How To Become An Expressive Therapist: What It Is and Career Path

What is an expressive therapist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an expressive therapist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $24.59 an hour? That's $51,137 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 17% and produce 40,400 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreExpressive TherapistUS Average

Salary

4.0

Avg. Salary $51,137

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.2

Growth rate 17%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.47%

Asian 11.37%

Black or African American 3.80%

Hispanic or Latino 7.62%

Unknown 3.76%

White 72.99%

Gender

female 85.44%

male 14.56%

Age - 40

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 40

Stress level

8.2

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

10.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.7

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an expressive therapist

Explore expressive therapist education requirements

Most common expressive therapist degrees

Bachelor's

57.1 %

Master's

41.6 %

Doctorate

0.6 %

Start to develop specific expressive therapist skills

Skills	Percentages
Patients	45.85%
Adolescents	20.00%
Administrative Documentation	5.40%
Recreational Therapy	5.15%
Eating Disorders	4.88%

Complete relevant expressive therapist training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New expressive therapists learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an expressive therapist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real expressive therapist resumes.

Research expressive therapist duties and responsibilities

Create and manage print shop, darkroom and ceramic studio for rehabilitation purposes.
Offer intensive psychotherapy to patients with co-occurring disorders of serious mental illness and substance abuse.
Serve on interdisciplinary team responsible for the treatment of acute psychiatric and mentally-ill chemically-addict veterans on an acute unit.
Receive DBT, recovery model, and therapeutic communication training to enhance therapeutic techniques.

Prepare your expressive therapist resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your expressive therapist resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an expressive therapist resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable expressive therapist resume templates

Build a professional expressive therapist resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your expressive therapist resume.