Psychotherapy regulation in European countries: Towards psychotherapy as an autonomous profession and scientific discipline

In recent decades, two processes have been crucial for the development of psychotherapy regulation, which are interlinked and mutually reinforcing: efforts to legalise psychotherapy as an autonomous profession, and efforts to academise psychotherapy as an autonomous scientific discipline. While in Europe the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) plays a key role in efforts to legalise psychotherapy as an autonomous profession, the academisation of psychotherapy in the twentieth century started at postgraduate level, then, after the Bologna reform, at Masters and Doctoral level and, since 2005 also at undergraduate level, first in Austria and then in Slovenia and Germany. Based on brief descriptions of the regulation of psychotherapy in some European countries – Germany, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Malta and Croatia – it is pointed out that concern for equitable access to psychotherapy and its quality for those in need of such kind of help must be a key criterion and goal in efforts to regulate psychotherapy. The international comparison also shows that psychotherapy will survive but not flourish if it remains only in the hands of doctors and psychologists as a method or specialisation.