Clinical Art Therapy MA (CE)
Faculty of Psychotherapy Science
6 Semester / 120 ECTS
Master of Arts (Continuing Education) / MA (CE)
Information on the Curriculum (in German)
The university course “Clinical Art Therapy” at Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna lasts 6 semesters (120 ECTS) and concludes with a Master of Arts MA (CE). This is a part-time course offered on a scientific basis with a practice-oriented perspective. Please note that the course language is German.
The application deadline for the winter semester 2025/26 is 31 July 2025.
Who is the course aimed at?
Who is the course aimed at?
The part-time university course Clinical Art Therapy MA (CE) is aimed at people interested in art therapy who have a Bachelor’s degree (or an equivalent degree of at least 180 ECTS) and who would like to work professionally with artistic means and creative methods, for example in social, special and curative education, rehabilitative and social psychiatric areas.
Application and admission
Application and admission
The next course will start in the winter semester 2025/26 (October 2025).
Application and admission to the course Clinical Art Therapy MA (CE)
The online application is made via the SFU application tool.
Required application documents:
- Proof of a completed Bachelor’s degree (or an equivalent degree of at least 180 ECTS)
- Proof of at least two years of professional experience in the relevant subject-specific field
- One-page letter of motivation
- Curriculum vitae
- Application-recognition.docx (in German; if corresponding examinations and academic achievements are available)
Compulsory admission procedure:
- Two admission interviews
- Admission seminar
- Presentation of aesthetic and artistic interests
For enrolment on the university course, both the admissions interviews and the admissions seminar must be successfully completed.
Information and contact
- Applications for winter semester 2025/26: possible as of now
- Application procedure: Submission of application documents via the SFU application tool
- If you are interested in general information about the Master’s programme, please contact kunsttherapie@sfu.ac.at or take part in the next info event.
- If you have any questions regarding a possible admission, please submit your CV and your degree certificates.
Contents and curriculum
Contents and curriculum
Art therapy interventions and forms of expression can be used to treat emotional, psychological and social problems. Art therapy is based on the assumption that artistic expression is a non-verbal form of communication and helps to express, process and understand inner feelings and conflicts. The training therefore involves working out the background to disturbed or cancelled life patterns and images and making these accessible using practical artistic methods.
High practical relevance
Students are brought into contact with clinical-rehabilitative practice right from the start and are supervised in this process in a practical manner. At the same time, various basic principles and problems in different fields of practice are developed.
The course is continuously accompanied by artistic, material-aesthetic-orientated and (psycho-)therapeutic self-awareness, which can be seen as a further basis in the training process. With this art therapy programme, the Sigmund Freud Private University contributes to the intensification of artistic, psychotherapeutic and artistic practice-oriented art therapy in Austria.
Graduates of the ULG in Clinical Art Therapy are therefore qualified to work in the health and social sector – whether in outpatient, day-care or inpatient clinical facilities, in areas of health prevention, social counselling or in curative education and psychosocial institutions.
Curriculum of the six-semester Master’s programme (valid from WS 2024/25, accredited):
- Curriculum Clinical Art Therapy MA (CE) (in German)
Tuition fee
Tuition fee
6 semesters, with a Master of Arts (Continuing Education) degree:
Total € 18,030.00 or € 3,005.00 per semester or € 510.85 per month (plus 2% processing fee)
- An admission fee of € 480 is payable at the time of enrolment.
Contact Finance and Controlling:
Mail: ptw-accounting@sfu.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 798 40 98 304
Opening and telephone hours: Mon-Thu: 10:00 – 15:00 / Fri: 10:00 – 15:00 (Fridays only available by telephone)
Address: Freudplatz 1, 3rd floor, room 3002
Course table and internal area
Course table and internal area
Summer semester 2025
VVZ-VIE-KKT-MA-CE-A-2nd-semester.pdf
Winter semester 2025/26
VVZ-VIE-KKT-MA-CE-B-1.Semester-WiSe-202526.pdf
VVZ-VIE-KKT-MA-CE-A-3.Semester-WiSe-2025.pdf
The scripts of the ULG Clinical Art Therapy can be found in the password-protected area:
Art Therapy – internal
Lecturers
Lecturers
- Contact – Teaching Art Therapy (PDF, in German)
Degree and certificate
Degree and certificate
- 6 semesters: Master of Arts (Continuing Education) / MA (CE)
Events
Events
Info events
Graduation ceremony
- 10 July 2025, SFU Vienna, 10 a.m.
Past conferences
Art Therapy Conference 2024: “Art & Imagination. Daydreams in art therapy.”
Publications and links
Publications and links
- Book At the Interface of Art and Psychotherapy by Georg Franzen & Karl-Heinz Menzen
- Book Psychosentheorien in der Psychoanalyse by Anatol Möller
- Book Creativity, Aesthetics and the Unconscious by Marie-Theres Haas (co-leader ULG Art Therapy)
- Book Holzskulpturen selbst gemacht und Website by Vinko Nino Jaeger
- Book Kunsttherapeutische Stichworte by Manfred Blohm, Katja Watermann (ed.)
- Journal Musik-, Tanz- und Kunsttherapie, with contributions by Karl-Heinz Menzen, Georg Franzen and Karl Hoermann, among others
- DGKT-Journal – German Society for Artistic Forms of Therapy
- Book The Archaeology of Art Therapy by Karl-Heinz Menzen
- Website of Eva Wolfram Ertl, group and psychoanalyst, artist
- Book A Song in Praise of Beauty by Leslie De Melo
- Book Zur Psychodynamik kreativen Gestaltens by Georg Franzen, Ruth Hampe and Monika Wigger
- Selected publications by art therapy lecturers
- Book Das Vor- und Unbewusste – Im Zentrum der inneren Bilder by Karl-Heinz Menzen
- Book Three on a Bench by Karl-Heinz Menzen
- Book The symptom as an image by Karl-Heinz Menzen
- Magazine Art & Therapy
- Video Art therapy – approaches and professional fields
- Video Perspectives on art therapy
- Interview with Prof Menzen What is art therapy?
Co-operations
Co-operations
Contact
Contact

Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Menzen
Head
Teaching therapist for art therapy, co-editor of the journal Kunst & Therapie, board member of the DGKT (German Society for Artistic Forms of Therapy)
E-mail: Karl-Heinz.Menzen@t-online.de
CV KH Menzen (PDF, in German)
more

Ass.-Prof. Dr. Marie-Theres Haas, MSc. MA
Deputy Head
Information and admission interviews
E-mail: marie-theres.haas@sfu.ac.at
more

Univ.-Ass. prae doc Melanie Heckl, BSc. MA
Research assistant
Coordination and organisation
E-mail: melanie.heckl@sfu.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 90 500 70 1600
CV Melanie Heckl (PDF, in German)
Office hours:
Monday, 1pm-4pm
Wednesday, 3-6 pm
Appointments via e-mail required.
more

Manal Ott, MSc
Student Assistant and Student Services
E-mail: Manal.Ott@sfu.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 90 500 70 1600
Office hours: Friday, 10 am – 3 pm
more
University Programme Clinical Art Therapy, MA (CE)
Faculty of Psychotherapy Science
Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna
Freudplatz 3, Room 301
1020 Vienna
kunsttherapie@sfu.ac.at