Program Overview

CSL577 - Art Therapy with Children and Adolescents

Overview

This unit provides an in-depth exploration of art therapy with children and adolescents, covering the theoretical foundations, practical applications, and therapeutic modalities.

Offerings

• MANDURAH-S2-FACE2FACE-2025-ONGOING
  • Teaching period code: Semester 2-S2
  • Location: Mandurah
  • Attendance mode: Face to Face
  • Start year: 2025
  • End year: -
  • Self enrol: Yes

Requisites

• Co-requisite:
  • CSL576: Introduction to Creative Arts Therapies in Counselling (3 cp)
  • CSL504: Counselling Theories and Practice (3 cp)

Enrolment Rules

The Academic Chair may approve enrolment without completion of the prerequisites. Concurrent enrolment is permissible with CSL576 and/or CSL504. Enrolment in the Graduate Diploma in Creative Arts Therapies, Master of Creative Arts Therapies.

Learning Outcomes

1. Develop understanding of the developmental stages of childhood, attachment stages of childhood, and developmental stages of play that can provide foundational knowledge for therapeutic work with children.
2. Acquire knowledge, experience, and skills in a range of play and expressive arts therapy modalities that can be used to enrich the counselling process with children and adolescents, and in the context of family therapy.
3. Demonstrate a depth of engagement when working with this knowledge, experience, and skills to develop imaginative and expressive responses that explore situational and individual experiences.
4. Gain understanding of the philosophical and theoretical frameworks that inform different modalities of expressive arts therapies and their use as a counselling medium.
5. Describe and evaluate the efficacy of expressive arts therapy in the context of clinical practice.
6. Identify the characteristics of play and expressive arts therapies that most resonate with each student and which they choose to develop further during practice as a counsellor.

Additional Information

Unit content includes:

• Introduction
• Review of attachment and developmental stages of childhood
• History, theory, and practice of art therapy with children and adolescents
• Module 1: Modes of working with children using the creative and expressive arts
  • Art therapy
  • Play therapy
  • Expressive therapies
  • Sand Tray therapy
• Module 2: Integrating creative and expressive arts therapies into work with different groups
  • Creative arts and play therapies to engage children in family work
  • Creative arts and play therapies for traumatised children and adolescents
  • Creative arts and play therapies for groups
  • Creative arts and play therapies to enhance mental health and wellbeing in children and adolescents

Unit Details

• Unit version: 18
• Version start date: 01/07/2026
• Owning college: College of Health and Education
• Owning school: Allied Health
• Credit points: 3

Alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goals

This curriculum aligns with the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:

• Goal 3: Good health and well-being
• Goal 4: Quality education
• Goal 10: Reduced inequalities