Join us for Fall Open House - Oct. 15 and Nov. 18
This event will feature programming for our undergraduate, graduate, and Threshold programs. A vibrant campus community and access to endless opportunities—Lesley has it all. It's where student cohorts become lifelong catalysts, solving for today's complexities with full hearts and open minds.
Expressive Therapies

Clinical Mental Health Counseling: Art Therapy

Master of Arts (MA), on-campus or low-residency graduate program

Help others explore the therapeutic power of art making.

Drawing from your experience as a visual artist, discover art making’s potential to help others gain self-awareness and understanding. Through our art therapy program, study to promote healing through drawing, painting, sculpting, and other media. Train alongside world-recognized faculty in a national hub for mental health practice and research, and spend 1,150 hours in the field fostering well-being in individuals, families, and communities.

REGISTER: MA in Expressive Therapies Virtual Information Session

At Lesley University, you’ll continue to explore your identity as an artist while developing as an art therapist. You will build the foundational skills and experiences needed to become a licensed mental health counselor. Working within our cross-disciplinary community, build your expertise in the therapeutic applications for art making, while finding opportunities to collaborate with students working in diverse artistic disciplines, from drama to music to writing.

As you train for a career in mental health counseling and art therapy, build an understanding of the science that underlies human behavior. Learn how to address the changing needs of human beings across the lifespan. Research the artistic, physical, cognitive, neurological, and social development of individuals. Infuse this science with creativity and compassion to help others come to a place of wholeness and wellness.

Gain the skills and experiences needed to practice in a range of clinical settings. Master assessment strategies and develop treatment plans for different populations, development levels, and cultures. Tap into our vast network of field training sites throughout Greater Boston and across the U.S.

Graduate prepared for an impactful career in mental health clinics, psychiatric clinics, hospitals, schools, and beyond.

Graduate Program Inquiry Form

Program Structure

3-Year Program, Full-Time; On-Campus or Low-Residency Formats

60 Credits

  • Art Therapy Specialization Mission Statement

    Lesley’s Art Therapy Specialization endeavors to prepare competent entry-level Art Therapists in the cognitive (knowledge), psychomotor (skills), and affective (behavior) learning domains. Specifically, the program aims to prepare its students to become skilled, knowledgeable, compassionate art therapy professionals who are able to work in a diverse world.  Students are trained to use the art media and the creative process to treat emotional and physical illness, and to help people achieve a greater sense of integration, wholeness, and wellness. Towards this end, they maintain their identities as artists, develop fundamental skills as mental health counselors, and integrate these realms into their work as art therapists.   In addition to their proficiency with the visual arts, students also gain familiarity and comfort with other creative arts modalities. The power of art, dance, drama, expressive arts and music give voice to personal meaning from a cultural and critical pedagogical context. The interdisciplinary nature of the arts meets the needs of a wide range of clinical populations in preparing our students for professional growth, lifelong learning and leadership in their communities. Another aim of students’ training is mentoring them to become leaders who can influence both constructive change in society and their profession.  

Program Goals and Learning Statement

Learn more about the expected program goals that our Expressive Therapies master's degree programs meet.

  • Program Goals

    The goal of the Expressive Therapies master’s degree programs is to provide students the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to practice in a range of professional settings, including health care facilities, schools, community agencies, and private practices. The Expressive Therapies 60-credit programs meet the academic and field training requirements for mental health counselor licensure (LMHC) in Massachusetts. (Students intending to work outside of Massachusetts are advised to review their state's regulations to determine their eligibility for licensure.) Specialization tracks prepare graduates for certification or registration by their respective professional associations.  

    The Expressive Therapies faculty established these program goals. Aligned with the mission of Lesley and the Graduate School of Arts & Social Sciences, they are also specific to the Graduate Expressive Therapies Department, with deep consideration of our program’s history and the contemporary landscape of expressive therapies and mental health counseling.

    1. Dual Identity as a Clinical Mental Health Counselor and Expressive Therapist 

    Students will demonstrate a dual identity as a clinical mental health counselor and expressive therapist, and an understanding of the ways in which the professions enhance and complement one another. 

    2. Professional Orientation and Ethics 

    Students will demonstrate an understanding of the counseling profession and their modality profession. Students will demonstrate the capacity to provide counseling services within the ethical codes of the counseling profession and their modality specializations, and with an understanding of legal issues. 

