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Expressive art therapist skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

1 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Nathan Tenhundfeld Ph.D.,

Dr. Nathan Tenhundfeld Ph.D.

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical expressive art therapist skills. We ranked the top skills for expressive art therapists based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 27.8% of expressive art therapist resumes contained music therapy as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills an expressive art therapist needs to be successful in the workplace.

13 expressive art therapist skills for your resume and career

1. Music Therapy

Here's how expressive art therapists use music therapy:

Founded an internship program with Lesley College to train first and second year music therapy candidates.

2. Patient Care

Patient care entails the diagnosis, recovery, and control of sickness as well as the maintenance of physical and emotional well-being through the use of healthcare providers' services. Patient care is described as services provided to patients by health practitioners or non-professionals under guidance.

Here's how expressive art therapists use patient care:

Collaborated with interdisciplinary team regarding patient care.
Participated in treatment team planning for patient care.

3. Crisis Intervention

Here's how expressive art therapists use crisis intervention:

Trained in nonviolent communication and nonviolent crisis intervention for psychiatric emergencies within the hospital.
Provide emergency face to face counseling and/or crisis intervention as needed to avert or in response to client needs.

4. Mental Illness

Here's how expressive art therapists use mental illness:

Planned, coordinated, and implemented all expressive therapy activities for assigned hospital patients with acute and severe mental illness.
Specialized in treating adults with chronic mental illness, addictions, and self-destructive behaviors.

5. Autism

Here's how expressive art therapists use autism:

Provide Applied Behavior Analysis therapy in order to effectively treat clients with Autism who have difficulties with socially significant behaviors.
Worked one-on-one in a supportive environment providing intense individualized and goal orientated support services to children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

6. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how expressive art therapists use mental health:

Provided mental health services to clients age 2+ to elderly; individual, family, and group.
Participate in psychoeducational activity to educate patients about mental health and other related subjects.

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7. Individual Treatment

Here's how expressive art therapists use individual treatment:

Documented individual treatment goals and progress.

8. Eating Disorders

Here's how expressive art therapists use eating disorders:

Facilitated weekly Dialectical Behavioral Therapy groups at a women's residential treatment facility treating substance abuse, eating disorders and trauma.
Provided individual and family support for those struggling with and affected by eating disorders, using primarily a cognitive-behavioral approach.

9. Group Sessions

Here's how expressive art therapists use group sessions:

Cave Creek, AZ elementary schools Conducted expressive art therapy group sessions in behavioral modification elementary school program.
Conduct individual and group sessions in the area of art, music, movement, drama, etc.

10. Family Therapy

Here's how expressive art therapists use family therapy:

Conducted individual, group, and family therapy with severely behaviorally handicapped adolescents and their parents in a day treatment program.
Provide individual therapy, family therapy and group therapy to children and adolescents on Acute Stabilization Unit of psychiatric facility.

11. Private Practice

Private practice refers to a business operated by professionals such as doctors or lawyers neither controlled nor paid by the government.

Here's how expressive art therapists use private practice:

Provide outpatient individual, couples, and family therapy in private practice setting utilizing Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy techniques and Motivational Interviewing techniques.
Performed clinical individual and family interventions and therapeutic services with children and adolescents and their families in a private practice setting.

12. Individual Therapy Sessions

Here's how expressive art therapists use individual therapy sessions:

Conducted group and individual therapy sessions for adult psychiatric unit.
Provide individual therapy sessions, conducted bio-social assessment, individual treatment planning and coordinated after care services in addiction counseling.

13. Dual Diagnosis

Here's how expressive art therapists use dual diagnosis:

Facilitated psycho-educational/therapy groups for psychiatric, dual diagnosis and substance abuse adults and adolescents using Cognitive Behavior Theory approach and techniques.
Facilitate Cognitive Behavioral treatment, Dialectical Behavioral Treatment, and Dual Diagnosis psychotherapy groups with adult patients in an inpatient setting.

What skills help Expressive Art Therapists find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on expressive art therapist resumes?

Dr. Nathan Tenhundfeld Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Human Factors, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Strong analytical skills are a must. This includes both logic and reasoning skills, but also data analysis skills. For many jobs, the ability to collect and scientifically evaluate data will be vital, if not an absolute necessity. Similarly, a strong understanding of experimental methods can put a candidate in a great position to be able to help a company evaluate existing programs and chart a path forward for new ones. Finally, I would say that a strong ability to write is critical. Those graduates who are able to effectively and persuasively communicate in writing are setting themselves up for success at any company and allowing the company to leverage them for increasingly important tasks.

What soft skills should all expressive art therapists possess?

Dr. Nathan Tenhundfeld Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Human Factors, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Students need to be able to read individual and group dynamics in order to act appropriately in any given situation. This includes not only the interactions with one's bosses but also peers and subordinates. Similarly, being comfortable with networking can help any company, but networking skills shine through in interviews.

What hard/technical skills are most important for expressive art therapists?

Dr. Nathan Tenhundfeld Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Human Factors, University of Alabama in Huntsville

Technical skills like the ability to perform statistical analyses are critically important for most Psychology-related jobs. This allows a candidate to collect and analyze data but also to interpret and understand other existing data. A strong statistical background can also help set a candidate apart from their peers in the application process. This includes understanding when and how to use various parametric and nonparametric statistics to be able to answer questions regardless of the data one is working with.

What expressive art therapist skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Sonia Manuel-Dupont Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Utah State University

If a student takes a gap year, I advise them to look for opportunities to build the skills listed above. Often this comes from community engagement and volunteer work. If the work situation does not align with the intended graduate work, the student should look for volunteer work to practice these skills.

What type of skills will young expressive art therapists need?

Dr. Eva Moya Ph.D.

Professor, The University of Texas

Graduates of the social work profession need to be able to work with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and mobilize communities to bring about social, economic, political, or environmental change, in addition to being involved in social policy development.

Skills in research, to study social issues, with the intention of developing social policy or micro-level approaches to practice to improve people's lives, and training in relation to multiculturalism, cultural competence, cultural humility practice is vital.

Key skills include:

Collaboration

Critical thinking

-Ethics in evidence based-practice

Assessment, intervention, and evaluation

Social work competencies to inform behaviors.

Administration and management

Community practice

Policy practice

Do you want to know more?

List of expressive art therapist skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for an expressive art therapist resume and required skills for an expressive art therapist to have include:

Music Therapy
Patient Care
Crisis Intervention
Mental Illness
Autism

Mental Health
Individual Treatment
Eating Disorders
Group Sessions
Family Therapy

Private Practice
Individual Therapy Sessions
Dual Diagnosis

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

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Updated January 8, 2025

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