WTH Does A Dance Therapist Do? With Kim Hamadani of University Settlement

Disclaimer: You DO NOT have to be a good dancer to be a dance therapist. Listen to this episode to find out what a dance therapist really does day to day and the steps you would need to take to become a dance therapist. Kim is a dance/movement psychotherapist who specializes in working with children. She’s currently a mental health coordinator at a preschool, helping kids (ages 2-5) express their many big feelings. Kim spends much of her time moving, playing, and processing in the vast imaginations of others, finding ways to bring their stories to life and exploring the deepest parts of themselves. “I often specify that I’m a psychotherapist rather than a physical therapist, which means I work in the social-emotional realm. An easy way to describe what I do, is to explain that generally, psychotherapy is done verbally, however, a dance movement therapist uses the medium of the body and movement as an entry point to the mind. This sounds strange at first, but if you think about infants and how we’ve all developed, our most primal form of communication is actually nonverbal. This allows for deeper material to emerge in a way that words can’t access in our brains, memories, and minds. This does not mean that we don’t talk in sessions! We do! It’s necessary to verbally process the material, but this often happens after it’s been explored through the body." -Kim Want to be featured in our next episode? Email [email protected] with your job title and a short description of what the heck you do! Looking for more career tips? Follow us on Instagram @careers_by_caroll