ABSTRACT
De Branding is a department of Caritas psychiatric centre in Melle, Belgium. Young people who are admitted to such a department often seem quite unable to step back and look at themselves from a distance. Dance and movement therapy is a form of therapy based on the relationship between body and mind; it uses body language as a nonverbal means of communication to come in contact with others. A great many of the creative arts therapies offered in this specialised forensic department are group therapies. For young people who find themselves at a fairly basic level of mentalization, the work done in dance and movement therapy will mainly focus on regulating stress levels. Learning to express bodily tension while at the same time keeping it within certain limits is only possible if the environment is restricted so that all attention can be focused on the young person and his body.
