Art Psychotherapy
The course’s theoretical grounding is in the psychodynamic and systemic theories and its professional leaning is pluralistic and trauma informed.
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Key Course Details
The three-year part-time MA Art Psychotherapy course at the USW provides you with the fundamental training, skills and clinical experience to become a Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) registered Art Psychotherapist.
DESIGNED FOR
The course prepares students to practice as an Art Psychotherapist across the lifespan in a range of settings, working across a wide spectrum and complexity of needs.
Career Paths
- Art Psychotherapist
Module Overview
A range of learning and teaching strategies, meeting the needs of the diverse learner, will help you engage with the most current Art Psychotherapy theory and practice to develop your own Art Psychotherapy identity. You will benefit from the use of the bespoke facilities on campus to support your learning and further develop your creative skills and art form in the context of art psychotherapy practice.
A fundamental part of the course is infant or child observation, providing you with a strong grounding in human development and observational skills that will inform the rest of your studies. Experiential group, peer practice, supervision groups, seminars and lectures, external talks, classroom discussions are underpinned by the most recent pedagogical advances in higher education and will provide a further insight into the principles, practices and application of Art Psychotherapy.
Theory and Practice of Art Psychotherapy
- Infant or child observation
- Seminars and workshops with highly experiential and participatory content relating to study of theories and concepts relevant to Art Psychotherapy practice and the arts therapies in general
- Study of a range of client groups and the service user voice in the Art Psychotherapy practice
- Modality specific experiential groups
- Group supervision
- Placement in a University approved setting in the second half of the year.
Art Psychotherapy Skills 1
- Highly experiential role plays and video recording of peer practice
- Study of generic and specialist Art Psychotherapy skills and their application in a range of settings
You will begin to explore collaborative, evidence-based Art Psychotherapy practice and therapeutic approaches to meet the needs of diverse populations, client groups and settings. You will further develop your specialist Art Psychotherapy skills and continue to learn through experiential group, supervision groups, workshops, lectures, show cases and peer presentations.
Therapeutic Approaches and Evidence Based Practice
- Lectures, seminars and workshops pertaining to specialist Art Psychotherapy practice
- Group supervision
- Modality specific experiential groups
- Introduction to research methods
- One-day placement in a University-approved clinical setting
Art Psychotherapy Skills 2
- Simulated practice and peer experimentation with Art Psychotherapy tools and approaches, feedback facilitation and video recording of peer practice
- Study of advanced and specialist Art Psychotherapy skills and related theoretical concepts
You will continue to learn and increasingly facilitate peer learning, through group supervision, experiential groups and practice-based research. You will undertake an independent in-depth study of a specialist subject relevant to the Art Psychotherapy practice and complete a research project of your choice. Support is provided through dissertation and research supervision, tutorials, peer discussion and presentations.
Art Psychotherapy Research and Practice
- Research methods and student led research project supported by dissertation supervision
- Seminars, lectures and workshops with focus on specialist Art Psychotherapy practice (including working in multidisciplinary, innovative and non-traditional settings) and current research underpinning such practice
- Group supervision
- Student-led experiential groups
- One or two-day placement in a University-approved clinical setting
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
Typical qualification requirements:
- An undergraduate degree or an equivalent professional qualification and extensive experience in a related field.
- Two years’ full time (or part-time equivalent) relevant experience which may include paid or voluntary work and experience gained through caring responsibilities in your personal life. A full work experience history must be provided at application stage.
- Ability to provide evidence of sufficient life experience, intellectual and emotional capacity to cope with the demands of the course and working in unpredictable situations.
- A current and ongoing arts practice, including the use of art for personal expression of thoughts and feelings. You are required to submit 5 examples from your arts practice (photographs or web-based examples of your work) at the application stage. Only .pdf format is supported and the maximum acceptable file size is 10MB. If this is likely to pose a problem please email your documents to: [email protected]
- A focused personal statement: – you must respond to the following questions:
- Why do you make art and what does your art express?
- How does your experience, skills and education to date prepare you for art psychotherapy practice? You must consult the HCPC Standards of Proficiency for Arts Therapists to respond to this question.
- What have you done to prepare for the training? Include any reading and audio-visual material, attendance at courses or open evenings, discussions with arts therapists and other activities relevant to the training.
