Art therapy postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

My degree was in Fine Art, and for most of it I assumed the work happened alone in a studio. That changed in my third year, when my final project required me to work outside the university. I arranged to run six open drawing sessions in a community hall on Saturday mornings, advertised through a noticeboard and a local Facebook group. Around nine people came regularly: a retired bus driver, two sixth-formers, a woman recovering from a long illness. I had planned a series of technical exercises on mark-making. Within two weeks it was obvious that what people valued was not my instruction but the permission to make something without being assessed, and the conversation that happened sideways while their hands were busy. My written dissertation shifted to consider how the conditions around image-making — time, materials, who else is in the room — shape what a person is willing to put down on paper. That question is the one I want to study properly.

Since graduating I have read to test whether my interest survives contact with the actual discipline. Judith Rubin's introductory writing on art therapy was useful for showing how varied the field is, and how careful practitioners are about not reading images as straightforward messages. I found Joy Schaverien's discussion of the art object as something that holds material between client and therapist genuinely clarifying, because it named something I had noticed without language: people in my sessions often talked to their drawing rather than to me. I am also working through Bowlby's ideas on attachment on a short introductory counselling skills course at my local college, where the practice triads have been the most valuable part. Being listened to badly, deliberately, by a classmate taught me more about attending than any reading did.

Each Tuesday evening I volunteer at an art club for adults run by a community centre, mainly setting up, mixing paint and sitting with people who are stuck. Some members have learning disabilities, some come because they are lonely. My role is deliberately limited — I am not a therapist there and do not pretend to be — but it has trained me in ordinary, unglamorous things: pacing a session, noticing when someone wants company rather than advice, ending on time when a person would rather keep going. I have learned to offer clay to a man who will not use a brush, and to leave a half-finished piece on the shelf without commenting on it.

For two years I have supervised shifts in a garden centre café, and I would not leave it off this application. Customer-facing work at volume has given me steadiness: dealing with a complaint at the till while a new member of staff needs help, holding a friendly manner when I am tired, and taking responsibility for rotas and stock. When I was promoted to supervisor I was asked to train two seasonal staff, and I found I liked the part of the job that was really about helping someone feel competent. Those are the same skills, differently dressed.

I expect the training to be demanding in ways I cannot yet anticipate, particularly personal therapy and placement, where I will be responsible to people whose difficulties are serious. I am prepared for my own assumptions to be examined. What I bring is sustained studio practice, some honest experience of making art alongside other people, reliability in ordinary work, and a willingness to be supervised closely while I learn to do this properly.

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