You do not have to have any dance experience at all. Feeling self-conscious is quite a common experience at first, I also relate to this when I first tried DMT. The good news is that our sessions are not about moving beautifully or in order to perform anything. You can be ugly, silly, playful, messy, wild, experimental and authentic. There is no wrong or right way to move. All of you is welcome here.

Good question — there's a lot of overlap, but a few key differences:

Somatic therapy is a broad umbrella term for therapeutic approaches that work with the body to process trauma, stress, and emotion, based on the idea that the body holds and expresses experiences that talk alone can't fully reach. It includes many different modalities — e.g. Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Hakomi, body-oriented psychotherapy — each with its own theoretical roots and techniques. The focus is often on tracking bodily sensations, nervous system regulation, and gentle, sometimes minimal movement or stillness to help process and release stored experience.

Dance movement therapy (DMT) is a specific, recognised profession (with its own training, registration body, and clinical framework) that uses movement and dance as the primary therapeutic medium. It draws on the idea that mind, body, and emotion are interconnected, and that movement itself — not just noticing the body, but actively moving, often expressively or creatively — can support psychological change. DMT sessions typically involve more active movement, expression, dance-based interventions, alongside verbal reflection.

In practice, many DMT therapists (including myself) draw on somatic principles — body awareness, nervous system regulation — within a dance/movement therapy framework.

There is an ever-emerging movement of dance events and sessions popping up in communities — spaces where people can dance together in authentic and exploratory ways. This includes: Authentic Movement, Open Floor, Conscious Dance, Ecstatic Dance, 5-Rhythms, Bio-danza and many more. All of these forms of dance involve a more improvised and authentic way of moving and facilitators have varying degrees of training. Many of these dance forms have been inspired by and draw their influence from Dance Movement Therapy.

The main difference between Dance Movement Therapy and all these other forms of dancing is that DMT is a form of psychotherapy and the others are not.

When engaging in Dance Movement Therapy you are in a therapist-client relationship, working towards therapeutic goals and this involves regular sessions over a period of time. This can also be in the form of a DMT group. The therapist has a code of ethics & conduct to follow and certain responsibilities that a community dance facilitator does not.

Dance Movement Therapists may integrate interventions from Authentic Movement, 5-Rhythms etc in sessions.

Dance Movement Therapy is a relational process and I move with my clients much of the time. As a therapist I am trained to observe and analyse movement patterns but this is quite organic and intuitive and doesn’t involve me staring at you with a clipboard. This is a collaborative process and sometimes we might try interventions such as authentic movement which does involve being witnessed by an observer, but all of these things are optional.

We do have conversation, it would be very strange for many people to not talk at all. We need some verbal communication to keep us on the same page and to share some of our experiences. As your therapist I also need to have a means to guide you, so I do use verbal communication to check-in with you, to offer guidance, prompts and invitations for exploration.

That said, the purpose of dance movement therapy is to move and connect with the body, so you do need to be willing to engage in this process as best you can.

This is something we would discuss in a consultation because it depends on each individual, your needs, your goals and your progress over time.

The minimum commitment is 10 sessions, which reflects the fact that therapy is a gradual process that takes time. It can extend to a lot longer, but we would discuss it so you can decided what feels right for you.

Initial Consultation (90 minutes) — $280

Individual Sessions (60 minutes) — $200

Sessions are priced the same whether held in person or online.

Please note that I am a private practitioner, my sessions are not covered by medicare, insurance or NDIS. I am not registered for GST.

I currently offer sessions online only.

Once I find a suitable therapy space in Sydney I will open up in-person options.