Various, colorful fabric pieces hanging from the ceiling of a gallery space.

Candice Block, "Pleasure Poetry," 2020

Art Therapy and Counseling

Curriculum & Courses

Curriculum & Courses

  • Art Therapy Core

    42

    Art Therapy Fieldwork

    9

    Art Therapy Thesis (option)

    6

    Art Therapy Graduate Project (option)

    3

    Studio Electives (or other approved course)

    3 or 6

    Total Credit Hours

    60

  • Term

    Credit Hours

    First Year Fall

    12

    • ARTTHER 5001 Materials and Media in Art Therapy (3)
    • ARTTHER 5002 Psychopathology (3)
    • ARTTHER 5003 History and Theory of Art Therapy (3)
    • ARTTHER 5025 Counseling Techniques (3)

     

    First Year Spring

    12

    • ARTTHER 5008 Assessment and Evaluation in Art Therapy (3)
    • ARTTHER 5019 Group Art Therapy (3)
    • ARTTHER 6008 Culture Dimensions in Art Therapy (3)
    • ARTTHER 5135 Community Practice and Helping Relationship (3)

     

    Second Year Fall

    12

    • ARTTHER 5020 Art Therapy Fieldwork I (1.5)
    • ARTTHER 6002 Ethical and Legal Issues I (1.5)
    • ARTTHER 5010 Human Growth and Development (3)
    • ARTTHER 6018 Family Art Therapy (3)
    • Studio Elective (3)

     

    Second Year Spring

    12

    • ARTTHER 6001 Art Therapy Fieldwork II (1.5)
    • ARTTHER 6002 Ethical and Legal Issues II (1.5)
    • ARTTHER 5009 Research in Art Therapy (3)
    • ARTTHER 6007 Substance Use (3)
    • Studio Elective (3)

     

    Third Year Fall

    6

    • ARTTHER 6020 Art Therapy Fieldwork III (3)
    • ARTTHER 6010 Graduate Thesis I: Art Therapy (3)
        OR
      ARTTHER 6019 Art Therapy Graduate Project (3)

     

    Third Year Spring

    6 (or 9)

    • ARTTHER 6020 Art Therapy Fieldwork III (3)
    • ARTTHER 6006 Professional Development and Career Counseling (3)
    • Optional 3 Credit Course
          ARTTHER 6011 Graduate Thesis II: Art Therapy (3)

     

    Total Credit Hours

    60 (or 63)

Art Therapy and Counseling Degree Requirements and Specifications Continued

  • Students have a maximum of four years to complete the degree. This includes time off for approved leaves of absence. Thesis in Progress: Students who have not submitted a finished thesis for review and approval by the end of the final semester of enrollment are given a Thesis in Progress grade (IP). All students with a Thesis in Progress grade (IP) will be charged the Thesis in Progress Fee in each subsequent full semester until the thesis is completed and approved and the grade is changed to Credit (CR). If the statute of limitations is reached without an approved thesis, the grade will be changed to No Credit (NCR).

  • A minimum of 48 credit hours must be completed in residence at SAIC. Up to 12 graduate transfer credits (from previous master's degrees) may be requested at the time of application for admission and are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credit will be permitted after a student is admitted.

  • One studio elective may be taken prior to the sixth semester, including during a summer semester or winter interim, by any student wanting to complete the program in five semesters. An elective non-studio course may be substituted for one studio with the prior approval of the department chair.

  • At the end of semesters I and IV, each student participates in a Professional Progress Review (PPR). The PPR is an evaluative process used to determine the student's progress in the program. It includes a self-assessment as well as evaluation by each of the student's faculty members. Satisfactory progress in the program is necessary prior to advancing to the next phase of the MA in Art Therapy and Counseling program. Serious academic or interpersonal deficiencies may result in termination from the program.

  • As part of the Art Therapy Master's program internship requirement, students are obligated to meet the trainee expectations of their internship site. These requirements may include a criminal background check, drug testing, the submission of immunization records, special training, etc.

  • 6 credit hours for fall and spring semesters, 6 credit hours in the summer.

