Arts Therapy differs from traditional art-making or performance in that the emphasis expands to include attention to the processes of creating and meaning-making. Arts Therapists work with individuals and groups by developing a therapeutic relationship with their client/s with clear boundaries, treatment plans, and outcomes to assist them in their healing. Within this therapeutic relationship, creative expression can have significant impact on the healing process for all people including those experiencing trauma, addictions, and psychological or emotional problems.

 

Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Arts Therapy Course Outline

Creative Arts Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that utilises creative modalities - including visual arts-making, drama, dance/movement, creative writing, and nature-connected arts - to improve and inform physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Arts Therapy differs from traditional art-making or performance in that the emphasis expands to include attention to the processes of creating and meaning-making. Arts Therapists work with individuals and groups by developing a therapeutic relationship with their client/s with clear boundaries, treatment plans, and outcomes to assist them in their healing. Within this therapeutic relationship, creative expression can have significant impact on the healing process for all people including those experiencing trauma, addictions, and psychological or emotional problems.

Whitecliffe Arts Therapy graduates combine their passion for creativity and for working with others to enhance well-being. They develop the confidence to contribute to this dynamic, emerging field of Creative Arts Therapy, harnessing their own experience and interests to pioneer new frontiers in this rapidly expanding profession.

 

Approach

The Whitecliffe programme offers a spectrum of approaches to Arts Therapy, stretching between two poles:

• ‘The arts as therapy’, follows the philosophy that participation in creative activities is universally beneficial, and that engagement with any of the arts at any level of proficiency, can have a healing effect.

• “The arts in therapy’, or arts psychotherapy, which involves using the arts within a psychotherapeutic relationship as a powerful mode of expression and agent of change.

Students will gain an understanding of how an Arts Therapist can work along this spectrum, taking into account the population they are working with as well as a range of other factors such as context, presenting problems, and appropriate arts modalities. It is a highly innovative programme offering a variety of creative arts modalities. Applicants are expected to be comfortable or familiar with at least one of these when entering the programme, and to achieve a basic grounding in the other creative modalities during the programme. The programme supports students to develop culturally sensitive practices responsive to the M?ori worldview as well as other cultures.

 

Programme Overview

The Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Arts Therapy (PGDipCAT), is a one-year full-time programme that offers an introduction to the foundational philosophy, theories, and practices relating to the Creative Arts Therapies. The Diploma is offered in two locations, Auckland and Christchurch, and is scheduled for ten weekends - one per month from February to November - in each location. This introduction operates as a stand-alone qualification equipping students to take skills into the workplace for those working in a related field. The Diploma is also the pre-requisite for progression onto the Master’s qualification. Progression requirements include assessment of a student’s ability for clinical practice and academic ability to undertake Level 9 research.

 

This one-year full-time (blended delivery, low-residency) programme includes the following papers:

• Creative Studio

• Social Aspects of Arts Therapy

• Psychology of Arts Therapy

• Group Arts Therapy