Our vision is to establish a culture of excellence in creative arts therapies research and training, grounded in a supportive and inspiring research milieu and fostered in international collaboration.
The Creative Arts Therapies Research Unit (CATRU) aims to support the further development of creative arts therapy disciplines in Melbourne and wider Australia through research and research training.
Currently, this involves the development of a graduate research (PhD) training program for creative arts therapists, and international research collaborations with creative arts therapy academic institutions around the world.
CATRU is happy to announce that the first year of the graduate research program will begin in July 2016.
Read
-
Media Release
Australia’s first creative arts therapy research unit launched -
Under the Microscope
In conversation with arts therapist Dr Nisha Sajnani -
Arts Therapy
Arts therapies and the refugee crisis -
Music Therapy
Music to the ears of dementia patients suggests new learning is possible (via The Age)
Our Mission
-
Graduate Research
To foster an academic community of graduate researchers conducting high-quality creative arts therapy research in Drama Therapy, Dance Movement Therapy and Art Therapy.
-
Global Partnerships
To establish an international creative arts therapies research and research training group through global academic partnerships.
-
Evidence Base
To contribute strategically and substantively to the global evidence base for creative arts therapies.

CATRU graduate program
The CATRU graduate research program is an opportunity to be part of a vibrant and growing creative arts therapy research community at the University of Melbourne. Graduate researchers (PhD candidates) will have access to state-of-the-art academic facilities and highly skilled academic research staff, and will be supported through their candidature with research training programs and individual supervision – from local and international discipline-specific experts.
PhD enrolments are conducted on a case-by-case basis, depending on the proposed study, the availability of appropriate supervisors within our unit, and Melbourne University timelines and priorities. Application is a two-step process. Applicants must first submit a CV and research proposal to the CATRU team for an internal unit review using a prescribed report template. After this review, applicants will be advised if CATRU is able to support their PhD application. This is dependent on the strength of the proposal, our internal supervision capacity based on your proposed project, and research unit priorities. Applicants must then undertake the university-wide application process. All PhD applicants are registered with the appropriate creative arts therapy professional body for their discipline.
Currently, we do not offer professional training programs.
Our International Partners
We aim to develop an innovative and inter-cultural creative arts therapies research agenda with a global network of research partners. We will plan and implement this agenda in close collaboration with international partner institutions in the US, Brazil and Germany.
Experienced academics and CAT researchers from these institutions will be integrated into the CATRU research and research training agenda as expert supervisors and research collaborators.

Our people
-
Co-Director, Chair of International Research and Partnerships
Professor Felicity Baker
Co-Director, Chair of International Research and Partnerships
Professor Felicity Baker is the Head of Music Therapy at the University of Melbourne and a researcher within the creative arts therapies research unit who has specific expertise in music therapy, neurorehabilitation, dementia, songwriting, and voice work. She is passionate in researching how and why the creative arts contribute to the building of self-concept and identity following crises with a focus on the role of flow and meaning of the arts as mechanisms of change.
Felicity is a former ARC Future Fellow and has attracted more than $4 mil in funding. She has published 5 books and over 100 articles and book chapters. Her most recent publication is Therapeutic Songwriting: Developments in Theory, Methods, and Practice (2015, Palgrave).
Felicity is currently the Associate Editor for the Journal of Music Therapy.
-
Co-Director, Chair of CATRU Advisory Board
Professor Katrina Skewes McFerran
Co-Director, Chair of CATRU Advisory Board
Professor Katrina McFerran completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2001 and has worked as a researcher and lecturer in Music Therapy at the university since 2004. She is currently co-director of CATRU and Chair of the CATRU Advisory Board and Co-Director of the National Music Therapy Research Unit, as well as Editor-in-Chief of the open-access journal, Voices: A world forum for music therapy.
Katrina’s music therapy interests have been focused on young people, and she has conducted a range of projects funded by the Australian Research Council, primarily focused in schools. She is committed to collaboration and mutually empowering relationships as a researcher, therapist, teacher, supervisor and in her everyday life. This has been expressed through a range of Participatory Action Research Projects, as well as an emphasis on qualitative research where participants’ perspectives are valued.
Katrina is has supervised a 27 PhD and Masters research projects and continues to be engaged with a strong cohort of graduate researchers who are investigating music and music therapy with people in the health, education and disability sectors.
She is author of the book ‘Music, Music Therapy and Adolescents’ and co-author, with Dr Daphne Rickson, of ‘Building Music Cultures in the Schools’. She has published more than 80 refereed journal articles and been invited to present locally and internationally about music, music therapy and young people.
-
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr Kim Dunphy
CATRU Postdoctoral Fellow
Kim Dunphy (BA, Grad Dip Movement Dance, M.Ed, PhD; DTAA (Prof. DMT) ) Kim is Mackenzie Fellowship Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at CATRU. Her project develops her interests in assessment and evaluation of dance movement therapy, in the scoping and systematizing an outcomes framework for DMT, and international trials of an iPad for DMT assessment.
Kim has worked as a dance educator and dance movement therapist in a range of settings, including community groups, schools, hospitals and disability services. She has lectured in dance education at Deakin and Melbourne Universities and dance movement therapy at RMIT University and Phoenix Institute. She is the President of the Dance Movement Therapy Association of Australasia; Chair of the Research Committee of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia; and Inaugural Convenor of the International Network for Dance Movement Therapy. Her recent publications include chapters in the The Oxford Handbook of Community Music, (Bartleet & Higgins, 2008), The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Wellbeing (Karkou, Oliver & Lycouris, 2017) and Dance Therapy Collections 4 (Guthrie & Mulllane, 2017). She is keen to supervise students with interests in dance movement therapy, assessment and evaluation.
-
CATRU Coordinator
Dr Kirsten Meyer
CATRU Coordinator
Kirsten joined the Creative Arts Therapies Research Unit as coordinator in 2017. She is a dramatherapist by training and brings with her 18 years of experience as therapist, facilitator and educator in both South Africa and Australia. She has worked in clinical, educational and community settings, with a particular interest in group work and the intertwining of the psychological, social and political dimensions of stasis and change. In 2001 she co-founded the Zakheni Arts Therapy Foundation in South Africa, with the aim of working collaboratively across arts therapy modalities and with communities. Kirsten completed her PhD in 2017, through Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. She focused on arts active methods, the underlying core dramatherapeutic processes of change and how these might enhance care workers’ capacity to respond to children and young people. She has published a number of peer reviewed chapters and articles relating to her work.
Contact Us
- Contact
- Dr Kirsten Meyer
CATRU Coordinator - Phone
- +61 3 9035 9473