Course Listing

Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

Description

This is an entry-level experiential class which explores and implements concepts from art therapy and related fields. The course presents a blend of approaches including Eastern traditions, Jungian psychology, and other sources. Studio work and writing will be used as tools to understand and cultivate the discipline of self-awareness. The class will be structured as a community of participants engaging in and studying the phenomenon of the creative process. Each class meeting will involve art making and writing as well as discussion of ideas based on readings and experiences. This course is for anyone wanting to explore the relationship between art and life, self, other, and community in experiential and theoretical ways within an art therapy framework. It will be of value to those considering working with others using art, such as teachers or art therapists, as well as for those who may wish to establish art and/or writing as a form of practice and discipline in their lives. Open to all students.

Class Number

1117

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement

Location

Sharp 403

Description

This is an entry-level experiential class which explores and implements concepts from art therapy and related fields. The course presents a blend of approaches including Eastern traditions, Jungian psychology, and other sources. Studio work and writing will be used as tools to understand and cultivate the discipline of self-awareness. The class will be structured as a community of participants engaging in and studying the phenomenon of the creative process. Each class meeting will involve art making and writing as well as discussion of ideas based on readings and experiences. This course is for anyone wanting to explore the relationship between art and life, self, other, and community in experiential and theoretical ways within an art therapy framework. It will be of value to those considering working with others using art, such as teachers or art therapists, as well as for those who may wish to establish art and/or writing as a form of practice and discipline in their lives. Open to all students.

Class Number

1118

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course is designed to offer students a didactic and experiential overview of the field of art therapy. Material covered will include history, theory, and practice of art therapy processes and approaches as well as a survey of populations, settings, and applications. Lecture, readings, discussion, audio-visual presentations, experiential exercises, and guest presentations comprise the structure of this course.

Class Number

1114

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course is designed to offer students a didactic and experiential overview of the field of art therapy. Material covered will include history, theory, and practice of art therapy processes and approaches as well as a survey of populations, settings, and applications. Lecture, readings, discussion, audio-visual presentations, experiential exercises, and guest presentations comprise the structure of this course.

Class Number

1114

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course is designed to offer students a didactic and experiential overview of the field of art therapy. Material covered will include history, theory, and practice of art therapy processes and approaches as well as a survey of populations, settings, and applications. Lecture, readings, discussion, audio-visual presentations, experiential exercises, and guest presentations comprise the structure of this course.

Class Number

2261

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement

Location

Sharp 403

Description

This course explores the use of ritual and art making for personal and social practice. Students reflect on ritual as part of daily life, familial rituals, cultural rituals, and life-cycle rituals, and examine the process by which art embodies, represents, and transforms them. The exploration of ritual and making as a form of engagement, participation, and collaboration provides context for class discussion, group projects, and individual work. The role that ritual and making play in encouraging personal well-being, and fostering community is discussed and explored both in class and through off-campus visits.

Class Number

1116

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course explores the use of ritual and art making for personal and social practice. Students reflect on ritual as part of daily life, familial rituals, cultural rituals, and life-cycle rituals, and examine the process by which art embodies, represents, and transforms them. The exploration of ritual and making as a form of engagement, participation, and collaboration provides context for class discussion, group projects, and individual work. The role that ritual and making play in encouraging personal well-being, and fostering community is discussed and explored both in class and through off-campus visits.

Class Number

1116

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course will explore madness and its construction as a site of pathology and deviance in our current society as well as important challenges to this construction. Utilizing an intersectional and interdisciplinary disability studies and mad studies critical lens this course will address how madness is constructed in relation to colonialist, white supremacist, capitalist, and patriarchal notions of rationality, linearity, and unity.

Readings will cover foundational texts in the anti-psychiatry movement as well as crucial texts to the development of mad studies. Many texts specifically address the relationship between race and madness. Artistic representations, as well as film and television representations will be utilized regularly.

