Registers, associations and scheme finders
There is no single place to look up an arts therapist, because the profession is organised country by country and the community arts side is not registered at all. This page collects the statutory registers, the professional associations and the national bodies that run or map arts on prescription schemes, so you can search the source rather than a directory. Nobody here pays to be listed, nothing on this page is a recommendation of a named practitioner, and none of these organisations is connected to this site in any way.
Registers and bodies
Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)
United Kingdom · statutory register
The UK statutory regulator for the arts therapies. Four titles are protected in law and appear on this register: art psychotherapist, art therapist, dramatherapist and music therapist. If a UK practitioner uses one of those titles, they must be on it, and you can search the register free by name or registration number.
Covers: Art therapy, art psychotherapy, dramatherapy, music therapy
Type: Statutory regulator, searchable register
British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT)
United Kingdom · professional association
The UK professional body for music therapy. It runs a find a therapist listing of members in private practice, publishes guidance on what music therapy is and is not, and is the source of the commonly quoted UK fee guidance for individual sessions. Membership is not a substitute for HCPC registration; check both.
Covers: Music therapy, United Kingdom
Type: Membership body with a practitioner listing
British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT)
United Kingdom · professional association
The UK professional body for art therapists and art psychotherapists. It maintains a members directory for private practice, sets professional standards and publishes practice guidance. Its fee guidance is members only, which is why no BAAT figure is quoted anywhere on this site.
Covers: Art therapy and art psychotherapy, United Kingdom
Type: Membership body with a practitioner directory
British Association of Dramatherapists (BADth)
United Kingdom · professional association
The UK professional body for dramatherapy, the least widely known of the four registered arts therapies. It lists members available for private work and explains where dramatherapy is typically offered, which in the UK is mostly in mental health services, schools and forensic settings rather than acute hospitals.
Covers: Dramatherapy, United Kingdom
Type: Membership body with a practitioner listing
Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK (ADMP UK)
United Kingdom · professional association
The UK body for dance movement psychotherapy. Worth understanding clearly: dance movement psychotherapist is not an HCPC protected title, so ADMP UK operates its own accredited register instead. That is a different kind of assurance from statutory regulation, and the difference is worth knowing before you compare a dance movement psychotherapist with a music therapist.
Covers: Dance movement psychotherapy, United Kingdom
Type: Membership body with its own accredited register
Certification Board for Music Therapists (CBMT)
United States · credentialing body
The body that awards and maintains the MT-BC credential in the United States. Its certificant directory is the place to confirm that a US music therapist's board certification is current, which matters more than it sounds, because most US states do not license music therapists and the credential is often the only formal check available.
Covers: Music therapy, United States (MT-BC)
Type: Certification board with a certificant lookup
American Music Therapy Association (AMTA)
United States · professional association
The US professional association for music therapy. It publishes the workforce and salary analyses behind most US music therapy cost figures, runs a find a music therapist search, and sets the professional competencies that the university programmes are built around. It does not itself issue the MT-BC credential; CBMT does.
Covers: Music therapy, United States
Type: Membership body, workforce data, therapist search
Art Therapy Credentials Board (ATCB)
United States · credentialing body
The body behind the US art therapy credentials: ATR (registered), ATR-BC (board certified) and ATCS (certified supervisor). Its public verification tool confirms whether a named person currently holds one of those, which is the check to make, because the credential titles are close enough in wording to be easy to blur.
Covers: Art therapy, United States (ATR, ATR-BC, ATCS)
Type: Credentialing board with credential verification
American Art Therapy Association (AATA)
United States · professional association
The US professional association for art therapists, separate from the credentialing board. It sets educational standards, publishes the profession's position statements, and maintains a locator for members. Some US states license art therapists and others do not, and AATA is the clearest place to check the position where you live.
Covers: Art therapy, United States
Type: Membership body, standards, state licensure information
ANZACATA
Australia, New Zealand and Asia · professional association
The peak body for creative arts therapists across Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia, covering art, drama, dance movement and play based practice under one roof. It maintains a register of professional members and a public find a therapist search. There is no statutory regulation of these titles in Australia or New Zealand, so this register does much of the work the HCPC does in the UK.
Covers: Creative arts therapies, Australia, New Zealand, Asia
Type: Membership register with a therapist search
Australian Music Therapy Association (AMTA Australia)
Australia · professional association
The Australian professional body for music therapy and the source of the Registered Music Therapist (RMT) credential. It runs a public directory of registered music therapists and sets the continuing professional development requirements they work to. Note the initials clash with the American association; they are separate organisations.
Covers: Music therapy, Australia (RMT)
Type: Membership body with a registered therapist directory
European Music Therapy Confederation (EMTC)
Europe · confederation of national bodies
An umbrella body linking national music therapy associations across Europe. It is the practical starting point if you are looking outside the UK, because it points you to the association in your own country, and training routes, titles and whether the profession is regulated at all vary a great deal from one European country to the next.
Covers: Music therapy, Europe
Type: Umbrella body, routes to national associations
National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP)
United Kingdom · national body
The national body for social prescribing in England, which is the route most people take to a community arts activity rather than to a registered therapist. Useful for understanding what a link worker does, what they can and cannot arrange, and how referral into an arts scheme is meant to work in practice.
Covers: Social prescribing and link workers, England
Type: National body, guidance and evidence
National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH)
United Kingdom · national body
A UK body working on creative health policy and practice, and the place most of the sector's own reports and case studies are gathered. Read it for what is happening and where, and read the underlying studies for how strong the evidence is, because a policy report and a controlled trial are not the same kind of document.
Covers: Creative health policy and practice, United Kingdom
Type: National body, reports and case studies
Listing order is not a ranking. This is general information, not a recommendation of any individual provider.