About the Expressive Arts Therapy Program
Expressive Arts Therapy (MA)
The MA program in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy was established in 1996 upon the strong foundations of a prior Certificate program.
Since that time it has offered students the opportunity to develop expressive arts skills across a range of media, to gain proficiency as counseling psychologists and also to meet the California state requirements for licensure in Marriage and Family Therapy.
Our faculty includes experienced educators and expressive arts practitioners many of whom are considered leaders in the field both nationally and internationally.
As one of only four developed and integrative programs internationally in Expressive Arts Therapy, this program integrates a thorough education in theories and methods of psychotherapy with intensive training in expressive arts therapy.
The program takes a multi-arts or "multimodal" approach, integrating different therapeutic arts processes including painting, drawing, sculpture, dance/movement, music, drama, ritual, poetry, and prose within therapy sessions as appropriate to a particular client or issue.
The Ancient in Modern Context
The Expressive Arts Therapy program 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 art 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.
In addition to empowering clients and opening them to their own inner depths, expressive arts therapy is a powerful tool for deepening communication in couples, families, and groups. Expressing oneself and experiencing others through movement, music, or drawing helps people understand each other from inside out.
As partners enter the imaginal world together, they can explore the roots of dysfunctional patterns of belief and behavior and experience new creative insights.
Expressive arts therapy further embraces the wisdom of the family-systems perspective, which understands that this journey unfolds in the context of, and is profoundly influenced by, our relationships with others.
Expressive arts therapists draw upon the diverse therapeutic orientations of the contemporary psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic and systemic approaches to therapy viewing them through multiple sociocultural perspectives and also through the transpersonal dimension.
Communication Across Difference
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.
The Expressive Arts program is actively involved with a network of national and international expressive arts therapy training centers and with the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association.
An agreement of cooperation and student exchange has been developed with the Expressive Arts Therapy program at the European Graduate School in Switzerland.
