Duration:
2 years (full-time)
3 years (part-time)
Number of credits:
180
Start date(s):
September 2026
Build a rewarding career as a professionally-qualified registered dance movement psychotherapist. Graduates are eligible to register with the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK. This programme is designed for people who have prior dance experience and professional or volunteering experience with people in need.
Did you know?
Graduates are eligible to register with the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK (ADMP UK) and become professionally-qualified registered dance movement psychotherapists.
Modules
This interdisciplinary module for students training in Art Psychotherapy, Music Therapy, Dance Movement Psychotherapy and Play Therapy will support you in developing your professional identity and preparing for placement practice. It provides comprehensive understanding of professional and ethical issues, including the therapeutic pathway, regulatory standards, diversity, equity, and sustainability, while fostering interdisciplinary communication skills and reflexive practice.
Your curriculum covers theoretical and clinical perspectives on human development (embodied, psychological, social, cultural, and biological) helping you to understand the experiences and needs of diverse service users. Emphasis is placed on trauma-informed approaches, culturally competent care, and critical analysis of health and mental health frameworks. Key professional skills, such as formulation, power dynamics, and ethical considerations, are integrated into the learning process.
This module introduces you to the theoretical foundations of Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP), integrating psychotherapeutic principles with embodied, movement-based practices. You will explore key models of change, embodiment, and relational process, critically examining how movement can support therapeutic engagement across diverse client needs and settings. As you engage with multicultural theories and inclusive frameworks, the module invites you to reflect on your own cultural narratives, developing awareness of identity, power, and social justice in therapeutic relationships.
This module marks your first immersive experience of clinical training and offers an integrated approach to professional development across three key areas: clinical placement and supervision, DMP clinical skills, and creative movement process. You will begin applying your learning in real-world settings through a supervised external placement, supported by weekly internal supervision. This space enables you to reflect on client work, develop ethical awareness, and build confidence as a beginning practitioner. In line with ADMP UK requirements, you will also engage in personal therapy, which underpins sustainable, safe practice and supports your emotional wellbeing as you navigate the complexity of clinical work.
This module marks a pivotal stage in your development as a Dance Movement Psychotherapist, supporting your transition from trainee to advanced trainee in preparation to becoming a professionally competent, registered practitioner. Through continued clinical placement with diverse client populations, weekly group supervision, and advanced practical and process-based learning, you will consolidate your theoretical understanding, therapeutic presence, and embodied skills. The module foregrounds relational complexity, cultural awareness, and ethical responsiveness as essential dimensions of safe, inclusive practice.
This module equips Arts and Play Therapies students with the critical knowledge and skills to engage in evidence-informed and interdisciplinary professional practice. You will be introduced to research practice and a variety of methodological research frameworks. Interdisciplinary expertise and contemporary research will be used to explore qualitative and quantitative methodologies, arts-based and participatory approaches. You will gain skills in evaluating and modifying your practice once qualified through audit, service evaluation and research. You will develop a critical understanding of ethical frameworks, the standards of proficiency for your practice regulator, and evidence-based practice in the health and wellbeing sectors. This teaching will assist you in gaining skills in planning and writing a research proposal, reviewing literature, selecting an appropriate methodological framework and methods and considering the ethical implications of your area of research interest.
This capstone module is the culmination of your MA Dance Movement Psychotherapy training and offers a unique opportunity to design and complete an original research project that weaves together your clinical practice, theoretical understanding, and embodied knowledge. Drawing from your placement experiences, personal identity, and professional interests, you will identify a relevant issue within Dance Movement Psychotherapy and explore it using ethical, somatic, and arts-based methodologies.
Your curriculum
Dance movement psychotherapy is a relational process in which a client and therapist engage in an empathetic creative process using body movement and dance to assist the integration of emotional, cognitive, physical, social and spiritual aspects of self.
We believe that focusing on the creative potential of individuals in a relationship creates a sound ethical basis for psychotherapeutic work.
You will be taught by leading experts who will equip you with the skills, experience, and confidence to work as a dance movement psychotherapist.
All graduating students are eligible to apply for registration with the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy (ADMP UK). Graduates often create their own positions; facilitating dance movement psychotherapy sessions within settings including: social services; special needs; schools; psychiatry; probationary and rehabilitation units; forensic psychiatry.