    3. Clinical Mental Health Counseling Theory 

    Students will gain substantial knowledge of core counseling theories as applied to individual and group processes, skills, and approaches. 

    4. Human Development Across the Lifespan 

    Students will assess and cultivate an understanding of human growth and development throughout the lifespan, including an understanding of arts-based development, and the connection between developmental theory, clinical issues. Students will be able to design interventions, as well as apply considerations of environmental, biological, and cultural factors. 

    5. Clinical Skills and Helping Relationships 

    Students will demonstrate counseling skills and techniques which exhibit awareness of self and other in the therapeutic relationship. Students will demonstrate the ability to document and evaluate progress towards treatment goals.  

    6. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 

    Students will develop a critical multicultural lens of the sociocultural foundations in the counseling and expressive therapy process, including developing an awareness and knowledge of power, privilege, and oppression at the micro, macro, personal, and interpersonal levels. Students will develop strategies to identify and eliminate cultural barriers, prejudice, and discriminatory practices.  

    7. Career Development 

    Students will demonstrate knowledge of vocational counseling theory and apply career development methods to individual professional development. 

    8. Group Process in Counseling and Expressive Therapies 

    Students will develop a theoretical and embodied understanding of group process and dynamics, theory, skill, and approaches. 

    9. Assessment 

    Students will gain knowledge and skills in understanding and utilizing formal assessment instruments and information gathering techniques, used in case conceptualization, treatment planning. Students will also be able to analyze and critique assessment tools regarding ethical usage and multicultural competency.  

    10. Research and Program Evaluation 

    Students will develop the ability to locate, read, critique, and evaluate research to inform clinical practice. Through this activity, students will contribute knowledge to the profession of counseling and their modality specializations. 

    11. Psycho-diagnostics and Treatment 

    Students will gain an understanding of the broad spectrum of psychopathology and diagnostic criteria utilized in the current DSM 5 and ICD 10 to inform ethical clinical practice and evaluation within a diverse context. 

    12. Trauma and Crisis Intervention 

     Students will demonstrate trauma-informed skills within clinical practice, including knowledge of crisis intervention, and risk and suicide assessment. Students will understand current research and application in how the arts are used in trauma-informed practice, including individual, community, cultural, and systemic complex trauma across the lifespan. 

    13. Embodied, Experiential and Creative Clinical Practices 

    Students will be able to articulate, embody, and apply the transformative nature of creativity and the arts intrapersonally, interpersonally, and clinically, demonstrating the integration of knowledge and skills within practice.   

    14. Mental Health and Community Systems 

    Students will demonstrate knowledge and apply skills associated with working in diverse communities and multi-disciplinary teams. Students will critically analyze methods of treatment, referral, and interdisciplinary collaboration from a global health perspective.  

    15. Personal Growth, Insight, and Congruence 

    Students will develop and engage in multifaceted processes which foster self-awareness, and awareness of others’ experiences with cultural sensitivity. Students will develop and begin to articulate and evidence, in their scholarship and clinical practices, their theoretical orientation.   


    Students take courses in a scheduled sequence, where learning takes place in increments that align with their emerging competencies as clinicians. Following the program's course sequence ensures that students build upon knowledge and skills in a manner that maximizes their learning efforts, and that is appropriate and supportive, as they begin to practice in the field. 

Program Accreditation

Lesley's Master of Arts Program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling: Art Therapy is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (www.caahep.org) upon the recommendation of the Accreditation Council for Art Therapy Education (ACATE). The program meets the current educational requirements to apply for licensure in clinical mental health counseling in Massachusetts, and also meets the current educational requirements to apply for the Registered Art Therapist (ATR) credential with the Art Therapy Credentials Board.

Brown and white square logo featuring the letters CAAHEP and reading "Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs"
art therapy rainbow chalk drawing

On-Campus Option

Become part of a community of artists and scholars in Cambridge while pursuing your degree. Gain in-person access to leaders in the field and benefit from Lesley’s professional network in and around Greater Boston and New England. Taking three to four courses per semester, immerse in rigorous study and complete your program within a three year sequence.

