An art therapist is a licensed or credentialed mental health professional who uses creative expression, such as drawing, painting, sculpting, and collage, as the primary tool in psychotherapy. Unlike an art teacher, an art therapist is trained in psychology and uses the process of making art to help people work through emotional difficulties, trauma, and mental health conditions. The focus is never on producing “good” art. It’s on what surfaces emotionally during the creative process.
What Art Therapists Actually Do
Art therapy combines active art-making with applied psychological theory inside a therapeutic relationship. In a typical session, you’ll make art and talk, sometimes at the same time, sometimes separately. You can also work in silence if that feels more comfortable. The art therapist may sit quietly and observe while you create, or they may make art alongside you depending on your needs.
After the art-making phase, you and the therapist talk through the thoughts, feelings, and experiences that came up during the process or while looking at the finished piece. There’s no grading, no requirement to display your work, and no expectation of artistic skill. Your artwork stays within the session unless you choose otherwise. This reflective conversation is where much of the therapeutic work happens: the art opens a door, and the dialogue helps you walk through it.
How Art Therapy Differs From an Art Class
The distinction matters because the two look similar on the surface but serve entirely different purposes. An art teacher helps you develop technical skills like composition, color theory, and balance across different media. An art therapist uses art materials as a vehicle for processing personal concerns, not for building artistic ability. While an art therapist can help with technique, that’s never the main focus.
In an art class, students typically display their work and receive grades. In art therapy, there is no right or wrong way to make your art. It’s your expression, created in a confidential therapeutic space. The art therapist’s training in human psychology and development is what allows them to help you process emotions that emerge, something an art instructor isn’t equipped to do.
Conditions and Settings
Art therapy is used widely across mental health, rehabilitation, pain management, cancer treatment, and care of older adults. People seek art therapy for anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. It’s also used with children who lack the verbal skills to articulate what they’re feeling, with dementia patients who retain creative abilities even as language fades, and with people recovering from traumatic brain injuries.
Art therapists work in hospitals, psychiatric facilities, schools, rehabilitation centers, private practices, veterans’ programs, and community organizations. Some specialize in a particular population, like children, military veterans, or people in hospice care.
How It Works in the Brain
The therapeutic effects of art-making appear to involve several biological pathways. Creative activity is associated with neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new connections in response to experience. This is the same mechanism thought to underlie recovery from depression with other treatments. Creativity specifically correlates with changes in the brain’s functional connectivity and the expression of genes linked to forming new synaptic connections.
Art-making also engages interoception, your awareness of what’s happening inside your body. The physical act of creating, handling materials, making marks, shaping clay, activates the nervous system in ways that can shift your internal state. This gives art therapists a pathway into emotional processing that purely verbal therapy may not access as easily.
Education and Training Requirements
Becoming an art therapist requires a master’s degree. Before graduate school, applicants need prerequisite coursework in studio art (working with drawing, painting, sculpture, or digital media) and foundational psychology courses, typically developmental psychology and abnormal psychology.
Graduate programs cover a broad curriculum: psychopathology, human growth and development, counseling theories, art therapy assessment, group therapy, research methods, ethics, multicultural competency, and studio art applied in clinical settings. Students must complete at least 100 hours of supervised practicum and 600 hours of supervised clinical internship before graduating.
After earning a master’s degree, the path continues. To become a Registered Art Therapist (ATR), you need a minimum of 1,000 post-graduate hours of direct client contact using art therapy, plus 100 hours of supervision during that period. All of this supervised experience must occur after the degree is conferred. Three professional references are also required, including at least one from a credentialed art therapist. The credential is issued by the Art Therapy Credentials Board, and the board-certified level (ATR-BC) is accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies.
Licensure Across the United States
Art therapy licensure varies significantly by state. Some states offer a dedicated art therapy license, while others fold art therapy under a broader mental health or creative arts therapy license. As of 2025, states with specific art therapy licensure include Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Each requires either the ATR-BC credential or passage of the national board certification exam.
A few states handle it differently. New York licenses art therapists under a Creative Arts Therapist license. Texas issues a Licensed Professional Counselor designation with a specialty in art therapy. Wisconsin allows Registered Art Therapists to hold a license to practice psychotherapy. In states without specific art therapy licensure, art therapists may practice under other professional counseling or mental health licenses depending on local regulations.
What to Expect as a Client
If you’re considering art therapy, you don’t need any artistic talent or experience. Sessions typically last 45 to 60 minutes, similar to traditional talk therapy. Your therapist will provide materials and may suggest a prompt or activity, but you’re free to create whatever feels right. Some people paint, some collage, some work with clay. The medium matters less than the process.
Early sessions often focus on building comfort with both the therapist and the materials. Over time, patterns may emerge in your artwork that reveal emotional themes you hadn’t consciously recognized. The therapist helps you notice and make sense of these patterns. For people who find it difficult to put feelings into words, whether because of trauma, age, neurodivergence, or simply personal preference, this visual and tactile approach can feel more natural than sitting across from someone and talking.