Learning
The MA in DMP benefits from tutors’ practice-based research, which feeds directly in teaching.
Our uniquely interdisciplinary MA Dance Movement Psychotherapy integrates theoretical, experiential and clinical learning, preparing students to practice as dance movement psychotherapists. Practice-based research cascades into teaching emphasising the social, biological and psychological construction of the moving body and meaning-making. The programme offers opportunities for you to explore and expand movement preferences, ways of interacting with others, belief systems, prejudices and values. Emphasis is placed on development of your own style as a dance movement psychotherapist. You also have the opportunity to perform and exhibit your ongoing work in a yearly Arts Therapies exhibition.
The programme ethos emphasises a critical consideration of different descriptions and explanations of bodies, human systems and therapeutic practices in different places and times. In the context of an individual student's experiences, beliefs, values and different 'cultures', our teaching actively promotes a participatory ethic, self-reflexive practices and the ability for critical reflection on: creative processes, intersubjectivity and the construction of social and power differentials, in learning and in psychotherapy.
We also offer weekend introductory courses, 5 day Summer Schools, and 20 week part time evening Foundation Courses which provide a useful background in related professions. For more information, see our Psychology Short Courses.
Course staff
You will be taught by artists and researchers who are leading specialists in their fields and provide an excellent springboard for you to thrive in your career in dance and the arts.
Dr. Chi-Fang Chao
Dr. Chi-Fang Chao specialises in dance anthropology and dance ethnography. She has studied dance cultures in several Asian regions, such as Taiwan, Okinawa and the latter’s diaspora communities. Her major research interests include ritual, spirituality and embodiment, and indigenous dance theatre in the post-colonial era.
Dr. Nicola Conibere
Nicola Conibere is a choreographer and academic. Her research uses choreographic practices to explore the potentials of how bodyminds relate. She is interested in the politics of performance and the potentials of spectatorial exchange: her work often investigates theatricality, public appearing and social choreography.
Hanna Gillgren
Hanna Gillgren (SE) is choreographer and curator for H2DANCE and Fest en Fest an artist-run festival for expanded choreography for UK and Nordic-based choreographers. She is part of the inaugural artistic cohort at Rose Choreographic School Sadler’s Wells East London (2024-26).
Professor Sara Houston
Sara is an award winning researcher and teacher. She won the BUPA Foundation Prize in 2011 for her pioneering work in dance and Parkinson’s. In 2014 she was a Finalist in the National Public Engagement Awards for her work engaging the general public in her Parkinson’s and dance research.
Professor Alexandra Kolb
Alexandra has lectured at universities and conservatoires in the UK and internationally, following her Ph.D. from Cambridge University. She draws on a background in Literature, Art History and Philosophy alongside Dance and Theatre to convey to her students a sense of the dance field’s breadth and its many overlaps with other artistic and scholarly developments.
Lalitaraja
Lalitaraja (Joachim Chandler MA) is a dance artist, educator and Feldenkrais practitioner based in the dance department at Roehampton University where he teaches choreography, contact improvisation and improvisation. As a performer he has worked with Scottish Ballet, Michael Clark, Adventures in Motion Pictures, Laurie Booth, Yolande Snaith and Charles Linehan among others.
Dr. Heike Salzer
Heike Salzer is a German dancer and artist-scholar. She fluidly moves between performance, choreography, and site specific screendance. In 2014 she founded WECreate Productions together with Ana Baer Carrilllo (US/MX) jointly directing award winning screendances, installations and multi-media performances that have been encountered by thousands of audiences in Asia, Europe, Middle East and the Americas.
Dr. Tamara Tomić–Vajagić
Dr. Tamara Tomić–Vajagić works across visual culture, digital media, and performance and is a Senior Lecturer in Dance Practices. She teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate degrees as well as researches and supervises doctoral projects on the themes of dance and visual art, mediated choreography, and dance history, aesthetics, and performance studies.
