GENERAL EDUCATION
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PY001 Assessments in Creative Arts Therapy
In this course students will explore assessing and Creative Arts Therapy assessments from an intermodal Creative Arts Therapy perspective and their significance in intake, information gathering, ongoing evaluations, goal setting, treatment planning, and interventions. Assessment tools will be examined with special emphasis given to how assessment tools can be adapted for different populations, identifying authentic Creative Arts Therapy assessment tools, and understanding their clinical applications.
Prerequisite: successful completion of PY010 Psychopathology or its equivalent
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PY002 Culture & Diversity for Creative Arts Therapists
Social patterns in the United States are undergoing rapid change. Our citizenship has become increasingly diverse as people move here from all over the world. In this course we will explore issues relating to these changing demographics. Through assigned readings, written exercises, exams, and a final project, we will examine such issues as culture shock, adaptation, channeling behavior, and the arts as a bridge as we look at the systems of culture, the experience of our lived differences, and the impact this has on clients, creative arts facilitators/therapists, and healthcare services.
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PY003 Documentation & Records Management in Creative Arts Therapy
This course focuses on the purpose and role of clinical documentation and record keeping. Through assigned readings, written exercises, quizzes, a mid-term, and a final, students will learn the necessary documentation and record keeping skills to maintain legally informed and HIPAA compliant healthcare documentation and records. Areas of focus include but are not limited to the contents of a good record, writing a good record, client confidentiality, the limits of confidentiality, appropriate intake and exit documentation, the documentation of individual, group, and family client sessions.
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PY004 Ethics & Standards in Creative Arts Therapy
This course is designed to assist facilitators/therapists in developing their knowledge base, their critical thinking, and their ethical decision-making skills. Each week’s lesson focuses on a particular ethical and/or legal issue pertinent to practice climates of today. Included in the topics are such issues as ethics in a multicultural society, informed consent, confidentiality, responsibilities for self and colleagues. Through assigned readings, exercises, writings, and exams, students will learn and develop the necessary ethical foundation for their clinical work. Students will also be encouraged to explore their personal values, beliefs, and personalities and how these areas may help and hinder work with clients.
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PY005 Facilitation Skills
ICAT certification requires completion of either a 200-hour or a 500-hour supervised fieldwork experience. The fieldwork must be conducted at a CELA-approved site. All CELA fieldwork supervisors are ICAT certified. Candidates for certification must enroll in Facilitation Skills (the online CELA course) in order to complete the supervised fieldwork training requirements.
Prerequisites: successful completion of all General Education coursework requirements and successful completion of all Arts Area coursework requirements. Required Reading (the online course) may be taken concurrently (with the title exceptions as per Required Reading course description below.)
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PY006 Group Process & Creative Arts Therapy
In this course students examine group therapy in the traditional talk therapy setting and group therapy in the Creative Arts Therapy setting. Basic psychotherapeutic principles are reviewed with a focus on the process and application of group arts therapy in clinical settings. Areas of focus include methods, skills, the role of the therapist, member roles, and understanding group dynamics.
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PY007 Human Growth & Development Across the Lifespan
The focus of student work is the study and exploration of normal human growth and development across the lifespan. Through various theoretical lenses we will examine the milestones, developmental tasks, and life changes that take place from the neonatal stage through end of life. Areas of focus include the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional aspects of development during infancy, childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle years, and later life, and the issues we face during these stages.
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PY008 Intermodal Creative Arts Therapy: Theory & Practice
This course explores theories of Expressive Therapy, Creative Arts Therapy, Intermodal Creative Arts Therapy, and how the different creative arts are used in healing. Through assigned readings, experiential exercises in multiple creative arts areas, a mid-term, and final, students will examine the intermodal process, techniques, and their application in practice while addressing such issues as what art is and how people communicate through the arts, paying particular attention to the role of the creative arts and creative imagination in healing, health, and wellness.
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PY009 Introduction to Psychology
In this introductory psychology course students will explore how humans develop, how we behave in social contexts, the psychological components of our behavior, and the underlying psychological principles. Areas of focus include the brain and behavior, states of consciousness, memory, personality, thinking, and intelligence. Through assigned readings, written assignments, quizzes, a mid-term, and a final, students will be encouraged to think critically and reflectively about psychological theory and how it applies to everyday life.
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PY010 Psychopathology
This course examines a broad range of psychopathological conditions and provides a foundation for understanding what constitutes “normal” behavior and “abnormal” behavior in our society and culture. The students will explore such issues as anxiety disorders, mood disorders, substance use disorders, health psychology, DSM approaches to diagnosing, as well as signs, symptoms, and DSM criteria for diagnosing specific conditions, through the lens of the Creative Arts Therapist in clinical practice.
