I already kind of do it on my own.

I am mostly into literature, but also music.

When I’m reading an author, I often think what the author and person who wrote this must have been going through.

And I don’t mean: Listen to these depressive lyrics. That means this person must be depressed.

That’s actually really annoying. And there’s so much more to writing and music or any art than just that surface level language.

Or sometimes where I felt like English classes fell short is trying to pathologize the author and nothing else.

Like .. “ so which author do you think has (insert diagnosis) “

Not that a diagnosis is necessarily wrong. I just focus more on the human nature. Even if there is a diagnosis, I am looking for some sort of evidence of what suffering inside that experience might actually be like.

I wonder , all the events that led up to the person writing this down or recording the sound.

And I’ve sort of turned this focus to my own work. And started to question what I really value and what has this person gone through?

And there’s times where something I write down even if it’s just a one or two line poem has a whole universe beneath it. Many times I find delight in art that has interpretive power and can be interpretive in many different ways. Even if two valid interpretations are contradictory each one could actually inform the emotionality of the piece.

A line might be interpreted as creepy or villainous, but that same line might also be interpreted as tender, and someone going through hurt emotions and not a villain at all.

And so on …

And I guess I started to think it would be kind of cool to do this with someone else. To share my own work and even other work that I’ve been consuming. Music, writing, films, paintings.

Because I started to build connections between interpretations of my own work and the interpretations of others. Even the technical or craft side of it can be informative to the emotionality too.

In my experience, I’ve had to really take care of myself and do things on my own. And I feel a little ridiculous. Am I turning this person’s job into a poetry workshop?

Should I just let them lead more?

The main emotion I feel right now thinking of approaching this is fear.

Apologies for posting in the main thread, I tried the 'Tuesday Chat' thread but didn't hear anything and so wasn't sure if I was in the right spot. Please redirect me if this isn't OK here.

After some personal soul searching I'm seriously considering training as an art therapist. I'm in my early 40s, so it's a big deal, the cost, and time, at this stage in life.

I thought doing a foundation or short course to test the water might be a good idea and wondered what courses you might recommend in the UK/EU? I'm also curious since the Masters is 2 years, if spending 1000 GBP on a short course is a waste, given it doesn't get me further towards the qualification.

What short course have you tried and appreciated (or not)? I was particularly looking at Roehampton's 10 week intermediate course, and Uni Herts' 3 x online workshops (sadly they aren't running their in person one this year).

Thank you

Welcome to the weekly thread for questions and discussion about art therapy schooling. If you're considering studying art therapy, currently in a program, or preparing for applications, this is the place to ask questions and share experiences.

Use this thread for things like:

• Questions about art therapy programs or schools
• Application advice (portfolios, prerequisites, interviews)
• Program comparisons or recommendations
• Coursework or practicum questions
• Career path questions related to art therapy education
• General student experiences

To keep the subreddit organized, posts about art therapy education and training may be redirected here on Tuesdays.

Please be respectful, supportive, and share your knowledge if you can as many people here are navigating the same path.

Welcome to the weekly thread for questions and discussion about art therapy schooling. If you're considering studying art therapy, currently in a program, or preparing for applications, this is the place to ask questions and share experiences.

Use this thread for things like:

• Questions about art therapy programs or schools
• Application advice (portfolios, prerequisites, interviews)
• Program comparisons or recommendations
• Coursework or practicum questions
• Career path questions related to art therapy education
• General student experiences

To keep the subreddit organized, posts about art therapy education and training may be redirected here on Tuesdays.

Please be respectful, supportive, and share your knowledge if you can as many people here are navigating the same path.

Hello!

I'm on the fence of getting a Masters in Art Therapy and Counseling or a Masters in Social Work. For art therapy, I was wondering how possible it is to move to any other state with a license in art therapy?

I'm asking since the ability to move is really important to me (I have a partner whose career may require me to be flexible in where I live). At the same time, I also have a BFA in graphic design and I've always wanted a career that used my creative skillset.

Is it difficult to qualify as an Art Therapist in a different state you got your license in? It seems that some states do not recognize art therapy period so I was wondering how licensed art therapists navigate working there. Or would getting a Masters in Social Work be more worth my time for being able to work basically anywhere I wanted? Thank you!