Mike Toon
Michael Toon trained at the Legat School and Urdang Academy before performing with London City Ballet, Vienna Festival Ballet and as an international freelance soloist. Alongside his stage career he co-founded Capitol Chamber Ballet Project and Heart of the Jester Productions, creating opportunities for collaboration between dancers, musicians and technicians.
Careers
Graduates can enter a variety of roles including:
- NHS clinical practice within in and outpatient services
- community services
- prison services
- special needs schools
- performing arts contexts
- drug rehabilitation
- in social services with immigrants and asylum seekers
- in shelters with women who have suffered domestic abuse
- dementia services
- learning disabilities services
- child and adolescent mental health services.
Open days
Get a real taste of our campus, community and what it’s like to study at Roehampton
Applying
UK postgraduate students apply through our direct application system.
This course uses a gathered field approach to process applications. Find out more information on how we will process your application.
Application deadline: 27 July 2025.
Interview date(s): 5 August 2025.
Specific entry requirements
All eligible applicants to the programme will be interviewed/auditioned by the Programme Coordinator with Programme staff. Selection will be based on the following admissions criteria:
- Applicants will normally be required to hold a good second-class honours degree (or above); in most cases this will be in a dance-related discipline or a clinically related discipline such as Dance, Psychology, Mental Health (Psychiatric) Nursing, or Social Work etc. Alternatively graduate level professional qualifications in appropriate disciplines such as Dance, Drama, Performing Arts, Occupational Therapy, Probation Officers or Social Work, are also accepted.
- Applicants must attend an admissions day which includes experiential work and an interview, or a Microsoft Teams interview for international applicants.
- Applicants will be expected to have prior appropriate clinical experience of having worked within a setting and with clients appropriate to the programme. Normally applicants will be expected to have a minimum of 1 year prior clinical experience. This might include working with children, adults or older adults in the areas of learning disabilities, mental health, hospice care, dementia care, neuro-disability, homelessness, addictions etc (this is not an exhaustive list). This work can be on a voluntary or employed basis.
- It is expected that applicants will have prior movement and dance movement experience either having worked professionally in a dance movement/performance context or having practiced continuously for a minimum of 2 years prior to training. Knowledge and experience of at least two dance movement techniques/styles is required.
- Applicants should also demonstrate personal qualities considered important to train as a therapist, such as their capacity to form and maintain appropriate empathic relationships with clients. They should also demonstrate emotional literacy and robustness and an ability to be self-aware and open.
- Applicants will be required to supply two completed references within their application; normally one of these should be able to comment on the applicant’s academic suitability and the other the applicant’s clinical suitability for the programme.
- In addition to these requirements, all students must be prepared to enter mandatory on-going personal therapy for the duration of the programme.
- All applicants’ movement capacity will be ascertained as part of the interview.
- We also offer 20 week evening foundation courses which provide a broad oultine and introduction in the arts and play therapies.
Personal Statement
The typed personal statement (approx 500 words) should cover the following main areas:
- What has led you to wish to train as a therapist at this time?
- How does this connect with your dance background, experience and hopes for the future?
- what is your experience of how dance movement may enhance lives and facilitate change? (Specific reference to work or volunteering with vulnerable people is helpful).
- Mention relevant courses, conferences and reading, any meetings with dance movement or other therapists.
The personal statement is also an indication of how well you express yourself in writing and helps us to identify any needs for specific support and development before or during the programme.
General entry requirements
September 2025 entry tuition fees (UK)
| Level of study | Full-time* | Part-time* |
| MA | £11,250 | £7,500 |
*Year 1 fee
We offer a wide range of scholarships and bursaries. See our financial support pages for UK students.
We also provide other ways to support the cost of living, including on-campus car parking, hardship support and some of the most affordable student accommodation and catering in London. Find out more about how we can support you.
Additional costs to consider
Personal Therapy
Students must complete at least 80 hours of personal therapy during training—weekly for two years (FT) or three years (PT). Therapy is mandatory and must be with a registered/accredited therapist. Costs vary, so applicants should research fees on relevant websites.
DBS Check
Students must apply and pay for an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, even if previously completed. Subscription to the DBS Update Service is recommended to reduce costs.
Personal Indemnity Insurance
Students may need insurance during 2nd or 3rd-year placements, but only if not covered by the setting. Costs vary by provider.
