Dance/movement therapy (DMT) in USA and Australia or dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) in the UK is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body. As a modality of the creative arts therapies, DMT looks at the correlation between movement and emotion.

Dance/movement therapy, alone and in conjunction with other forms of therapy, has been shown to be an effective form of treatment for anxiety and anxiety related disorders across age ranges and across a wide population of individuals. Certain studies show that dance movement therapy has been an effective form of anxiety treatment for those with and without intellectual disabilities and musculoskeletal disorders. It has also been shown to be effective at reducing aggression in young children.

There are insufficient high quality trials to assess the effect of DMT on behavioral, social, cognitive and emotional symptoms in people with dementia.

The theory of DMT 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 control, and also 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 DMT provides a manner or channel in which the client can consciously understand early relationships with negative experiences through non-verbal mediation by the therapist.

By integrating the body, mind, and spirit, DMT aims to foster a sense of wholeness among participants. The body refers to the "discharging of energy through muscular-skeletal responses to stimuli received by the brain." The mind refers to "mental activities...such as memory, imagery, perception, attention, evaluation, reasoning and decision making." The spirit refers to the "subjectively experienced feeling of engaging in or empathically observing dancing."

Dance movement therapy works to improve the social skills, as well as relational dynamics among the clients that choose to participate in it to better improve their quality of life. This therapy seeks to deepen clients' self-awareness through a meditative process that involves movement, motion, and realization through exploration of one's body.

DMT/P methodology is fairly heterogenous and practitioners draw on a variety of psychotherapeutic and kinetic principles. Most training in Dance Movement Therapy will have an established theoretical base which they work from – for example Psychodynamic theory, Humanistic psychology, Integrative therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy, Existential therapy etc. Depending on the approach or combinations of approaches practitioners work from very different processes and aims will be worked towards.

Additionally to the psychotherapeutic basis of their work, different approaches to movement and dance may be employed.