Art Therapy, Master of Arts (MA)

Art therapy is an independent therapy method in the social-preventive and rehabilitative, as well as in the clinical-psychological and psychotherapeutic fields. The method seeks to mirror inner forms of experience in a visual medium, for example a picture, a sculpture and or a graphic, and makes it possible to methodically-interventorily reorient forms of experience and social expression.

The four-semester, academically certified university course for art therapy at SFU Vienna, which after an additional fifth semester concludes with a Master of Arts degree, is compatible with a professional activity and addresses social workers, special educators, curative teachers, staff in social psychiatric services, life and social counsellors, as well as artists and visual educators, and nursing and clinical professions, such as animation nurses and gerontopsychiatric professions.

The course aims to bring artistic-therapeutic know-how into clinical-rehabilitative fields, i.e. it also addresses occupational therapists. However, it does not see itself as competing in any way, but rather as complementing and cooperating with the ergo- and psychotherapeutic, as well as social psychiatric professions.

Please note that this course is offered in German. The next course starts in the winter semester 2024/25 (beginning of October). 

Admission requirements

• University entrance qualification and previous vocational training or professional experience (at least 2 years)
• Completed Bachelor’s degree
• One-page letter of motivation
• Curriculum vitae in tabular form
• Admission interview
• Admission seminar

Information and application

• Application deadline for the winter semester 2024/25: 31 August 2024
• Admission seminar: tba
• Application procedure:Send proof of higher education entrance qualification / completed Bachelor’s degree and professional experience, CV and letter of motivation to kunsttherapie@sfu.ac.at. For a successful admission, an admission interview and an admission seminar must also be completed.
• If you are interested in general information on the Master’s programme, please contact kunsttherapie@sfu.ac.at or attend the next Art Therapy info event.

When life has turned into a one-way street, the only thing that often remains is the image, which is symptomatic and symbolically groundbreaking. SFU offers this art therapy course on a scientific basis from a practice-oriented point of view, which means working out the background of disturbed or cancelled life patterns and images and making them accessible with pictorial-practical methods.

Neurobiological and genetic, psychosocial and psychomotor fundamentals are thus developed in the course in order to be used in social and curative education, acute, rehabilitative and outpatient-clinical professional fields, i.e. to be explored initially in an intensive treatment context under supervision.

High practical relevance

The students are brought into contact with clinical-rehabilitative practice from the beginning and are supervised in this process in a practice-oriented manner, i.e. accompanied. At the same time, they are trained theoretically in the basics of problems that are prone to practice. What is envisaged is thus a seamless practice-supervision-theory offer that introduces practically, theoretically and self-reflexively.
The programme is continuously accompanied by artistic, material-aesthetic-oriented work, which is regarded as fundamental in the process described and is definitely understood as a craft that needs to be learned.
Sigmund Freud University hopes this offer will intensify artistic, psychotherapeutic and pictorial practice-oriented art therapy in Austria.

Curriculum for the five-semester Master’s programme:
Kunsttherapie Curriculum (PDF; in German)

The course (offered in German) starts in the winter semester (beginning of October).

4 semesters, with graduation as “akademische*r Kunsttherapeutin*Kunsttherapeut” (academic art therapist):
total € 11.568,- or € 2.892,- per semester or € 482,- per month (plus 2 % administration fee)

5 semesters, concluding with a Master of Arts degree:
total € 14.460,- or € 2.892,- per semester or € 482,- per month (plus 2 % administration 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
Office and telephone hours: Mon-Thu: 10:00 – 15:00 / Fri: 10:00 – 15:00 by  telephone only.
Address: Freudplatz 1, 3rd floor, room 3002

• Lecturers – Art Therapy (PDF, in German)

4 semesters: “akademische*r Kunsttherapeutin*Kunsttherapeut” (academic art therapist)
5 semesters: Master of Arts, MA (accredited)

The university course “Art Therapy” (offered in German) was accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation Austria (AQ Austria) in 2015.

• All SFU Accreditation Reports are available in German.

Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Menzen

Head of the programme

Ass.-Prof.ⁱⁿ Dr.ⁱⁿ Marie-Theres Haas, MSc. MA

Co-Head
Information and admission interviews
E-Mail: marie-theres.haas@sfu.ac.at

Office hours:
Tuesday 09:30-11 h
→ Please make an appointment via e-mail.

General enquiries and applications:

Melanie Heckl, BSc. MA
CV Melanie Heckl.pdf
E-mail: melanie.heckl@sfu.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 90 500 70 1600

Office hours:
Monday 13-16 h
Wednesday 15-18 h
→ Please make an appointment via e-mail.

Address:

University Course – Art Therapy
Faculty of Psychotherapy Science
Sigmund Freud University
Freudplatz 3, Room 301
1020 Vienna