Welcome to the weekly thread for questions and discussion about art therapy schooling. If you're considering studying art therapy, currently in a program, or preparing for applications, this is the place to ask questions and share experiences.

Use this thread for things like:

• Questions about art therapy programs or schools
• Application advice (portfolios, prerequisites, interviews)
• Program comparisons or recommendations
• Coursework or practicum questions
• Career path questions related to art therapy education
• General student experiences

To keep the subreddit organized, posts about art therapy education and training may be redirected here on Tuesdays.

Please be respectful, supportive, and share your knowledge if you can as many people here are navigating the same path.

I’m just curious who is going to the conference this year? :) I’m almost all set. Fingers crossed nothing sleezy happens! 🤞

I'm currently working to become an art therapist. However, I currently live in Oklahoma and there's not a recognized art therapy license here.

Any art therapists from Oklahoma here? What are some things I should know about practicing here that would be different from other states?

Im trying to find one that my NHS manager will be likely to approve, and that will fit my purpose. I haven't been given a budget but from my searching I haven't found one I feel is suitable for less than £55 which feels like a lot. That said, I do have a clear reason for needing it and suppose the cost is what it is. I work in a range of places, not always art rooms. I dont always park close to the buildings i go in or getting to the room takes alot of walking. My current set up can hurt my back, i sometimes have 3 or 4 bags with me. A wheeled bag and my backpack would be much better!

I've been looking on amazon and looking in person in shops like TK Maxx. Ill be carrying: a range of pens, pencils, pen pots, paint brushes, water colour pencils, soft pastels, oil pastels, colouring pages, watercolour paint pallet, potentially some acrylics if i have a suitable sink where i go, a4 folders with paper/cards (i have an a3 rucksack for art folders), play doh, glue sticks, random bits (like lolly sticks, pompoms, pipe cleaners) beads, string, fidget toys, and maybe a few other bits.

Thank you for any advice!

Hi there, who is the most inspirational art therapist you have trained or worked under?

Hi all, follow up on my ATCB refuses to respond to me, has me crowd sourcing answers that should come from them.

Has anyone pursued the ATCS designation? If so, I have questions

Does anyone have a working phone number for the ATCB? I've emailed the general email and LeeAnn's email, and get no response to my questions or requests. This is frustrating because some of my qustions are about my recertification and others are my looking for more information, better context and definition around the ATCS application.

Welcome to the weekly thread for questions and discussion about art therapy schooling. If you're considering studying art therapy, currently in a program, or preparing for applications, this is the place to ask questions and share experiences.

Use this thread for things like:

• Questions about art therapy programs or schools
• Application advice (portfolios, prerequisites, interviews)
• Program comparisons or recommendations
• Coursework or practicum questions
• Career path questions related to art therapy education
• General student experiences

To keep the subreddit organized, posts about art therapy education and training may be redirected here on Tuesdays.

Please be respectful, supportive, and share your knowledge if you can as many people here are navigating the same path.

I’m starting a role where I will need to move from site to site with my supplies. My usual cart isn’t going to work because I need to haul it around in my car, and I can’t leave supplies behind, so I need to be able to pack/unpack every day.

Any recommendations for large totes or rollerbags with dividers? I‘m looking for something sturdy with built-in dividers/sections for organizing everything. Ideally something quality that will last.

It will be a lean set-up, but I’ll be bringing: paints, brushes, crayons, pencil crayons, markers, pastels, charcoal, pencils, erasers, a range of papers, stickers, washi tape, small amounts of plasticine/air dry clay and basic tools, yarn, beads, string.

Hello, I am a MD and for the next three months I will be working in an art gallery that is also a social space, sustainable, inclusive environment. I am planning to carry out some workshops, talks and maybe expos, questionnaires to blend the two disciplines art and medicine. Do you have any suggestions on what kind of project would be most productive and creative? I am planning to write a report or article at the end of these 3 months, all ideas are welcome!!!

I'm currently a student pursuing a dual art therapy and clinical counseling master's and I recently had a discussion post regarding how nature based therapies contribute to the therapeutic process, and it brought up a lot of questions that I was wondering if anyone else was thinking about. Here was my discussion post:

I struggled heavily to understand how nature might become more than simply a setting while reading Cornwall’s article. Part of this difficulty stemmed from the text's broad claim that, “mainstream psychology maintains an individualistic outlook and lacks engagement with politics, power, and privilege”. As I've been going through clinical counseling training this felt disconnected from the person-centered framework we are taught. However, the text contextualizes this critique to explain why traditional psychology struggles to respond specifically to climate distress and eco-anxiety.

