Do the art therapy programs in Korean post graduate schools have a competitive edge? Does a highly competitive selection process sufficiently demonstrate the quality of a particular course? Do all the academic activities within a post graduate art therapy discipline adequately recognize the relationship between the general and the specific, thereby presenting up-to-date and relevant research? The study of art therapy in Korea has a very short academic history. In order for art therapy studies to fully establish itself in this country, the main reasons for its current ambiguity must be identified, along with research that may provide suggestions for improvement. It is in this thread that the following three areas have been analyzed. Firstly, the competitiveness of art therapy courses in post graduate programs involves a scientific research methodology in dealing with the various themes within the discipline. Therefore, it is suggested that art therapy programs in schools should be called art therapy studies, with the need for individual schools to make an effort in living up to that name. However, one of the major limitations regarding this is the fact that most of the art therapy courses offered at universities are placed under specialized post graduate programs, which are mostly unrelated to academic competitiveness. Secondly, regarding the types of art therapy programs offered by post graduate programs as well as the specific areas of the professors on those courses, and relating them with the 4 types of art therapy, the most popular areas currently studied in Korea have little potential of developing into highly competitive research areas in the field. In other words, if the competitiveness of these programs are limited to medical art therapy, their academic competitiveness can only remain weak. Finally, in order to increase the qualitative competitiveness of this area, focus must be put on the foundation of art therapy, namely clinical art therapy, which currently needs much support from the field of clinical psychology. In addition, for art therapy to establish itself as a competitive form of psychotherapy, a new direction for art psychotherapy, one that is more advanced than clinical art therapy, is required.
Key words : Art Therapy Studies, Types of Art Therapy, Research Methodology, Clinical Art Therapy, Clinical Psychology, Art Psychotherapy