Recruiting Music Therapists and Expressive Arts Therapists: How Behavioral Health Programs Find Board-Certified Clinicians in Niche Creative Modalities

Music therapy, art therapy, drama therapy, and dance/movement therapy occupy a specific and often misunderstood niche in behavioral health. These expressive arts disciplines are not supplemental activities or recreational programming — when delivered by board-certified practitioners with appropriate clinical training, they are evidence-based therapeutic modalities that access dimensions of human experience that verbal therapy alone cannot reach. Residential treatment programs, eating disorder facilities, trauma treatment centers, veteran-serving programs, and pediatric behavioral health organizations have increasingly recognized the clinical value of expressive arts therapists as part of multidisciplinary teams.

Recruiting them is genuinely different from recruiting talk therapists — the credential landscape, the training programs, the professional communities, and the compensation structures are all distinct.

The expressive arts therapy credentials

Music therapist (MT-BC): Board Certified Music Therapist, credentialed through the Certification Board for Music Therapists (CBMT). Requires a bachelor’s or master’s degree from an approved music therapy program plus a supervised internship and board examination. The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) is the primary professional organization.

Art therapist (ATR-BC): Registered and Board Certified Art Therapist, credentialed through the Art Therapy Credentials Board (ATCB). Requires a master’s degree from an approved art therapy program plus supervised clinical hours and board examination.

Drama therapist (RDT): Registered Drama Therapist, credentialed through the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA). Requires a master’s degree plus supervised experience.

Dance/movement therapist (BC-DMT): Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, credentialed through the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA). Requires a master’s degree plus supervised experience.

Where expressive arts therapists work and what it pays

Expressive arts therapists are most commonly found in: inpatient and residential psychiatric programs, eating disorder treatment facilities, trauma recovery programs, veteran-serving organizations (particularly for PTSD treatment where creative modalities have strong research support), pediatric hospitals and behavioral health programs, school-based settings, and hospice and palliative care. They are less common in outpatient group practice settings, though this is growing.

Compensation is generally below equivalent licensed talk therapists, reflecting the typically smaller credential pool and the settings in which these roles commonly exist.

• MT-BC (2–5 years, inpatient / residential): $48,000–$68,000
• MT-BC (senior, clinical supervisor): $65,000–$88,000
• ATR-BC (2–5 years, clinical setting): $48,000–$65,000
• BC-DMT (clinical, 3–7 years): $50,000–$70,000
• Director of expressive arts therapies: $75,000–$105,000

How to recruit expressive arts therapists

The expressive arts therapy professional communities are smaller and more tightly networked than the LCSW or LPC communities. AMTA’s annual conference, ATCB’s credentialing network, and the regional chapters of each discipline’s professional association are the primary venues where these practitioners gather and where employer visibility matters. University training programs — Berklee College of Music’s music therapy program, NYU’s expressive therapies programs, Drexel’s art therapy program — are key pipeline sources.

Axe Recruiting works with residential treatment programs, eating disorder facilities, veteran-serving organizations, and pediatric behavioral health programs on expressive arts therapist and multidisciplinary clinical team search.