The program is open to new students and returning students. Ideal for Art Therapists, Community-based artists, Psychologists and anyone working in the Human Services fields. No art experience required, though interest in the creative process, such as photography, expressive dance, sculpture, drama or visual arts is preferred.

Attachment theory provides a useful framework to inform all therapeutic practice. This course provides a comprehensive overview of an attachment-informed art therapy model with a focus on dyadic work with children and their caregivers as well as other parts of the life cycle. Participants will learn about the art therapy process as a vehicle for changing internal working models; creating a secure base in the therapeutic relationship with clients; formulating and processing relationship experiences; transference and counter-transference; and working with different attachment styles or patterns, including insecure and conflicted.

Interventions for symptoms such as feeding, sleeping and behaviour challenges in infants and young children will be explored through experiential, arts-based means.

Participants will learn the theoretical basis for attachment-informed arts-based psychotherapy. Participants will learn and practice techniques for working directly with clients, including dyads. Training includes enhancing participant’s awareness of their own and their clients’ attachment experiences.

We will explore key theories that inform our art therapy model with infants and young children and their caregivers. As well as explore assessment and arts-based intervention techniques, including Greenspan’s Functional Emotional Assessment Scale, useful for children with PDD. Focussing on latency aged children, youth and adults and their caregivers