Dance movement therapy (DMT) is based on the premise that thoughts, feelings, and the experience of self are expressed through the body and its movement. It is a relational process that integrates emotional, cognitive, physical, and social aspects of self. DMT is the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being.

The DMT approach incorporates knowledge from psychotherapeutic approaches, psychology, sensorimotor and developmental movement, movement analysis, and neuroscience. The elements of dance (body awareness, rhythm, time, space, gesture, posture, dynamics) are applied as a framework for exploration, discovery, learning, and change. DMT focuses on movement behaviour as it emerges in the therapeutic relationship. Expressive, communicative, and adaptive behaviours are all considered for group and individual treatment.  Body movement, as the core component of dance, simultaneously provides the means of assessment and the mode of intervention.

this definition is a combination of the definitions of dance/movement therapy set out by the American Dance Therapy Association and the Dance/Movement Therapy Association of Canada