ABOUT CATAbout Creative Arts Therapy
Frequently Asked Questions
What is creative arts therapy?
Creative arts therapy is a style of intervention within the mental health, allied health and human services professions. Creative arts therapists use creative, arts-based processes as part of their therapeutic work with clients, to facilitate self expression, communication, self awareness and personal development.
The experience of expressing oneself through creative activity has been found to assist in the promotion of physical, emotional, cognitive and social integration and functioning. The consequent insights and personal understandings can be instrumental in facilitating change.Creative modalites used by creative arts therapists include visual art, claywork, dance/movement, music, narrative, drama/psychodrama, creative writing/poetry and sandplay therapies.
Is creative arts therapy the same as ‘art therapy’?
No, there are differences in the training styles and theories of these two therapies, although there are many similarities in the practice. Art therapists have training and experience as practising artists, and they specialize in therapeutic interventions involving just the visual arts.
Creative arts therapists on the other hand might not be practising artists, but can use visual art as one medium of expression when it is either the client’s preferred medium or is indicated as the most convenient or useful modality.
Is creative arts therapy a kind of psychotherapy?
Creative arts therapy can be used as a tool or strategy within the psycho-therapeutic process. For example, as part of the process of talking through an issue, the client may find it helpful to express a feeling or experience by painting an image, or creating a scene or diorama in the sandtray, or acting out a relationship problem using dramatic role-play. Thus creative expression can be integrative when used within talking therapy, as it involves the non-linguistic right hemisphere of the brain. The combination of linguistic and intuitive/creative expressions within psychotherapy greatly facilitates insight and experiential understanding.
Where do creative arts therapists work?
- Adult day treatment centres
- Businesses
- Community mental health centres
- Community residences and halfway houses
- Correctional and forensic facilities
- Drug and alcohol programs
- Early intervention programs
- General hospitals
- Hospices
- Nursing homes
- Outpatient clinics
- Psychiatric units and hospitals
- Rehabilitative facilities
- Senior centres
- Schools, educational institutions
- Wellness centres
- Private practice
Why use the creative arts in doing therapy with people?
Interventions to help people overcome ill health can address the physical or emotional body. Psychological interventions traditionally employ medication and/or talking. But talking as a language process is a left-brain activity. The left brain is logical, cognitive, and always trying to make sense of things. The right hemisphere of the brain, on the other hand, is intuitive, imaginative, holistic and grasps relationships between things.
All these mental processes are necessary for personal insight and change, but the right brain represents information non-verbally, through imagery and sensory faculties (sound, sight, movement, touch, etc). Creative activity, whether artistic, musical, literary, kineasthetic (movement) or dramatic, activates the right side of the brain, encouraging a holistic and integrative healing process.
Creativity is deeply satisfying for people, and for many people, the opportunity to partake in arts activities through creative arts therapy is their first exposure to such creativity since childhood. The emotional response to memory stimulus from childhood can be a powerful tool in the therapeutic process.
- Addiction & substance abuse
- Brain injury rehabilitation
- Chronic illness
- Dementia
- Depression and anxiety
- Family relationships
- Grief and Loss
- Infant and child development
- Intellectual disability
- Learning difficulties
- Mental illness
- Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
- Prison Rehabilitation
- Sexual abuse trauma
- Social and relationship problems
Training
The following are recognised training institutions for creative arts therapists and related diciplines:
Art Therapy
Centre for Art Therapy Studies
NSW NAT
Ikon Institute of Victoria
VIC NSW SA WA
La Trobe University, Department of Counselling and Psychological Health
VIC
University of Western Sydney, School of Applied Social & Human Sciences - Penrith Campus
NSW
Art Therapy - Masters
University of Western Sydney, School of Applied Social & Human Sciences - Penrith Campus
NSW
Creative Arts Therapy
International Dance Therapy Institute of Australia Inc
VIC
Melbourne Institute for Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy (MIECAT)
VIC & QLD
Music and Imagery Association of Australia Inc
VIC NSW DIST
Persephone College
VIC
RMIT University
VIC
University of Western Sydney, School of Applied Social & Human Sciences - Penrith Campus
NSW
Creative Arts Therapy - Masters
RMIT University
VIC
Dance Therapy
International Dance Therapy Institute of Australia Inc
VIC
RMIT University
VIC
Dance Therapy - Certificate & Diploma
International Dance Therapy Institute of Australia Inc
VIC
Dance Therapy - Graduate Diploma
Wesley Institute
NSW
Dance/Movement Therapy
Australian Somatic Movement Therapy Training
ACT NSW TAS VIC
Wesley Institute
NSW
Drama Therapy
Dramatherapy Centre
NSW
Expressive Therapies - Graduate Diploma
University of Western Sydney, School of Applied Social & Human Sciences - Penrith Campus
NSW
Music Therapy
Music and Imagery Association of Australia Inc
VIC NSW DIST
Narrative Therapy
Ian Percy
WA
Queensland University of Technology
QLD
Sound and Movement Therapy
Persephone College
VIC
Can I study dramatherapy in Australia?
Dramatherapy itself is not currently offered as a course of study in Australia. However, dramatherapy is integrated within the masters program offered at the Melbourne Institute for Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy (MIECAT). Psychodrama is somewhat related to dramatherapy. Please contact the Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Association (ANZPA) for more information.