What does a Art Therapist do?

Plan or conduct art therapy sessions or programs to improve clients' physical, cognitive, or emotional well-being. Day to day that includes work like observe and document client reactions, progress, or other outcomes related to art therapy and Design art therapy sessions or programs to meet client's goals or objectives.

What skills should a Art Therapist put on a resume?

O*NET rates Social Perceptiveness, Active Listening, Speaking, Critical Thinking, and Judgment and Decision Making among the most important skills for this occupation. Name the ones that are genuinely yours and show where you used them. A resume that lists skills you do not have is weaker than one that lists fewer.

What software should a Art Therapist list?

Software recorded for this occupation includes Adobe Acrobat, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Creative Cloud software, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign. Applicant tracking systems match on the exact product name, so write the tool as the posting writes it rather than describing it in general terms.

What other job titles cover Art Therapist work?

O*NET records 19 titles for this occupation, including Art Psychotherapist, Board Certified Art Therapist, ATR-BC, and Registered Art Therapist. Searching only your own job title hides most of the openings you could apply to.

What qualifications does a Art Therapist need?

In O*NET's survey of people doing this job, 91% reported their level of education as "Master's Degree". That is what current postholders reported, not a requirement any single employer sets.

Will this resume pass an ATS for a Art Therapist role?

No tool outside an employer can tell you how that employer's system is configured, including ours. What you can control is that the resume parses cleanly, names the work in the words the posting uses, and does not claim anything you cannot back up.

Art Therapist resume example

A resume for a Art Therapist needs to show the work itself: plan or conduct art therapy sessions or programs to improve clients' physical, cognitive, or emotional well-being. Day to day that means work like this: observe and document client reactions, progress, or other outcomes related to art therapy; design art therapy sessions or programs to meet client's goals or objectives. Recruiters and applicant tracking systems both read for the tasks and tools this role actually involves, so the strongest resume names them in your own experience rather than describing the job in the abstract. Below are the tasks O*NET records for this occupation, the software and tools it uses, the titles it is advertised under, and the skills worth naming if they are genuinely yours.

Also advertised as

The same job is posted under many titles. Searching only your own job title hides most of the openings you could apply to.

Art Psychotherapist
Board Certified Art Therapist
ATR-BC
Registered Art Therapist
ATR
Creative Arts Therapist
Group Therapist
Oncology Art Therapist
Therapist
Art Therapy Specialist
Certified Art Therapist
Cognitive Therapist
Creative Therapist
Expressive Art Therapist
Expressive Therapist
Hospice Art Therapist
Medical Art Therapist
Rehabilitation Creative Therapist

O*NET records 19 titles for this occupation in total.

What people in this job call themselves

Titles reported by people actually doing this work, which is often not the title on the job posting.

Art Therapist
Board Certified Art Therapist (ATR-BC)
Registered Art Therapist (ATR)

What this work actually involves

Tasks recorded for this occupation, in O*NET's words. If your experience covers one of these, it belongs on your resume in your own words.

Observe and document client reactions, progress, or other outcomes related to art therapy.
Design art therapy sessions or programs to meet client's goals or objectives.
Conduct art therapy sessions, providing guided self-expression experiences to help clients recover from, or cope with, cognitive, emotional, or physical impairments.
Confer with other professionals on client's treatment team to develop, coordinate, or integrate treatment plans.
Assess client needs or disorders, using drawing, painting, sculpting, or other artistic processes.
Talk with clients during art or other therapy sessions to build rapport, acknowledge their progress, or reflect upon their reactions to the artistic process.
Develop individualized treatment plans that incorporate studio art therapy, counseling, or psychotherapy techniques.
Write treatment plans, case summaries, or progress or other reports related to individual clients or client groups.
Select or prepare artistic media or related equipment or devices to accomplish therapy session objectives.
Analyze or synthesize client data to draw conclusions or make recommendations for art therapy.
Interpret the artistic creations of clients to assess their functioning, needs, or progress.
Customize art therapy programs for specific client populations, such as those in schools, nursing homes, wellness centers, prisons, shelters, or hospitals.

25 tasks are recorded in total; these are the most central.

Example bullets for this role

Built from this occupation's own tasks. The brackets stay empty on purpose: we will not invent a number for you, and a fabricated metric is the fastest way to lose an interview you had already won.

