Artistic Therapy according to Hauschka

In artistic therapy according to Dr. Margarethe Hauschka, a pioneer of art therapy, the person is perceived in their current state. Their emotional center, closely connected with breathing, occupies a central position.

As a physician, Hauschka works with the two phases of breathing: the inhalation related to the body, forming structure, consolidating and shaping, and the releasing exhalation.

The aim is—building on the person’s emotional experience, their interests and resources—to use rhythm-based means and rhythm-strengthening creative means and methods to mediate and balance harmful, lasting one-sidedness: to stimulate and restore the breathing emotional equilibrium between consolidation—arising through a lasting dominance of inhalation—and dissolution—arising through a lasting dominance of exhalation.

The rhythmic system, strengthened through the creative process, can thus unfold its balancing effect right into physiological processes. In a “breathing,” individual, active, creative process, the self-healing powers of the client are called upon and strengthened.

Artistic therapists with a successfully completed university degree, a comparable qualification, or corresponding suitability gained through professional life.

Students of artistic therapies are also very welcome—you can deepen and differentiate your knowledge by attending the continuing education program during your studies and use acquired university certificates in applications. For students of Alanus University, there is the possibility of booking the continuing education program at special rates (see below).

For students of Alanus University, we would like to enable participation in continuing education programs with a discount of 50%. An individual quota is available for each continuing education program. University certificates are excluded from the discount.

Strengthening rhythm – In the field of tension between opposites: polarities and their mediation in artistic therapy according to Dr. Margarethe Hauschka

Permanently harmful one-sidedness in emotional life leads to hardening or dissolving, inflammatory processes—illnesses such as sclerosis and inflammations may follow. The emotional center with the rhythmic system is weakened and is no longer able to establish a breathing balance, the balance between the poles (nerve-sense pole/thinking and metabolic-limb pole/action, will).

Through exercises and tasks that stimulate mediation and balance, the interplay between the one-sided poles is to be reactivated and the breathing emotional center strengthened in order to achieve emotional equilibrium. Rhythm-based and rhythm-strengthening techniques and methods are central in order to apply them purposefully in art therapy practice.

Methods and media: Wet-on-wet painting according to Hauschka, pastel technique, hatching technique, exercises on the topic in dynamic form drawing and plastic shaping with clay.

Also suitable for newcomers: the focus is on getting to know or deepening the methods, reflective perception of the processes, examples from practice and collegial exchange. A practice-oriented continuing education program.

A painterly breathing exercise

by Dr. Margarethe Hauschka

The continuing education program guides participants through the 24-hour course of the sun in a painterly sequence. Macrocosmic exhalation and inhalation are worked through in midday, evening, night and morning moods. Body, soul and spirit are “reminded” of the exemplary rhythm of the sun; through the experience of colors, we are stimulated to reconnect with the strengthening and healing rhythms dwelling within us. The “inner,” submerged breathing is stimulated and enlivened. A process of individuation is initiated through painting.

Starting from the cosmic rainbow as an objectively visible phenomenon, successive color moods of the course of the day and the night emerge in a processual transformation of color. Qualities of color and color mediation unfold their effect on our emotional life and our individual breathing connected with it.

A process of individuation through painting is initiated with the emotional experience of color, the painterly passage through the evening, one’s own immersion in the darkness of night, into tangible obscurity. This path is continued through the first return of light, which finally begins to push back the darkness by illuminating it.

At the end of this engagement with darkness, stimulated by the color process, stands the return of light—in the morning, until one’s own individualized microcosmic rainbow appears in the image of sunrise. Once again, as at the beginning, all colors are present—but now in a very individual, transformed way.

A process of individuation that leads from the cosmic rainbow to one’s own “rainbow,” stimulates the confrontation between darkness and light, transformation and breathing rhythm through color qualities, ultimately demands decisions of the self, and thereby strengthens the emotional center and individuality.

The focus of this practice-oriented continuing education program is on guided painting exercises, reflective perception of the processes and collegial exchange about possible applications of the sequence in therapeutic practice.

A practice-oriented continuing education program for art therapists, with time for exchange on the use of color processes for breathing and sleep disorders, for support in fatigue, for exhaustion to strengthen restorative forces, and for use in biographical work.

Methods and media:

Instruction and implementation in the releasing (= stimulating exhalation and elimination) wet-on-wet painting technique according to Dr. M. Hauschka. This work is accompanied by dynamic form drawing and supplemented by the implementation of (a task) in a consolidating technique, e.g. pastel technique, charcoal, hatching technique.

It is possible to acquire a university certificate for each module.

To acquire a university certificate, a drawn elaboration of the methods learned during the seminar weekend is expected as proof of achievement. The designed series of images, including a short reflection, will be presented in a joint Zoom session on the dates listed below. Through feedback from the lecturer, participants receive valuable guidance for their further work. More detailed information on the design and process of the series of images will be provided to participants during the respective weekend.

Submission of certificate work Module III: 01.06.2026
Online event to discuss the certificate work: 08.06.2026 (7:30 p.m. to max. 9:30 p.m.)

Submission of certificate work Module IV: 21.09.2026
Online event to discuss the certificate work: 28.09.2026 (7:30 p.m. to max. 9:00 p.m.)

Else Bergner Art therapist (BVAKT), artistic therapist according to Dr. Margarethe Hauschka, alternative practitioner for psychotherapy, instructor for creative stress management (BVAKT), active in training and continuing education in art therapy according to Dr. M. Hauschka

Head of the Institute for Continuing Education in Artistic Therapies:
Brigitta Jaroschek M.A. (research associate)

Further information, contact options and our FAQ can be found here:

edu.Art – Institute for Continuing Education in Artistic Therapies | Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences

Photo copyrights © Courtesy of the Association for the Promotion of Rhythmic Massage and Artistic Therapy in the spirit of Margarethe Hauschka e.V.