored to address PD pathology. Clinical studies may provide more insight into the applicability of specific DMT interventions including dance-informed interventions, and the effective working factors for PD and specific PD categories.
This systematic review and thematic synthesis of expert articles on DMT and PD offers substantial information on treatment themes to focus upon as also the intended therapeutic goals, therapeutic activities leading to these goals, and the suggested therapeutic effects following from these activities in DMT for PD. A full series of intervention components, goals-activities-effects, offers fundamental ingredients for developing systematic intervention descriptions with a consistent methodological line for treatment guidelines and research. Such consistency was identified in the analytical themes of self-regulation, interpersonal relationships, and cognition, which are suggested major themes to focus upon in DMT for PD. These themes are closely related to the general criteria of PD pathology concerning the areas of cognition, affect, interpersonal relationships, and impulsivity. The findings also show that dance movement therapists apply an integrative approach in the treatment of PD, with alternations of body-oriented and dance-informed activities. Notably, the findings showed that the use of body-oriented approaches and cognitive strategies was in favor of dance-informed approaches for self-regulation.
SK developed the research design, conducted the research, the thematic analysis, and synthesis, and conceptualized it. RS and JS supervised the review process and co-authored the manuscript. SK and GK conducted the data extraction independently. RR supported the search strategy. RS and SK independently assessed the quality of the articles and cross-validated the thematic synthesis. All authors have contributed toward the manuscripts' revisions and read and approved the submitted version.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
We wish to thank Prof. Dr. Liesbet van Zoonen from Erasmus University Rotterdam for her guidance in the early stages of this study.