MAART5100 Emotions and Relations in Art Therapy Course description

Different emotional and relational problems effect on mental health and are often at the core of art therapy. This course focuses on clinical art therapy practice with clients who have different mental challenges or diagnoses. Art therapy takes place in triangular relationship and interaction between client or group, art and therapist. The working alliance consists of the client’s emotional bond to the therapist and art as well as the negotiation of art therapeutic tasks and goals. This course focuses especially on the emotional and relational aspects that effect on the quality of working alliance, the group dynamics and outcome of art therapy. Students will develop self-reflective skills and learn to reflect emotional and relational aspects of the therapeutic bond. They will learn to recognize and repair ruptures within the therapeutic relationship.

The students’ own art therapy practice and its reflection from the emotional and relational viewpoint is at the core of learning during this course. It includes supervision of the student’s art therapy practice training. Students will learn to use different tools for measuring the quality of working alliance in art therapy. They will learn principles of systematic reporting and presenting of practice cases. The course includes supervision of students’ art therapy practice.

MAART4100 Introduction to Methods and Ethics of Art Therapy, MAART4200 Assessment and Intervention Methods in Art therapy, MAART4300 Art therapy in Prevention, Treatment, or Rehabilitation.

Admission to the program

After completing the course, the student is expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and competence: 

Knowledge

The student:

• can use principles of case-study to describe and communicate practice experiences
• understands emotional and relational theories, phenomena and problems within the framework of art therapy

• knows different research- and art-based tools for systematic gathering and reflection of emotional and relational data in art therapy

 Skills

The student:  

• can systematically assess and analyse the quality of therapeutic alliance and adapt own approach according to the findings
• knows research-based principles of rupture resolution and can apply them in own practice

• can critically reflect emotional and relational practice experiences and find constructive solutions for challenging situations

Competence

The student:

• can receive and utilize professional supervision, evaluation and feedback to develop practice related emotional, relational and reflective skills
• can present and communicate art therapy practice experiences and processes in a self-reflective, systematic and coherent manner

• can flexibly, creatively and constructively participate in professional reflections and change patterns of action to improve the quality of work, including own practice

The course is combining campus seminars with distant learning. Teaching and learning methods include lectures, seminars and skills training. The course includes 60 hours practice.

Skills training takes place in workshops. In professional experiential workshops, the focus is on simulating art therapeutic interaction to enable learning and reflection from the therapist perspective. In personal experiential workshops, students will explore and reflect art making and their own creative process from the client’s perspective.

The course includes minimum 60 hours of art therapy practice. Depending of the context of the practice and client group, it can be conducted both as physical or distant meetings. The practice can include individual or group art therapy, and if the context is relevant, it can also take place at own workplace. For a more detailed description of the practical training, look at the separate plan for practice.

The following coursework must have been approved in order for a student to take the exam:

• participation in seminars, compulsory attendance of 80 %
• participation in the practice, compulsory attendance of 90 %
• individual self-evaluation of the practice on a given evaluation sheet
• 4 individual artistic response images based on the practice experiences with traditional or digital tools

The course requirements can be conducted using English or Scandinavian language.

Individual oral exam, either at the campus or distantly, which consists of:

Poster presentation of the practice case 10 min and 15 min discussion

The exam answer can be given in English or a Scandinavian language.

All aids are permitted.

Pass / fail

All exams are assessed by two examiners. External examiner is used regularly.