Prerequisite: successful completion of PY009 Introduction to Psychology or its equivalent
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PY011 Required Reading
ICAF/ICAT certification training has a required reading component. All candidates must enroll in Required Reading (the online course) in order to complete the reading work. Each Required Reading title has an assigned writing component that students must complete—but only for titles that were not read as part of another online CELA course:
- Using the Creative Arts in Therapy and Healthcare, Bernie Warren (Editor)
- Arts-Based Group Therapy, Bruce L. Moon**
- What is Narrative Therapy?, Alice Morgan**
- Illness and the Art of Creative Self-Expression, John Graham-Pole, MD**
- Studio Art Therapy: Cultivating the Artist Identity in the Art Therapist, Catherine Hyland Moon
- The Eyes of the Skin, Juhani Pallasmaa**
- The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die, Clarissa Pinkola-Estes
- Feeding the Hungry Ghost: Life, Faith, and what to Eat for Dinner, Ellen Kanner
- Tending the Soul’s Garden: Permaculture as a Way Forward in Difficult Times, Denise Rushing
- A Handful of Quiet, Thich Nhat Hanh
- Soundings on Cinema, Bert Cardullo
- The Sonic Self, Naomi Cumming
**Title must be read and writing assignments completed prior to enrolling in PY005 Facilitation Skills
Prerequisite: you must be accepted into either the ICAF or the ICAT Certification Program or have permission from the Director to take this course
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PY012 Theories of Counseling & Psychology for Creative Arts Therapy
Theories of counseling and psychology have been developed by practitioners, their methods, insights, and approaches, which they have shared as tools for all clinicians to use in order to best support clients. This course provides an opportunity to learn about different theories in counseling and psychology, their history, and the ways in which they can be used in clinical practice. Throughout the course, students will be asked to consider, reflect upon, and actively define and modify their own personal theory and approach to counseling and intermodal Creative Arts Therapy.
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PY015 Theory: Personality Psychology
Personality psychology covers a wide area of psychology and looks to answer questions about why people think, feel, and act the ways in which they do. In this course students will explore several of the major theories of personality and motivation, looking to deepen their insight and understanding of the factors involved in personality development and human nature. Theories of personality will be examined through the lenses of specific domains: biological; dispositional; intrapsychic; cognitive experiential; social and cultural; and adjustment.
Prerequisite: successful completion of PY009 Introduction to Psychology or its equivalent | This course is not offered every session. Please check with Admissions prior to enrolling.
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ARTS AREA
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AA001 Exploring the Aural 1
Beginning with music fundamentals, (pitch, rhythm, meter, themes, harmony, consonance, dissonance, etc.,) and moving to more advanced concepts of sound and semiotics, students will examine music of various genres, time periods, and cultures through the lenses of western aesthetics and their own subjective responses, building and developing their understanding of what music is, its language, and its purpose.
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AA002 Exploring the Aural 2
Building on concepts learned and explored in Aural 1, this course examines the environment of sound, its purpose, its meaning, and our perceptions. Through assigned readings and listening experiences, students will examine specific sound effects and aspects of music in such terms as musical aesthetics, acoustics, urbanism, sociology, and textual and media expressions, as they deepen and expand their understanding of the language of music within the culture of sound.
Prerequisite: successful completion of Exploring the Aural 1 | This course is not offered every session. Please check with Admissions prior to enrolling.
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AA003 Exploring the Visual 1
In this course students will examine visual arts, their nature, function, and relationship in painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, and graphics. Through course readings, written assignments, and live artwork visits, students will explore visual perception while considering elements of design including but not limited to composition, medium, line, shape, scale, contrast, movement, texture, color, style.
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AA004 Exploring the Visual 2
Continuing the exploration of the visual arts begun in Visual 1, students will focus more closely on the language of the visual arts as it pertains to perception and design. Through readings, writing assignments, and in-person artwork visits, students will explore various aspects of perception, the artists’ mediums, how we make meaning through the visual arts, our interrelationship with the natural and built environments and the arts and how they impact our experience of the visual arts. Students will consider these relationships and the multiple layers of conversation between artist, medium, artwork, and audience.
Prerequisite: successful completion of Exploring the Visual 1 | This course is not offered every session. Please check with Admissions prior to enrolling.
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AA005 The Work of the Writer 1
In this creative wrting course students will explore various elements of craft. Through the lens of different genres, we will focus on creative writing craft areas including authentic voice, symbolism, characters and characterization, narrative structure, and point of view. Engaging with assigned creative reading texts, assigned listening/sound experientials, assigned videos, and through their own writing, students will explore how different techniques are used to construct narratives, make meaning, and relate and interrelate with the world around them in such genres as creative nonfiction, poetry, short story, myths & fairy tales, detective fiction, children’s literature, memoir, film, and sound. Students will be given weekly writing assignments and be provided with opportunities to workshop their creative writing output.
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AA007 Detective Fiction
This course examines detective fiction, its history, the Golden Age, and some of its most influential authors. Assigned readings may include such authors as Wilkie Collins, E.C. Bentley, Josephine Tey, Arthur W. Upfield, Gervase Fen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Rex Stout, Ngaio Marsh, Arthur Conan Doyle, P.D. James. Students will explore predominant types of detective fiction, main formats, and the characteristics of the genre with special attention to conventions, culture, rule breakers, how authors’ lived experiences influence their work, stylistic components, and the writer’s process.
Prerequisite: successful completion of AA005 Work of the Writer: Elements of Craft 1 | This course is not offered every session. Please check with Admissions prior to enrolling.
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AA008 Exploring the Culinary: Changing the World with Food
In this class students will explore the lives and work of several chefs and food specialists whose passion, skill, knowledge, and dedication are impacting our world in significant ways. Chefs include but are not limited to Diana Kennedy, Alice Waters, Jose Andres, Claudia Roden. Through a close look at their lives and work, students will be given opportunities to explore sample menus and prepare dishes as they dive deeply into various philosophies about food and the impact of our food choices on an individual and global basis.
Note: This course is not offered every session. Please check with Admissions prior to enrolling.
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AA999 Arts Area: Individualized Focus
In this option CELA will create a class that meets CELA standards and program goals and has an arts area of focus for which there is no other CELA online course available. Currently, arts areas CELA would consider this option for are: horticulture arts and movement arts. Should a request and application for this option be approved, students must allow approximately 3 Sessions for the course to be created. Contact us for further information.
Prerequisite: departmental approval.
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CELA 