Expressive Arts Therapy Program
Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology, Concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy
Weaving the Arts and Psychotherapy
Each art form––painting, drawing, sculpture, music, dance, movement, poetry, prose, story-telling, and ritual––is a gateway to the deepest aspects of the self, reawakening a language of image and metaphor and expressing what cannot be easily put into words.
The Expressive Arts Therapy program at CIIS seeks to reawaken a true appreciation of the healing power of the creative and expressive arts. Its mission is to apply this ancient knowledge to our modern context and bring the power of the arts into our personal and professional lives.
Integrating expressive arts processes into psychotherapy sessions, the expressive arts therapist helps the client to articulate his or her life concerns. The art work helps build understanding between therapist and client and serves as a bridge between the inner life of images and sensations and the world of words.
This is an exciting time to consider undertaking a MA degree in Expressive Arts. Research in neuroscience is supporting the role of the arts in healthy psychological development and in recovery from trauma.
The skills of the expressive arts therapist are playing an important role as a “meta-language” in clinical settings with diverse client populations. They are also helping us globally to communicate across differences including those of race, ethnicity, gender, physical abilities and social class.
More and more communities and organizations are reaping the rewards of using expressive arts-based methods to work creatively with the challenges that come up in day-to-day organizational life.
Expressive arts therapy processes are used successfully in almost all psychotherapeutic contexts, ranging from work with the severely disturbed to the facilitation of human growth and potential.
The qualitative research field is budding with arts-based inquiry projects that integrate expressive arts skills, highlighting multiple ways of knowing as a path to deepening human understanding.
