The university course “Art Therapy MA” (with its previous curriculum) is no longer offered as of winter semester 2023/24. No more new participants are accepted. All information on the new course starting in winter semester 2024/25 is available at Klinische Kunsttherapie.
About the course
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.
Admission requirements
The university course “Art Therapy MA” (with its previous curriculum) is no longer offered as of winter semester 2023/24. No more new participants are accepted.
Admission requirements
- University entrance qualification or previous professional experience
- One-page letter of motivation
- Curriculum vitae in tabular form
- Admission interviews
- Admission seminar
Content and curriculum
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.
Curriculum for the five-semester Master’s programme:
Curriculum Kunsttherapie – MA (PDF; in German)
Costs
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
- Lecturers – Art Therapy (PDF, in German)
Degree and certificate
4 semesters: “akademische*r Kunsttherapeutin*Kunsttherapeut” (academic art therapist)
5 semesters: Master of Arts, MA (accredited)
Accreditation
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.
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
Ass.-Prof.in Dr.in Marie-Theres Haas, MSc. MA
Co-Head
Information & Admission Interviews
(currently on maternity leave)
E-Mail: marie-theres.haas@sfu.ac.at
Univ.-Ass.in prae doc Melanie Heckl, BSc. MA
Research Associate
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 1-4 pm
Wednesday 3-6 pm
→ Appointments via e-mail required.
Manal Ott, MSc
Student Assistant and Study Services
E-Mail: Manal.Ott@sfu.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 90 500 70 1600
Office hours: Friday, 10 am -15 pm
Address:
University Course Clinical Art Therapy, MA (CE)
Faculty of Psychotherapy Science
Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna
Freudplatz 3, Room 301
1020 Vienna
kunsttherapie@sfu.ac.at