Add Creative Exploration To Your Practice
Build on your professional experience and add the healing power of creative expression and exploration to your skill set with our online Expressive Arts Therapy (EXAT) Post-Master’s Certificate. Explore a variety of expressive arts modalities while developing your unique professional identity as a mental health practitioner who uses the creative arts as a therapeutic tool for growth and healing.
Powerful, Expressive Curriculum
This 12–18 credit online post-master’s certificate integrates the practical application of the expressive arts with Adlerian theory. You will learn to apply a multimodal approach, addressing diverse client issues and needs through expressive modalities that connect the mind, body, and spirit—including:
- visual arts
- movement-based creative expression
- sound/music
- creative writing
- nature-based practices
You’ll discover your inner source of creativity, using your personal artistic experience as a tool for self-discovery and self-expression as you learn to identify appropriate expressive arts modalities when working with diverse individuals, families, and groups.
The certificate consists of:
- 100% online courses in our time-tested virtual format
- Supervised internship
- Final capstone project
Certification Information
Our EXAT certificate is designed to meet the educational requirements to become a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) with the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA). Please see the post graduate requirements at www.ieata.org. Graduates must independently apply for registration through the IEATA.
What’s Required:
- A master’s degree in Psychology, Educational Psychology, Counseling, Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, or related Mental Health Discipline
- Eligibility to pursue licensure or certification in your field in the state where you work
- Demonstrated experience in one or more of the expressive arts modalities
The EXAT certificate admits three times a year, in the fall, winter, and spring. You are welcome to take EXAT elective courses (1-credit courses) as a student-at-large, but this does not constitute official admission to the certificate program.
Spotlight
Learn more about our Expressive Arts Therapy faculty, students, and alumni.
Field Experience
You will complete 200 hours of supervised field experience focusing on using the expressive arts, preferably completed at your place of employment. These hours are supervised by a mental health professional who is credentialed in the expressive arts.
Required Courses
Please refer to our course catalog for the most up-to-date course requirements.
Upon completion of the program, students will have mastery over the following:
- Theory and Technique: Describe the theories, techniques, and functions of multimodal expressive arts therapy, emphasizing cross-cultural contexts of creative expression.
- History and Context: Describe the historical uses of the expressive arts in different cultures and the evolution of contemporary expressive arts practices.
- Foundational Principles: Demonstrate understanding of the basic principles of different expressive arts modalities, such as art therapy, dance therapy, psychodrama, and music therapy and how these principles can be applied through a multimodal approach.
- Professional Perspective: Apply the expressive arts through a systemic lens to address diverse clinical, social, and cultural issues that present in clinical and community-based practice.
- Adlerian Psychology: Demonstrate how Adlerian theory can inform the application of the expressive arts through conceptualization and technique.
- Artistic Expression and Mental Health: Conceptualize the relationship between artistic expression and individual mental health, including assessment, treatment planning, and techniques as applied to selected client disorders within a cross cultural context.
- Multimodal Approach: Apply a multimodal approach of the expressive arts, including visual arts, movement, music, creative writing, and nature-based practices to foster the mind-body-spirit integration.
- Ethical Considerations: Identify possible professional and ethical issues when using the expressive arts.
- Inclusive Understanding and Ability: Identify and apply appropriate expressive arts modalities when working with special populations and diverse individuals, families, groups, and systems to help foster healthy self-expression and movement toward mental health wellness.
- Personal Growth: Demonstrate personal and professional growth through the expressive arts.
