What credentials should an art therapist have and what does ATR-BC mean?

This question falls outside the scope of this site, which focuses on depth psychology, Jungian and post-Jungian thought, mythology, and related fields rather than professional licensure and credentialing standards for allied health professions.

For authoritative guidance on art therapy credentials — including the ATR-BC (Registered Art Therapist, Board Certified) designation issued by the Art Therapy Credentials Board — the American Art Therapy Association (arttherapy.org) and the Art Therapy Credentials Board (atcb.org) are the appropriate resources. They publish current educational requirements, supervised hours, examination standards, and renewal criteria.

What this site can offer is a different angle on the relationship between art-making and psychological work. Jung understood the expressive arts not as a credentialed profession but as a natural event — what he called active imagination — in which the unconscious precipitates itself into form. As he wrote:

And so it is with the hand that guides the crayon or brush, the foot that executes the dance-step, with the eye and the ear, with the word and the thought: a dark impulse is the ultimate arbiter of the pattern, an unconscious a priori precipitates itself into plastic form.

From this vantage point, the question of what makes image-making therapeutically alive is less about credentialing than about whether the work genuinely engages the unconscious — whether the ego meets the image rather than directing it. Hillman sharpened this further, arguing that "since art therapy activates imagination and allows it to materialize — that is, enter the world via the emotions of the patient — therapy by means of the arts must take precedence over all other kinds" (Hillman, 1960/1992). That claim is not about professional standing; it is about the primacy of the imaginal.

If you are interested in how depth psychology understands the therapeutic function of image-making, the pages below continue that conversation.

Active imagination — Jung's method of engaging the unconscious through creative expression
James Hillman — portrait of the archetypal psychologist who placed imagination at the center of soul-making
Soul-making — Hillman's term for the work of deepening psychic life through image and suffering

Sources Cited

C.G. Jung, 1947, Collected Works Volume 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy
Hillman, James, 1960/1992, cited in Chodorow, Joan, Jung on Active Imagination