- Two references uploaded with your application – providing referee details alone is not sufficient.*
- An Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on the Child & Adult Workforce and Child & Adult Barring List and subscription to the DBS Update Service is required. (Overseas equivalent required for non-uk applicants).**
We do not accept deferred applications for the MA Art Psychotherapy course. If you are unable take up your place, you will need to reapply. Please note that the course is substantially oversubscribed, and early application is advised to avoid disappointment.
Additional requirements include:
- Interview: The in-person interview is comprised of a group information session, a group exercise/discussion, and an individual interview. You will have the opportunity to ask questions at various stages to the day and we do our best to answer them so that you are as fully informed as possible to thrive on the course.
Artistic portfolio is required in person. We will wish to explore the personal attributes, professional experiences and skills you can bring to the programme and expect all applicants to be able to discuss and evidence these.
If you are selected to attend an interview, we will contact you by e-mail to make a booking. This is a very popular course, and we receive substantially more applications than we have places. Therefore, if you are selected to attend an interview, we would strongly advise that you book yourself onto the earliest interview date to avoid disappointment as interview dates/spaces are limited and fill up quickly.
*The references must be uploaded on letter headed paper, if this is not available the referee can send them direct from a professional/work email address to [email protected]
**Please note any disclosed police record will be assessed in line with the USW Fitness to Practice process and the requirements of HCPC, to check the potential of successful professional registration with the Regulator upon graduation from the course.
Application deadline:
The deadline for complete applications is 30 June 2025. Applications submitted after this date will be considered on an individual basis only if any places remain.
Alternative Leave Permissions
Applicants with leave to remain in the UK, may be considered for this course depending on the type and duration of your leave. Please email [email protected] to obtain confirmation of how to proceed.
Unfortunately, this course is not currently open to international applicants who require a Graduate Route visa due to visa restrictions.
International applications welcomed:
We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence please view our dedicated country pages.
English language requirements
International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component or equivalent.
Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.
If you have previously studied through the medium of English IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.
If you do not meet the English entry criteria please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.
Contextual offers
We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.
USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.
We're here to help
Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.
Fees and Funding
Additional Costs
As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.
Years 1 - 3. Fees per year. BAAT trainee membership.
Cost: £55
Years 1 - 3. Costs are per session/per week. At least 20 sessions required per year.
Cost: £20-£60
Students will be expected to pay for a DBS or certificate of good behaviour from their home country. The DBS fee includes £49.50 for the enhanced DBS certificate, the Post Office Administration fee and the online administration fee.
Cost: £64.74
Subscription required for each year of the course for a yearly fee of £16. Please note the service has to be joined within 30 days of receipt of your enhanced DBS certificate
Cost: £16
Years 1-3. Costs are per year
Cost: £45- £90
Students have to fund travel and subsistence costs for their work placements.
Cost: Varied
Year 1. Travel to infant observation.
Cost: Varied
Art materials for ongoing personal art practice and student group exhibition. Years 1 - 3
Travel or other costs for data collection for research project, if required.
Contribution to printing of group research poster - one poster per group.
Cost: £3
Encrypted memory stick or memory card for bringing images of client artwork etc. to University
Cost: £20
Years 1 - 3. Placements may require students to have / you may wish to have vaccinations e.g. Hepatitis B, Covid-19 vaccination and boosters
Cost: £120 approx. or placement may pay
Course Highlights
How you’ll learn
The course is designed with the most current Art Psychotherapy pedagogical advances in mind. You will study through classroom teaching, staff and student led presentations, clinical placement, professional development, exhibitions, dissertation, self-directed and independent study and formative and summative assessments.
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Teaching staff
- Mandy Leonard – Course leader,
- Alison Coles,
- Beth Pickard,
- Blanka Hubena,
- Elizabeth Coombes,
- Gerald Hewer,
- Joanne Kelly - Course Admissions lead and Placement lead,
- Louise Luscombe.
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Placements
Our trainee art psychotherapists have the opportunity to experience a range of placement settings and organisations whilst on the course. Innovative and non-traditional ways of working in art psychotherapy are also explored, together with the concept of what ‘therapy space’ may look like in practice, to enable first-hand experience of both in person and remote delivery of Art Psychotherapy.
Increasingly across the three years of study, our students are able to contribute to services utilising public health, leadership and reflective practice skills, ensuring their therapeutic approach is collaborative, adaptable and versatile.
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How to apply
There is an online application process for this course. Please choose the application form for your preferred start date and mode of study (i.e. full-time or part-time).
International admissions
Please see our international admissions advice for further information about how to apply as a prospective international student.
University Quality Assurance
At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.
If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.