Dance and movement therapy holds promise for treating anxiety and depression

A few years ago, framed by the skyline of Detroit, a group of about 15 children resettled as refugees from the Middle East and Africa leapt and twirled around, waving blue, pink and white streamers through the air. The captivating scene was powerfully symbolic.
Each streamer held a negative thought, feeling or memory that the children had written down on the streamers. On cue and in unison, the children released their streamers into the air, then sat down nearby.
Then they gathered up the fallen streamers, which carried their collective struggles and hardships, threw them in a trash can and waved goodbye. The children were participating in a dance therapy activity as part of our team’s research program exploring body-based approaches to mental health treatment in people resettled as refugees.
In 2017, our lab – the Stress, Trauma and Anxiety Research Clinic – began piloting movement therapies to help address trauma in refugee families. We are learning that movement may not only provide a way to express oneself, but also offer a path toward healing and lifelong strategies for managing stress.
On average, every year about 60,000 children are resettled as refugees in Western nations. Now, the refugee crisis resulting from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is bringing renewed attention to their needs.
The UN Refugee Agency estimates that 6 million Afghans have been displaced over the past 40 years, and a new wave of tens of thousands are now fleeing from Taliban rule.
I am a neuroscientist who specializes in understanding how trauma reshapes the nervous system of developing youth. I use this information to explore creative arts and movement-based therapies to treat stress and anxiety. The instinct to move the body in expressive ways is as old as humanity.
But movement-based strategies such as dance therapy have only recently been given much attention in mental health treatment circles.
As a dancer myself, I always found the nonverbal emotional expression offered through movement to be incredibly therapeutic – especially when I was experiencing significant anxiety and depression in high school and college.
Now, through my neuroscience research, I am joining a growing number of scholars working to bolster the evidence base supporting movement-based interventions.
One mind and body During the COVID-19 pandemic, the incidence of anxiety and depression doubled in youth.
As a result, many people are searching for new ways to cope with and handle emotional turmoil. On top of the pandemic, conflicts around the world, as well as climate change and natural disasters, have contributed to the growing global refugee crisis.
This demands resources for resettlement, education and occupation, physical health and – importantly – mental health.
Interventions that offer physical activity and creativity components at a time when children and people of all ages are likely to be sedentary and with reduced environmental enrichment can be beneficial during the pandemic and beyond.
Creative arts and movement-based interventions may be well-suited to address not just the emotional but also the physical aspects of mental illness, such as pain and fatigue.
These factors often contribute to the significant distress and dysfunction that drive individuals to seek care. (PTI)