This cover image is created with contributions from students, alumni, instructors and supervisors. Please click on the cover image above to view a gallery of artwork with the names of the artists.
News
Applications for our September 2025 onsite program will be accepted from January 6 – February 28, 2025. For more information please see the onsite program page.
TATI Instructor Dave Cho was recently interviewed for a podcast episode on art therapy with the Speak Real podcast. Read more/ listen to the interview here.
TATI continues to maintain community health & safety protocols around COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. See p. 21 of the program calendar for details.
The Toronto Art Therapy Institute (TATI), established in 1968, was the first art therapy training program in Canada. We offer a Graduate Level Diploma in Art Therapy (DTATI) in two program formats (Onsite and Distance Learning).
Through a curriculum that includes a wide range of topics, we offer training for students to integrate art practices with theories and skills in psychotherapy with individuals, groups, adults, children, youth, older adults, couples, families, and diverse communities.
The TATI curriculum is delivered by art therapists, mental health practitioners and scholars with a diversity of experiences and outstanding contributions in their fields, as well as a shared commitment to ethical practices and social transformation in therapeutic arts-making. The program emphasizes arts-based collaboration and self-reflexivity in practice and research, grounded in critical reflection and application of theories. Students and the teaching team (instructors, supervisors, research advisors) actively co-create supportive learning environments both in the classroom and in the field, engaging in knowledge production and capacity-building that foster professional advancement, personal growth, as well as contribution to community well-being.
The TATI Graduate Level Diploma in Art Therapy Programs are recognized by the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) for both the academic and clinical experience (practicum) components. Completion of the TATI program meets the education requirement for registering with the CRPO. Please see here for further information on CRPO application and registration requirements.
TATI is also an approved training program by the Canadian Art Therapy Association (CATA). Students may join CATA for student membership. Graduates from TATI may apply for professional membership. With the completion of additional requirements, professional members may also apply to become registered members of CATA. For more information about CATA membership types please see the association’s website.
TATI is registered as a career college under the Ontario Career Colleges Act, 2005. It is also a registered Canadian charitable organization (reg no. 891466591 RR 0001).
As a community of learners and educators, TATI is committed to anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive approaches in our teaching and therapeutic practices, as well as contributing to the continual transformation and decolonization of the art therapy and psychotherapy professions. We support individual and collective healing alongside and within diverse communities, while working to centre the experiences and perspectives of Indigenous, Black, and racialized communities, as well as communities who have been, and are ongoingly, marginalized and subjugated through colonial structures.
Info Sessions
Online information sessions are held before each application deadline and are hosted by TATI instructors, practicum staff, and administrators to share information about art therapy, the TATI program, and application process, and to answer questions.
Please see the onsite program page or the distance learning program page for information about the next info session.
What is art therapy?
Art therapy involves the integration of the creative process with psychotherapy and/or other supportive, relational practices to facilitate healing, growth, and wholistic well-being
Art therapy can facilitate generative self-expression, emotional and embodied awareness, connections with and development of strengths and skills, as well as cultivation of mutual support and community-building in group settings
Art therapy expands the accessibility of the therapeutic process by offering alternative means of communications and expressions for feelings and experiences that words cannot adequately describe through engaging with creativity and imagination
Our Graduates
TATI grads work all over Canada and the World. Here are just some places that TATI grads are working in Toronto:
Testimonials
Thanks so much for everything… I am currently making a living as an art therapist at 6 different worksites (including groups and individual sessions with people with addictions, brain-injured clients, survivors of domestic violence, children and teens who have witnessed domestic violence, and people with severe mental illness) and I am always looking to expand my practice — I am currently proposing seniors groups at the various local retirement homes. I’m working in Lindsay, Sutton, Port Perry and Port Hope.
I cannot tell you what a difference my time at TATI has made in my life, and how grateful I am to you, and to all my instructors and supervisors.
I am so proud to say that I am an art therapist.
In 2013 The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General awarded me a Victim Services Award of Distinction for textile art project with survivors of domestic violence in Kawartha Lakes.
Annalisa Danowski
DTATI