Course work will consist of weekly reading responses, short presentations, one 2-3 page analysis paper, and a final creative project that includes a 5 page analysis paper

Class Number

1120

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Class, Race, Ethnicity, Art/Design and Politics, Gender and Sexuality

Location

Sharp 403

Description

What is disability? How do we see, read, hear, smell and feel about disability? How does society represent disability and illness? How do artists theoretically and conceptually engage disability in their own practices? This course offers students critical thinking tools to examine the meanings of disability created by current social, cultural, economic and political systems. Over the course of the semester, students develop artistic vocabulary in relation to visual and cultural representations of disability found in mainstream society and in Disability Culture/Disability Art contexts.

Readings include the following topics: disability frameworks, disability as intersectional identity, and representations in art, media, fashion, and design . Students learn about the range and complexity of disability representations through the works of contemporary artists such as Riva Lehrer, Laura Swanson, and Christine Sun Kim, and through the work of dance and performance art groups. Students also read the work of disability scholars including Carrie Sandahl, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Eli Clare, Alison Kafer, and Petra Kuppers. 

Coursework includes bi-weekly writing responses, a disability culture event paper, a media report, and a final art and writing project.

Class Number

1122

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Politics and Activisms, Gender and Sexuality, Narrative

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This interdisciplinary course considers the topic of craft practices and the therapeutic through the lens of feminist pedagogy, including theories of touch and interembodiment. Students will examine the critical role craft and the domestic arts have played in raising questions surrounding feminism, gender, and labor practices in everyday histories. The course examines local and international projects centering on memory, trauma and collaboration. The class will explore the ethics of community collaborations and how the practice of making can cultivate a sense of community, well-being, and social capital.

Class Number

1119

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement, Gender and Sexuality

Location

Sharp 402

Description

Sexuality is just one part of who we are as complex human beings living interrelated lives in society. This course will provide a basic overview of the study of human sexuality covering diverse approaches to the study of sexualities and desire, while focusing on an understanding of human sexualities as socially constructed, culturally regulated and an important part of the organization of our social world. This course will emphasize a critical gender studies approach, feminist understandings of sexualities, and queer theory. Focusing on lived experience, attention will also be paid to connections between sexualities and other social locators, such as race, ethnicity, gender, and ability/disability.

Some of the scholars we will study in this course include prominent figures in sexuality studies and queer theory (Freud, Kinsey, Foucault, Sedgwick, Butler, Warner, Rubin), queer of color critiques (Ferguson, Munoz, Caruthers), and scholarly articles which address the intersections of sexuality with race, gender, ability/disability, and ethnicity (Sommerville, Garcia, Ward, Callis, McRuer, etc.).

Course work will vary but typically includes weekly discussion boards, journal style reading responses, reading quizzes, a midterm, and a final finished art piece related to course material.

Class Number

1121

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Class, Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality

Location

Sharp 402

Description

This course aims to critically examine the affects of race and representation of others. Students will interpret nineteenth-century and early 20th-century material and non-material culture from anti-slavery and pro-slavery sources, including biblical literature, slave narratives, print media, music, visual art, and ephemera. The course considers moral motivations for recognition, empathy, assistance, and liberation of others in an era of sentimentalism. Students will interrogate modern ideas in helping relationships as they learn to 1.) explore the role of cultural materials in preserving trauma or the history of violence; 2.) discuss the role of cultural imagery in the production of charity and empathy; and 3.) ask contemporary questions about the role of desire in feeling responsibility and doing good. Throughout the course, students will be required to travel to several local archives including the Newberry Library and the Stony Island Arts Bank for research.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1115

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Class, Race, Ethnicity, Economic Inequality & Class

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course aims to critically examine the affects of race and representation of others. Students will interpret nineteenth-century and early 20th-century material and non-material culture from anti-slavery and pro-slavery sources, including biblical literature, slave narratives, print media, music, visual art, and ephemera. The course considers moral motivations for recognition, empathy, assistance, and liberation of others in an era of sentimentalism. Students will interrogate modern ideas in helping relationships as they learn to 1.) explore the role of cultural materials in preserving trauma or the history of violence; 2.) discuss the role of cultural imagery in the production of charity and empathy; and 3.) ask contemporary questions about the role of desire in feeling responsibility and doing good. Throughout the course, students will be required to travel to several local archives including the Newberry Library and the Stony Island Arts Bank for research.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: First Year English requirement.

