Abstract:
This body of qualitative research explores how non-traditional students in western
graduate Dance Movement Therapy programs navigate racial/cultural challenges in their
training, education, and practice. Multiculturalism is an integral component of
counselling and psychology training. The abounding prioritisation of developing cultural
competencies reflects significant progress in the mental health sphere. Nonetheless,
North American and Eurocentric values occupy a pedestal and dictate the theory,
education and practice of counselling and therapy. In the process, multicultural strategies
often recreate the oppressive arrangements they strive to dismantle. The field of Dance
Movement Therapy (DMT) is complicit in enacting these narratives, reflected in its urgent
call to equip Dance Movement Therapists to work with a diverse range of clients.
Infrequently addressed are the experiences of students and faculty of colour in their
training, education, and practice. Through a review of the literature and semi-structured
interviews, this research enquires into the experiences of five non-traditional Dance
Movement Therapists who pursued their training/education in graduate school
programs in various western countries. Thematic analysis via a critical constructivist lens
unveils the isolation, racism, cultural incompatibility, and oppression that tolerantly
coexist with feelings of autonomy and freedom in the participants’ experiences. The
present study found that DMT pedagogy’s unexamined superiority of white-anglo norms
as well as interpersonal experiences of racial discrimination and cultural blindness
majorly shape non-traditional students lived experiences. Apparent in participants’ stories
is a sense of exasperation with the status quo and an explicit desire for safe spaces, for
an immersion of social justice dialogue in the curriculum, and for the acknowledgement
of systemic responsibility by educational institutions. Contributing to the meagre pool of
research about non-traditional DMT students, this thesis evidences the need for nontraditional voices to enrich and inform future research, theory, pedagogy and practice in
Dance Movement Therapy.