In contrast to what the women have been told (that they are dumb and ugly) and how they have been controlled with confined strictures, the dance class is a safe place in which the women have choices and can improve their self-concept.

In the United States and other countries, there has been a decline in public and private support of the arts, including dance. Awareness that dance is not just entertainment but also a form of education and healing may reverse the trend.

The symbolism in any kind of dance allows for recall, reenactment, and reexperience of events for purposes of resisting, reducing, transforming, and escaping stress.

In the interweave of mind and body, dance is a mode that allows people to work through difficulties, anticipate the future, recollect the past, and confront the present.

Dance therapy provides an outlet for energy and a safe and playful environment in which many areas of conflict can be identified and worked through, and appropriate adult roles and behavior tried out.

He [Wilhelm Reich] believed that the individual's walk, stance, and breath patterns revealed a specific character type. Reich thought chronic muscular tension indicated repression and blocked the expression of affect. An example is the tight holding of the chest area as a sign of repressed feelings of need and longing.

Dance releases energy mobilized by the fight-or-flight stress response that was otherwise restrained.