Class Number

1115

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Area of Study

Class, Race, Ethnicity, Economic Inequality & Class

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course investigates psychological, sociological, cognitive, cultural and neurobiological approaches to human development. Historical and current theories are examined in light of the implications they have for art therapy theory and practice. Course content addresses the role of the cultural production of personal experience in lifelong development, including how issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, disability and sexual orientation relate to human development.

Prerequisites

You must be a Masters of Art in Art Therapy student or have instructor consent to take this class.

Class Number

1951

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course investigates psychological, sociological, cognitive, cultural and neurobiological approaches to human development. Historical and current theories are examined in light of the implications they have for art therapy theory and practice. Course content addresses the role of the cultural production of personal experience in lifelong development, including how issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, disability and sexual orientation relate to human development.

Prerequisites

You must be a Masters of Art in Art Therapy student or have instructor consent to take this class.

Class Number

1951

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 404

Description

This course provides group supervision to support the practicum component of the Master of Arts in Art Therapy and a Counseling program. Practicum students participate in a minimum of one hour of weekly individual supervision with a qualified fieldwork site supervisor in addition to 1.5 hours of weekly group supervision with a faculty supervisor per the MAATC fieldwork supervision agreement. Over the course of the semester, students complete between 100 - 250 service hours at an approved fieldwork site. These hours must include a minimum of 40 hours of direct service with clients and contribute to the development of basic art therapy and counseling skills. In this professional practice course, students are afforded opportunities to observe clinical practice and explore the application of theory; sensitivity to differences among individuals; ethics and standards of practice; and the processing of emotional complexities of early professional development.

Prerequisites

You must be a Masters of Art in Art Therapy student or have instructor consent to take this class.

Class Number

1952

Credits

1.5

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 409

Description

This course provides group supervision to support the practicum component of the Master of Arts in Art Therapy and a Counseling program. Practicum students participate in a minimum of one hour of weekly individual supervision with a qualified fieldwork site supervisor in addition to 1.5 hours of weekly group supervision with a faculty supervisor per the MAATC fieldwork supervision agreement. Over the course of the semester, students complete between 100 - 250 service hours at an approved fieldwork site. These hours must include a minimum of 40 hours of direct service with clients and contribute to the development of basic art therapy and counseling skills. In this professional practice course, students are afforded opportunities to observe clinical practice and explore the application of theory; sensitivity to differences among individuals; ethics and standards of practice; and the processing of emotional complexities of early professional development.

Prerequisites

You must be a Masters of Art in Art Therapy student or have instructor consent to take this class.

Class Number

1953

Credits

1.5

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 402

Description

In this course students explore basic legal and ethical standards of practice in art therapy and counseling. Responsibilities relating to the use of client artwork in presentation, publication, and exhibition are emphasized, in addition to processing the moral complexities of early professional development. ARTTHER 5020/6002 have a Co Req, students must enroll in the same section.

Prerequisites

You must be a Masters of Art in Art Therapy student or have instructor consent to take this class.

Class Number

1942

Credits

1.5

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 409

Description

In this course students explore basic legal and ethical standards of practice in art therapy and counseling. Responsibilities relating to the use of client artwork in presentation, publication, and exhibition are emphasized, in addition to processing the moral complexities of early professional development. ARTTHER 5020/6002 have a Co Req, students must enroll in the same section.

Prerequisites

You must be a Masters of Art in Art Therapy student or have instructor consent to take this class.

Class Number

1943

Credits

1.5

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 402

Description

This course focuses on the expression of family dynamics through art in contemporary society. The definition of 'family' is explored from traditional, multicultural, single parent, and alternative parenting perspectives. A variety of theoretical approaches including narrative, feminist, strategic, structural, etc. will be presented. Experiential and video components complement theoretical learning.

Prerequisites

You must be a Masters of Art in Art Therapy student or have instructor consent to take this class.

Class Number

2139

Credits

3

Department

Art Therapy

Location

Sharp 403

Take the Next Step

Visit the graduate admissions website or contact the graduate admissions office at 312.629.6100, 800.232.7242, or gradmiss@saic.edu.