The M.S. in Creative Arts Therapy at Nazareth University is designed to meet the criteria for “licensure qualifying” degrees set in the New York State Mental Health Practitioners regulations. In New York, a Licensed Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT) is a mental health professional in a category that includes Marriage & Family Therapists, Mental Health Counselors, and Psychoanalysts. Therefore, LCATs (which includes both Art and Music Therapists) must receive education and training in psychotherapy/counseling, as well as in their primary disciplines.

Other programs that offer a master's degree in Music Therapy and graduate, licensure-qualifying work in psychotherapy or counseling also require more credits than the masters alone.

The courses are sequenced so that it is possible to complete the program in 2 years. The time it takes you to complete the program will depend on whether you are working while attending school, what type of internship experience you want, and your ability to manage the higher level of assignments and workload in graduate school. 

Full-time graduate students take 9-12 credit hours per semester (at 3 credits per class). Part-time students take 3-6 credits per semester. 

Both the American Music Therapy Association and NY State require advanced clinical training at the graduate level. The Nazareth program requires 500 hours, at least half of which must be in direct client contact. If you are employed as a music therapist in the area, and your employer allows us to provide on-site supervision, you can use your job as your clinical training site. Otherwise, we will place you in a setting that matches your advanced practice interests and needs.

This final research project can be completed in various ways, but will always require the rigor of a full research study. Your work may be quantitative or qualitative, be in the form of a classic experiment or more of a professional project – or you may be able to work with one of the faculty on one of their long-term research projects, fulfilling your requirements by participating in a part of the process.