Therapeutic Dance works with a holistic and therapeutic approach to movement and dance to support cognitive, emotional, and motor processes in the client.  As a form of expressive therapy, Therapeutic Dance looks at the correlation between movement and emotion.

There is no single fixed type of movement style used within this therapeutic exposure. Therapy sessions and classes give focus to movement expression as it comes forward through the guided process. Through this exposure, a therapist uses movement to help a client achieve emotional, cognitive, physical and social integration.

The theory behind Therapeutic Dance is based mainly upon the belief that body and mind interact. Both conscious and unconscious movement of the person, based on the dualist mind body premise, affects total functioning and reflects the individual’s personality. Therefore, the therapist-client relationship is partly based on non-verbal cues such as body language. Movement is believed to have a symbolic function and as such can aid in understanding the self. Movement improvisation allows the client to experiment with new ways of being, and the therapeutic movement work provides a manner or channel in which the client can consciously understand early relationships with negative stimuli through non-verbal mediation by the therapist.

Therapeutic work with dance and movement can provide a sense of wholeness to all individuals through the unity of the body, mind, and spirit. Body refers to the "discharging of energy through muscular-skeletal responses to stimuli received by the brain." Mind refers to "mental activities...such as memory, imagery, perception, attention, evaluation, reasoning and decision making." Spirit refers to the "subjectively experienced state of feeling in engaging in or empathically observing dancing."

In my approach to working with therapeutic processes, I wish to improve social skills as well as relational dynamics with others and to better improve my clients' quality of life. Through this form of dance and movement work, clients gain a deeper sense of self-awareness through a meditative process that involves movement, motion, and realization of one's body. Therapeutic Dance allows for creative expression and a holistic approach to dance and movement, meaning it treats the full person: body, mind, and spirit.