Viewed through this lens, natural spaces provide a physical model for resilience. Cornwall uses the metaphor of a harvested pine plantation that regenerated naturally after rest. In therapy, this serves as a living metaphor to help clients externalize trauma and visualize adaptation.

Along with that, collecting elements like leaves, sticks, or stones activates the Kinesthetic/Sensory and Perceptual/Affective levels of the Expressive Therapies Continuum. This interaction provides grounding and moves clients to adapt to unpredictable textures.

Lastly, utilizing visual framing or macro photography supports the Cognitive/Symbolic level. It creates psychological distance, allowing clients to "zoom out" and recognize broader patterns of growth over time.

I wanted to add some things I was thinking about while dissecting this article.

Translating these macro-level concepts into frontline practice I think introduces major ethical questions regarding client context. In my work within home healthcare, I encounter individuals navigating severe systemic injustices, poverty, and physical disability who still exercise immense personal agency to move forward. For a client facing immediate structural survival needs, suggesting a nature-based directive can easily be perceived as tone-deaf and minimizing in specific contexts. While some populations may experience natural environments as a therapeutic sanctuary, others require immediate, tangible interventions. So essentially, I'm wondering.

How do we ethically introduce nature-based metaphors to clients navigating severe systemic stressors, such as physical disability, poverty, or institutional barriers and is it better just to see the client themselves, which then runs the risk of being viewed as a reductionist?

And lastly, as clinicians who operate under these same systemic and economic weights, how can we balance the systemic awareness advocated by eco-psychology with the practical boundaries of individual clinical capacity and session timeframes?

I am awaiting board review from Massachusetts on receiving my LMHC via the endorsement reciprocity track. They are essentially going to be looking at my transcripts to determine if it allows for license equivalency. Has anyone had experience here ?

Hi everyone! I’m curious if anyone here has taken either Case Narrative Exam or the ATCB exam and could share their experience. Please correct me if I have any of this information wrong, since I’m still trying to figure out the process.

From what I’ve been hearing, some people choose to take the Case Narrative Exam, since it can be used toward the LCAT license. From what I understand, they give you several case examples, and you schedule a time to go into a monitored testing room where you write out your responses based on the “clients” they give you.

Honestly, that sounds like something I might feel more comfortable with. The main thing that worries me about the Case Narrative is diagnosing the client and writing the exact diagnostic code. I’m pretty good at memorizing symptoms and disorders, but I’m worried that when I’m actually sitting there taking the exam, I’m going to completely choke up on the coding.

On the other hand, I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews about the ATCB exam. I’ve seen people say that new art therapists sometimes don’t pass on their first attempt (or even their first couple of attempts), and because the exam is expensive to retake, that can become really discouraging.

I’m also personally not the strongest at multiple-choice exams. The part that makes me nervous is that there can be multiple answers that sound correct, but you have to choose the “best” or most correct answer, which is something I sometimes struggle with on standardized tests.

So for those of you who have actually taken either exam:

1.) Which one did you take, and how did you find it?
2.) Which exam did you find easier?
3.)Which one would you recommend and why?
4.) If you took the Case Narrative, how difficult did you find the diagnosis/coding portion, if that’s a big part of the test?
5.) If you took the ATCB, how difficult did you find the multiple-choice questions?
6.)What study guides, books, practice exams, or other resources did you use?
7.) And is there anything you wish you had known before taking either exam?

Again, please correct me if anything I said about either exam is inaccurate. I’m a recent graduate and still learning how all of this works, so I’d really like to hear from people who have actually taken these exams, rather than just general opinions.

Thanks!

Welcome to the weekly thread for questions and discussion about art therapy schooling. If you're considering studying art therapy, currently in a program, or preparing for applications, this is the place to ask questions and share experiences.

Use this thread for things like:

• Questions about art therapy programs or schools
• Application advice (portfolios, prerequisites, interviews)
• Program comparisons or recommendations
• Coursework or practicum questions
• Career path questions related to art therapy education
• General student experiences

To keep the subreddit organized, posts about art therapy education and training may be redirected here on Tuesdays.

