Art spychotherapy MA at Goldsmiths

My dream university for art therapy is Goldsmiths and I would really love any advice at all!
I’m still working on documenting my work experience as a teaching assistant, dementia group support volunteer and additional needs support volunteer (which I’ve been doing since the start of 2025). I’ve volunteered since the age of 12 with foodbanks and soup kitchens and have a huge background of a personal experience with mental health and additional needs. I graduated from fine art with a 2:1 in 2023.
I’m just hoping to be as educated as I can be in order to do this Masters as it’s been my dream for years.
I am worried about what the university may make of my mental health history and my school attendance due to my mental health at the time.
I hope someone is able to give me advice on the studying experience at the university, as well as, explain how to wrap my head around the application process.
Any advice will be helpful!
Thank you!

Hi there, only just seen this post, but I've been on the program there for 2/3 years (coming to the end now). It sounds like you're developing a good range of experiences. I'm assuming they still ask for a certain amount of hours of work experience (person focused such as teacher, carer, teaching assistant etc) -I'm not 100% on whether they are completely strict about the amount of hours; I feel like Goldsmiths overall take quality over quantity. However I'm sure they require a minimum amount of hours-do you know roughly how many you have? I remember listing an estimate for my application form.
As far as I'm aware Goldsmiths won't know a detailed history of your mental health/school attendance. Once accepted onto the course they require a sort of medical fitness that is signed off by your doctor. (Unfortunately my doctor also made me pay for this! Not all do). I also had a history of depression, had gone through CBT with my doctor before, so they had all my notes and signed me off absolutely fine. Knowledge and experience can be really helpful in having empathy with your clients. Though of course saying this, obviously not if someone was in the midst of anything acute.
You probably know throughout the training you'll need to be having weekly psychotherapy or art psychotherapy anyway, so if you've had experience of this already that can be helpful.
The training is rigorous especially full time. You're at college two days a week and placement two days a week and also having some time to do artwork, reading etc. Personally, I think part time is better in that it gives you more time to process all the material you're reading about in first year. As a part time student you don't work with clients in the first year, you're only attending the two days at college, so you just have more time to do readings, art making and obviously a lot of students do their own paid work in this time too. However that does mean an entire year more of therapy fees and I believe the course is slightly more expensive part time; so these are considerations.
Pre reading will help-I'm happy to list some books if you would like some recommendations. And if you have a particular area you may be interested in working in there may specific books that are helpful. The course as a whole is very supportive, you will meet a lot of like minded and caring people. There is just generally a lot to process on the course that is hard to explain in words before you begin! A lot of thinking about your clinical work with clients along with the reading material and also just how it fits into the world we are currently living in. It's an incredibly interesting course, just a massive investment of time and money; I'd say it can gruelling but you end up thinking in ways you didn't before.
You can private message if you want any more information, sometimes I think the course outline can be vague deliberately and there's a lot of unknowns that are yours to discover gradually, so I wouldn't want to tell you everything but it does help to be informed of costs and practical things I think. I hope this helps 🙂