Postgraduate Certificate / Diploma in the Therapeutic Arts
Course start/end dates
Weekend cohort– May 2027 – July 2028
Thursday cohort – September 2027 – July 2028
Friday cohort – September 2027 – July 2028
Time commitment
Teaching days are held on Thursday or Friday (the day of the week is chosen by students) with approximately 8 weekend days commitment for core lecture, all spread across three academic terms. Alternatively, there is a weekend route spread over 15 months.
- Weekday training hours run from 9.30am-5.00pm
- Weekend training hours run from 10am-5pm or 5.30pm
There is weekly personal therapy from the start of the training programme (minimum 40 hours). Weekend route therapy minimum 50 hours
Assessments
- Two academic essays of 3500 words each
- A live 15 minute presentation about the impact of social injustice on mental health
- A live presentation exploring the self using the arts
- Personal, reflective journal
What qualification will I obtain on completion?
- Postgraduate Certificate in the Therapeutic Application of the Arts (UEL validated)
- Diploma in the Therapeutic Arts (Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education validated).
Can I practice as a therapist or counsellor after this year?
No this year as a stand-alone training is not a clinical training (You do not see clients under clinical supervision in this first year).
So this training as stand-alone does not qualify you to work as a counsellor or therapist. It is the first year of the two year clinical training in counselling children or counselling teenagers. It is the first year of the four year training to become a registered Integrative Child Psychotherapist (UKCP) or registered Integrative Art Psychotherapist (HCPC and UKCP).
Who is the Awarding Body?
Postgraduate Certificate: UEL – University of East London.
Diploma: Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education.
Entry requirements
- Anyone can apply for the IATE course.
- Personal readiness in terms of self-awareness and emotional robustness.
- Applicants must demonstrate an active interest in becoming a psychotherapist or counsellor and the commitment this entails in terms of time and education.
- If you intend to progress from level one Diploma in Therapeutic Arts to a further or further years of training to become a registered counsellor or psychotherapist, you will need to have a Level Two counselling qualification (not simply Certificate of Attendance). This can be completed during this training or in your second year. We strongly recommend attending this in first year as it will really enhance your therapy skills. To ensure the highest standards and the very best support for you development as a practitioner, this will need to be a choice of one of our internal counselling trainings a) Certificate in Counselling Skills (teenagers and adults) 4 weekend days live at IATE or b) Certificate in Child and Adolescent Counselling Skills, 6 weekend days (online). See internal counselling trainings on this website for details.
-
If traumatic life experiences these must have been sufficiently processed to be able to provide soothing, regulating, containing therapeutic space for all clients at all times.
Expected prior knowledge
- Warmth, openness and ability to take feedback non-defensively.
- Empathic therapeutic presence.
- Self-awareness and capacity for introspection.
- The ability to stay stable under stress.
- The ability to create with ease both mental and artistic images.
Fees
Thursday/Friday (One year): £8,500.00
Weekend (One year & One term): £8,000.00
(but you can pay termly or monthly direct debit)
Additional costs include:
- Personal psychotherapy (discounted rates for trainees may be available but costs will vary depending on the practitioner you choose)
- Counselling Skills qualification
- IATE registration fee £805 from September 2026 (Postgraduate Certificate only)
Please note: IATE courses do not qualify for government education funding. As such, students cannot fund our courses via the Student or Advanced Learner Loans.
As we are not able to sponsor international students, you must have the right to live, work and/or study in the UK to join one of our on-site training programmes. We do not give advice on visas or visa requirements to live, work and/or study in the UK.
Is this course eligible for the Bursary?
Bursary funding is available to part-fund this course and part-fund one successive year of our clinical trainings. Please check our website for eligibility criteria.
Employment opportunities and typical employment pathways
This course facilitates progress to our clinical trainings which in turn lead to employment opportunities in counselling and psychotherapy in the NHS, private practice and the third sector.
Overview
An extraordinary, often life changing training on the use of the arts in therapy. It brings together the integration of seven art forms with the spoken word, which powerfully brings access to the world of the unconscious. Students experience this for themselves in order to feel confident in being able to facilitate others. The experiential part of the course is supported by fascinating psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic theory on the human condition; the impact of painful life experience on brain, mind and body; and, research on transformational change. The training is also the entry requirement for the clinical trainings.
Syllabus overview
Practical sessions and clinicals skills practice
- The therapeutic application of: Art, Clay, Drama, Poetry, Sandplay, Music, Dance/Movement and Bodywork, Puppets/Puppetry.
- Working with the arts as collaborative sense-making to address mental health issues.
- Core competencies in psychotherapy using the arts.
- Key facilitation techniques for trauma recovery using the arts.
- Empathy, active listening and imagining in.
- Working with image, symbol, metaphor to access the creative unconscious and alleviate core pain.
- Self-supervision techniques using the arts.
- Key relational skills in arts psychotherapy.
- Working with difference and diversity in psychotherapy.
- Group process and group dynamics.
Integrative Theoretical Perspectives
- The role of the arts in communication and transformational change: Integrative theoretical perspectives.
- Art as medicine: different theoretical perspectives.
- Psychoanalytic, Integrative, and contextual perspectives on the human condition.
- The neuroscience and psychology of mental health and ill-health/trauma and trauma recovery.
- Panksepp’s genetically ingrained emotional systems in the brain.
- Attachment theory in relation to relational wellness and unwellness.
- Theories of mind and theories of transformational change/alleviation of mental health problems.
- Child development and preventing intergenerational transfer.
- The centrality of working with emotion to change emotion (emotion focused therapy).
- Transactional Analysis.
- Gestalt Psychotherapy Theory.
- Mentalization-based interventions.
- Dyadic Development Psychotherapy.
- The therapeutic relationship and meeting relational deficit in counselling and psychotherapy.
- How people change people for better or worse.
- Social injustice: impact on quality of life and mental health: live research
Course content
- Theoretical Course Units (25% of course content): The theoretical course units adopt frameworks and concepts from Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Affective Neuroscience.
- Practical Course Units (75% of course content): The Therapeutic Application of: Art, Drama, Sculpture/Clay, Poetry, Sandplay, Music, Dance/Movement and Bodywork, Puppets/Puppetry.