Travel Costs
Students should budget for travel to campus, placements, and therapy. While local options may be available, this is not always guaranteed.
Professional Membership
All students must become student members of ADMP UK.
Placement Requirements
Some placements may require students to update or verify immunisation status, including covering the cost of vaccinations if needed.
International postgraduate students apply through our direct application system.
This course uses a gathered field approach to process applications. Find out more information on how we will process your application.
Application deadline: 27 July 2025.
Interview date(s): 5 August 2025.
Specific entry requirements
All eligible applicants to the programme will be interviewed/auditioned by the Programme Coordinator with Programme staff. Selection will be based on the following admissions criteria:
- Applicants will normally be required to hold a good second-class honours degree (or above); in most cases this will be in a dance-related discipline or a clinically related discipline such as Dance, Psychology, Mental Health (Psychiatric) Nursing, or Social Work etc. Alternatively graduate level professional qualifications in appropriate disciplines such as Dance, Drama, Performing Arts, Occupational Therapy, Probation Officers or Social Work, are also accepted.
- Applicants must attend an admissions day which includes experiential work and an interview, or a skype interview for international applicants.
- Applicants will be expected to have prior appropriate clinical experience of having worked within a setting and with clients appropriate to the programme. Normally applicants will be expected to have a minimum of 1 year prior clinical experience. This might include working with children, adults or older adults in the areas of learning disabilities, mental health, hospice care, dementia care, neuro-disability, homelessness, addictions etc (this is not an exhaustive list). This work can be on a voluntary or employed basis.
- It is expected that applicants will have prior movement and dance movement experience either having worked professionally in a dance movement/performance context or having practiced continuously for a minimum of 2 years prior to training. Knowledge and experience of at least two dance movement techniques/styles is required.
- Applicants should also demonstrate personal qualities considered important to train as a therapist, such as their capacity to form and maintain appropriate empathic relationships with clients. They should also demonstrate emotional literacy and robustness and an ability to be self-aware and open.
- Applicants will be required to supply two completed references within their application; normally one of these should be able to comment on the applicant’s academic suitability and the other the applicant’s clinical suitability for the programme.
- In addition to these requirements, all students must be prepared to enter mandatory on-going personal therapy for the duration of the programme.
- All applicants’ movement capacity will be ascertained as part of the interview.
- We also offer 20 week evening foundation courses which provide a broad oultine and introduction in the arts and play therapies.
Personal Statement
The typed personal statement (approx 500 words) should cover the following main areas:
- What has led you to wish to train as a therapist at this time?
- How does this connect with your dance background, experience and hopes for the future?
- what is your experience of how dance movement may enhance lives and facilitate change? (Specific reference to work or volunteering with vulnerable people is helpful).
- Mention relevant courses, conferences and reading, any meetings with dance movement or other therapists.
The personal statement is also an indication of how well you express yourself in writing and helps us to identify any needs for specific support and development before or during the programme.
General entry requirements
September 2025 entry tuition fees (international)
| Level of study | Full-time* | Part-time* |
| MA | £18,250 | £12,170 |
*Year 1 fee
We offer a wide range of scholarships and bursaries. See our financial support pages for international students.
We also provide other ways to support the cost of living, including on-campus car parking, hardship support and some of the most affordable student accommodation and catering in London. Find out more about how we can support you.
Additional costs to consider
Personal Therapy
Students must complete at least 80 hours of personal therapy during training—weekly for two years (FT) or three years (PT). Therapy is mandatory and must be with a registered/accredited therapist. Costs vary, so applicants should research fees on relevant websites.
DBS Check
Students must apply and pay for an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, even if previously completed. Subscription to the DBS Update Service is recommended to reduce costs.
Personal Indemnity Insurance
Students may need insurance during 2nd or 3rd-year placements, but only if not covered by the setting. Costs vary by provider.
Travel Costs
Students should budget for travel to campus, placements, and therapy. While local options may be available, this is not always guaranteed.
Professional Membership
All students must become student members of ADMP UK.
Placement Requirements
Some placements may require students to update or verify immunisation status, including covering the cost of vaccinations if needed.
Need help or advice before applying?
Psychology
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