Dance/Movement Therapy and the Arts in Healthcare: The First 50 Years

According to Brandman (2007), the arts in healthcare movement came into being in the 1970s in the U.S., a few years after dance/movement therapy (DMT) was defined and professionalized by the formation of the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) in 1966. Brandman (2007) names two organizations as forerunners to the arts in healthcare movement: Hospital Audiences, Inc., and Very Special Arts. The International Arts Medicine Association (IAMA) was founded in the mid-1980s by Dr. Richard Lippin, a poet physician and strong advocate for the creative arts therapies (CATs). The Society for Arts in Healthcare (SAH) was established in 1991, and by sometime soon after 2002 IAMA had closed its operations. The SAH was renamed the Global Alliance for Arts and Health (GAAH) and then ceased operations early in 2015, citing operational and funding challenges. However, the peer-reviewed journal established by SAH, Arts & Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice, has persisted, publishing steadily since its launch in 2009 and now at three issues per year. A cursory search of the 19 issues in that timeframe shows 11 article titles or abstracts that reference dance, movement, or dance/movement therapy (Taylor & Frances Online, n.d.). And a board-certified dance/movement therapist, Dr. Ilene Serlin, serves on the editorial board of that journal. The Americans for the Arts website (AFTA, n.d.) now houses some of the resources previously offered through the GAAH. My reflections on the unfolding relationship between DMT and arts in healthcare emanate from my two primary professional roles. First, as a DMT and CATs academic with a focus on medical applications of DMT, the arts in healthcare arena has been a space in which I have been able to share my work, and a place for me to learn and network. Second, in my years as vice-president and president of the ADTA, the relationship with the arts in healthcare community proved vital to two