Participants in dance, both dancers and viewers, may experience catharsis and develop a sense of mastery or self-discovery.

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

It is the persistence of dance in helping people to resist, reduce, and escape stress since early humanity that attests to its efficacy.

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.

Among its many uses, dance/movement therapy aims to help people overcome trauma, often by nonverbally bringing the elements of the experience to the fore.

Danced healing rituals (in African village compounds, temple courtyards, dance-therapy studios, public theaters, and other social settings) reinvoke old traumas for exorcism and the transformation of fear, convince people that evil is gone or possible to dissipate, and reaffirm communal solidarity and a sense of well-being.

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.