The Effect of Dance Movement Therapy on the Mood of Hospitalized Psychiatric Adolescents

Mental illness in children has increased over all aspects throughout the years to right now (CDC, 2019). Many of these children do get treatment for these disorders but there are still a percent that do not receive any treatment or find effective ways to maintain non-pharmaceutical alternatives for mood stabilization. The alternative therapies that are introduced in hospital settings plays a role in allowing for alternative therapies to be apart of the treatment plan for patients. Dance Movement therapy (DMT) is an alternative therapy that uses movement to conduct change in patient’s emotions based on their own choices of movement (Hornthal, 2018). The aim of this paper is to see if there is a correlation between the use of dance movement therapy and the mood of hospitalized adolescents. The literature review in this paper supports the research that dance movement therapy has an effect on mood. At the end of this paper, there is a proposal for a research pilot study on the effect of dance movement therapy and mood