Observe and document client reactions, progress, or other outcomes related to art therapy, for [who or what it served], at [what volume].
Design art therapy sessions or programs to meet client's goals or objectives, for [who or what it served], at [what volume].
Conduct art therapy sessions, providing guided self-expression experiences to help clients recover from, or cope with, cognitive, emotional, or physical impairments, for [who or what it served], at [what volume].
Confer with other professionals on client's treatment team to develop, coordinate, or integrate treatment plans, for [who or what it served], at [what volume].

Software used in this role

Recorded for this occupation by O*NET. An applicant tracking system matches the exact product name, so write the tool the way the posting writes it.

Adobe Acrobat
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Creative Cloud software
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Appointment scheduling software
Autodesk Maya
Case management software
IBM SPSS Statistics
Image databases
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office software
Microsoft Outlook

19 software entries are recorded in total.

Tools and equipment

The physical equipment this occupation is recorded as using. Worth naming when a posting asks for it by name.

35 millimeter cameras
Artists' easels
Artists' paintbrushes
Artists' scissors
Circle cutters
Computer data input scanners
Digital audio recorders
Digital camcorders
Digital still cameras
Edge punches
Hole punches
Hot glue guns

Skills an ATS reads for

Worth naming only if they are genuinely yours. Keyword overlap is one input to a resume's score, not a verdict.

Zoom

What this job rates as most important

O*NET rates every skill for importance to this occupation. These are the highest rated, in order.

01Social Perceptiveness
02Active Listening
03Speaking
04Critical Thinking
05Judgment and Decision Making
06Monitoring
07Reading Comprehension
08Active Learning
09Service Orientation
10Writing

Knowledge areas

The subject knowledge this occupation draws on, rated by importance.

Therapy and Counseling
Psychology
Fine Arts
Sociology and Anthropology
Customer and Personal Service
Education and Training
English Language
Philosophy and Theology

What qualifications people in this job have

From O*NET's survey of people doing this work. This is what postholders reported, not a requirement any single employer sets.

91%Master's Degree
6%Post-Master's Certificate, awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Master's degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees at the doctoral level.
3%Post-Doctoral Training

What level this role is pitched at

O*NET places this occupation in “Extensive Preparation Needed”. Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Common questions

What does a Art Therapist do?: Plan or conduct art therapy sessions or programs to improve clients' physical, cognitive, or emotional well-being. Day to day that includes work like observe and document client reactions, progress, or other outcomes related to art therapy and Design art therapy sessions or programs to meet client's goals or objectives.
What skills should a Art Therapist put on a resume?: O*NET rates Social Perceptiveness, Active Listening, Speaking, Critical Thinking, and Judgment and Decision Making among the most important skills for this occupation. Name the ones that are genuinely yours and show where you used them. A resume that lists skills you do not have is weaker than one that lists fewer.
What software should a Art Therapist list?: Software recorded for this occupation includes Adobe Acrobat, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Creative Cloud software, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign. Applicant tracking systems match on the exact product name, so write the tool as the posting writes it rather than describing it in general terms.
What other job titles cover Art Therapist work?: O*NET records 19 titles for this occupation, including Art Psychotherapist, Board Certified Art Therapist, ATR-BC, and Registered Art Therapist. Searching only your own job title hides most of the openings you could apply to.
What qualifications does a Art Therapist need?: In O*NET's survey of people doing this job, 91% reported their level of education as "Master's Degree". That is what current postholders reported, not a requirement any single employer sets.
Will this resume pass an ATS for a Art Therapist role?: No tool outside an employer can tell you how that employer's system is configured, including ours. What you can control is that the resume parses cleanly, names the work in the words the posting uses, and does not claim anything you cannot back up.

Related roles

Occupations O*NET records as closest to this one, and worth looking at if this search is not moving.

What this page cannot tell you

No tool outside an employer can tell you how that employer’s ATS is configured, including ours.
This page makes no claim about pay, demand or how many people hold this job. O*NET does not publish that here and we will not estimate it.
Keyword overlap is one input to a resume’s score, not a verdict on you. A resume that names skills you do not have is worse than one that names fewer.

If this is the job you are aiming at, the guide to tailoring a resume covers how to aim one posting properly, and building and exporting a resume here is free.

Occupation data from the O*NET 29.1 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under CC BY 4.0. O*NET is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. SpartanResume is not endorsed by USDOL/ETA.