Best if you:

  • Live near Cambridge or are able to relocate
  • Enjoy the rigor of an intensive program and want to take advantage of internships in Greater Boston
  • Want face-to-face time with faculty and peers and to become integrated into campus life
  • Are not planning to work full-time during your studies
close up of hand drawing a mandela

Low-Residency Option

Participate in one 3-week summer residency per year on Lesley University’s Cambridge campus. Between residencies, continue your studies online with Lesley faculty and through supervised field experiences in your community. Your courses correspond with those of our on-campus program, and will be completed within three years.

Best if you:

  • Live at a distance
  • Enjoy the flexibility of online learning
  • Want to take fewer courses at a time
  • Would like to complete internships/research in your community

Lesley is not currently enrolling low-residency students who reside in Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, or Wisconsin. 

Field Training
Where Our Students Intern
Our field training experts will help you find an internship that will enhance your practice and further your career goals.
Licensure Information

Depending on your professional goals, where you reside or plan to practice, and the licensure requirements within that state, there are different pathways toward licensure or credentialing that may be relevant. In accordance with Lesley University’s institutional participation in SARA (State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement) and with federal regulations, we strongly encourage prospective applicants who intend to pursue licensure in a state other than Massachusetts to visit the Lesley University Licensure and Credentialing webpage and review the “Licensure Information for Students and Applicants” document for their specific program.

Samantha Sundermeyer '14 with a sheep at Cultivate Care Farm
Art Therapy

Samantha Sundermeyer ’14

Art Therapy graduate Samantha Sundermeyer explores a new path to healing at Cultivate Care Farm, a seven-acre therapeutic farm designed to treat children, teens and adults struggling with an array of emotional, developmental, and psychological challenges.

Souhad Chbeir working in her studio
Art Therapy

Souhad Chbeir ’18

As a native of Lebanon, it was seeing the plight of Syrian refugees that drove Souhad to explore the social implications for the expressive arts. Now she’s seeking to transform her art therapy degree into a career empowering children who have experienced the trauma of war. “My first residency experience was nurturing, friendly, and inspiring. The energy of the group set me free. I have never felt this way in my career," says Souhad.

1,005
Counselors, therapists, and other mental health practitioners were trained at Lesley University in the last 5 years, making us the largest provider of training for licensed mental health counselors in New England.
#1
Massachusetts is the best state in the nation for mental health care according to Mental Health America, with excellent access to care for both youth and adults.
22%
Careers in mental health counseling are expanding, with projections for a 22% increase in job openings from 2018 to 2028. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Careers
Jobs You Could Have
The field of mental health counseling is expanding rapidly, making this an exciting time to pursue graduate study. Common job titles for people with master's degrees in art therapy include:
Careers
Where Graduates Work
Massachusetts and Greater Boston have a large concentration of medical, healthcare, and mental health-related organizations. Graduates find careers in a range of places, including:

Faculty

Total approximate cost for this master's degree program.
Clinical Mental Health Counseling: Art Therapy
  • Tuition
    $1,190/credit x 60
    $71,400
  • Fees
    Field Experience Fees
    $2,180
    Materials Fees
    $350
    Registration Fees
    $320
    MAP Tevera Fee
    $195
    Activity Fees
    $180
    Practicum Fees
    $140
    Degree Completion Fee
    $75
  • Total
Estimated Cost

All graduate students are reviewed for merit scholarships through the admissions process and are awarded at the time of acceptance. Other forms of financial aid are also available. Review all graduate tuition and fees, and what they cover. Tuition and fees are subject to change each year, effective June 1.

  • Tuition
    $1,190/credit x 60
    $71,400
  • Fees
    Field Experience Fees
    $2,180
    Registration Fees
    $360
    Materials Fees
    $350
    Mental Health Field Placement and Licensure Software Subscription
    $195
    Practicum Fees
    $140
    Degree Completion Fee
    $75
  • Total
Estimated Cost

All graduate students are reviewed for merit scholarships through the admissions process and are awarded at the time of acceptance. Other forms of financial aid are also available. Review all graduate tuition and fees, and what they cover. Tuition and fees are subject to change each year, effective June 1.

Apply Now

Ready to get started? We're here to make the application process as smooth as possible. Just answer a few quick questions, and get your customized application guide.

Total approximate cost for this master's degree program. Tuition and fees are for the 2021-2022 academic year.
Use our step-by-step guide to apply for federal and university funding. Scholarships, grants, Work-Study, and loans. It’s all right here.

Next steps to apply

Ready to get started? We're here to make the application process as smooth as possible. Just answer a few quick questions, and get your customized application guide.