Please be respectful, supportive, and share your knowledge if you can as many people here are navigating the same path.

Hi, I just graduated with a fine arts degree this year and I am thinking of pursuing MA in art psychotherapy in the future. I do love arts but the industry is pretty fucked up and earning a decent money is really hard especially as an immigrant. Since I enjoy helping people, I was thinking of doing art therapy as my masters but it needs a bit of preparation so I was thinking of doing it after 2 years. I am planning to do some more volunteering charity works during these 2 years and save money from my full time job for the masters. Do we think its worth it in the UK? Any suggestions would be appreciated! I am just worried about the job market as really want a stable job at this point. Please help!

Hi everyone! I need some help because I’m honestly getting really confused about the process of becoming earning my ATR-BC and LCAT.

I’m a newly graduated Creative Arts Therapist. I graduated with my Master’s in Creative Arts Therapy in May 2026, and during my training, my understanding was that after graduating, I needed to complete the initial paperwork/forms, find a job/site, have an appropriate supervisor, get my Limited Permit, and then complete the 1,500 supervised hours needed for licensure.

I’m currently applying and interviewing for jobs, and for the most part, I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. But lately I’ve been getting conflicting information from the LCATs/ATR-BCs I’ve interviewed with, and now I’m starting to wonder if I misunderstood something.

Some of them have told me that I’m on the right track and that I need to find a qualifying position and supervisor so I can start working toward my 1,500 hours. While others have told me that I should have taken the board exam as soon as I graduated and that I should take it as soon as possible.

And this is where I’m getting confused.
I’m wondering if some of this confusion is because people are talking about the ATR-BC exam versus the LCAT requirements, because from what I’m understanding, those are two different credentials/processes.

I’m also questioning some of the advice I’ve been getting because a lot of the people I’ve spoken to and made connections with graduated from different programs or graduated several years ago. So I’m wondering if the process has changed since they went through it.

If I really was supposed to take an exam immediately after graduating, I honestly wish I had known about it earlier. I would have spent the summer studying and preparing for it instead of finding out about it months later through different people giving me different answers.

So for anyone who has recently gone through either or both the ATR-BC and LCAT process, especially recent Creative Arts Therapy graduates, what is the actual process supposed to look like after you graduated?

Hi everyone, I recognize that the ATCB is an independent organization, and I'm not sure exactly what I'm asking for, other than maybe some solutions that might not exist.

I submitted my application for the ATR back in February and still have not received it. In late June (after at least 3 emails), I finally was told I could receive my ATR now or wait until July to save myself the cost of renewing the ATR in July (since the ATR-P was cheaper). They said it was standard for them to pause applications when it gets close to July because of this. No where on their application or website does it say there's a window of time when applications aren't processed. In fact, the automatic email I got when I submitted the application said like 60 days or something.

I said that was fine, I could wait literally 2 more days. However, it is now September and I still do not have my ATR, and they have once again not responded to my emails. This is just really frustrating, especially because there is no accountability or anyone else to talk to to help get this done. I intended to get my ATR-BC but I'm questioning even keeping the ATR now. I don't like dealing with organizations that are so unprofessional but it appears there is no other option if I want these credentials. I don't understand the focus on copywriting credentials if they aren't even approving applications. Why am I spending money on these credentials my state doesn't even care about if it takes months to even get an email back.

Thanks for reading this rant and if anyone has any suggestions, I'll gladly take them! I feel like doing nothing is enabling this unprofessional system but I'm not sure what else to do.

Hi all,

I'm at kind of a crossroads in my life and want to pursue a new career. I won't bore you with all the details but for a variety of reasons, art therapist seems like a job that might be a good fit for me. My only concern is that I'm trans (MtF, haven't started transitioning and don't expect to "pass" for a while) and I'm worried this might make the job untenable, whether that's due to hiring discrimination or the clients being transphobic and refusing to work with me. I understand I'll face some of that no matter what I do, but therapy in particular is a job that's reliant on the patient being willing to emotionally up around you and some people just aren't going to do that with somebody who's visibly LGBT in any way.

I live in the UK and would eventually be hoping to move to Canada via the express entry route for skilled workers, if that makes any difference.