report from the chair
REPORT FROM THE CHAIR AND HONORARY SECRETARY TO THE DELEGATES MEETING OF THE EFPP IN STOCKHOLM, 4th - 5th OF MARCH 2005
In this report on the work of the Executive Committe, Eva Wold and I, Siv Boalt Boëthius as spokespersons for the group as a whole, describe the structure of our meetings and the main issues we have worked with since the delegates meeting in Luxembourg in March 2003. We conclude the report with some thoughts about the future of the EFPP and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
The Executive Committee meets twice every year for a day and a half or two days. One of these meetings has taken place immediately before an EFPP conference and the date of the other meeting has been decided more on an ad hoc basis. Minutes from these meetings are available from Eva Wold, who carries the responsibility for this task. To facilitate for EFPP member countries to keep in touch with the work in the Executive Committee she has also written short reports from the meetings, which have been published, on the EFPP web-site. Since the meeting in Luxembourg, when I was elected as Chairperson and the present Executive Committee began its work we have had four meetings, after a first constitutional meeting in Luxembourg in March 2003. These meetings have taken place in Stockholm (July 2003), Brussels (November 2003), Athens (April 2004) and Lisbon (October 2004).
As the meeting in Stockholm 2005 will be the 7th Delegates meeting held by the EFPP I will say a few words about the background of the EFPP. In the Luxembourg Report by Serge Frisch (former Chair) and Julia Pestalozzi (former Honorary Secretary), the development of the EFPP is described in the following terms. "The first years were devoted to establish the EFPP as the representative body of all psychoanalytic psychotherapy organisations in Europe. The general policy of the EFPP is to be an integrating, not excluding organisation and one of the aims is to help organisations to grow and to develop and improve the training standards. Good links with similar organisations are important". We want to add that other areas of importance for the primary task of the EFPP, according to the statutes, are to promote international contacts within the EFPP membership and to encourage research of relevance for psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
The idea that the EFPP is an integrating organisation has been important for our work, especially with regard to the Certificate for standards of training and the co-operation with the working party for Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Psychotherapy (PCFP). We have also tried to maintain and develop the links with other psychoanalytic organisations that the former Executive had built and to keep in touch with what is happening in the external world that could be of relevance for the EFPP. The fact that it is a truly international organisation has been very evident and the question of languages has been discussed with regard to all conferences.
As almost half of the members of the Executive were elected at the last Delegates meeting, a lot of energy and work, especially during the first year, has been devoted to getting an understanding of this fairly complex organisation and its priorities. This implied to allow time for us to get to know each other and our different ways of thinking and acting with regard to both the primary task of the EFPP and the culture of the countries we represent in the EFPP in our various roles. In order to strengthen our capacity to do this, each meeting in the Executive Committee has contained a part aiming at exploring the present distribution of tasks and roles as well as the working atmosphere in the Executive as a whole. I want to add that the work in the Executive Committee and the contact with the delegates has been extremely interesting and it has offered a very special learning situation. The experience of working with the unique combination of conditions for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in the Public Sector and organisational issues at an international level has been a real challenge. The tasks are many and the work has sometimes felt a bit overwhelming. But we have tried to get an overview over the main areas to focus upon, and I want to express my deep gratitude to the members of the Committee as well as those closely connected to the Executive Committee in their specific functions.
The issues we have worked with regularly at our meetings are described below under the first heading. To a large extent these issues can be seen as a continuation of the work that has been undertaken by members of the Executive since the start of the EFPP in 1991. The ideas and reflections around creating space for clinically based Research have been very important, although we realise that the work so far is only a beginning of something we hope will develop over time. Some aspects of this work will be presented under the second heading. Finally we present some forthcoming changes and concerns we have with regard to the EFPP.
The work on the Certificate has been done mostly in the sections, and is described more in detail in the Section Reports. The work with the PCFP and the meetings that have been held by this group will also be described in a separate report by the Co-ordinator of the working group, Rudolf Balmer. Peter-Christian Miest will present the thoughts and work behind the Web site in a separate report, as it a most important tool for the work in the EFPP, and Monica Lanyado will present the contact with Karnac and the work as editors for the EFPP Book Series in a report.
This report will focus on three main topics:
I. The ordinary business of the Executive Committee
II. The development of a Working Group on Research
III. Forthcoming changes and concerns
I. The ordinary business of the Executive Committee
The Executive Committee
The three sections of the EFPP are the Adult Section, the Child and Adolescent Section and the Group Section. As described in the three reports from the Section Co-ordinators elections that are to be held in two of the sections, as the Adult section elected three new members two years ago. The section elects three representatives to the Executive Committee and the Section Co-ordinator is appointed either by the section as a whole or by its elected representatives. The nine members of the Executive Committee appoint nominees to the usual posts - Chair, Vice-chair, Honorary Secretary, Treasurer - as well as to any other post that the Committee deems necessary for its proper functioning. During this period the role as Conference Co-ordinator has been firmly established and has been most valuable. One part of this work consists of assisting the persons and organisations who arrange the EFPP Section conferences and another part of co-ordinating the EFPP conferences in Eastern and Central Europe and the Francophone EFPP conferences.
The Adult Section
As mentioned above all three delegates will continue in the Executive Committee as they were elected two years ago.
Anne-Marie Schlösser (Germany) will continue as Section Co-ordinator together with Eva Wold (Norway) and Luc Moyson (Belgium), who since 2004 is the Conference co-ordinator for the Francophone EFPP conferences and the Central and East European EFPP conferences.
The Child and Adolescent Section
Liselotte Grünbaum (Denmark) who was elected for a second four-year term in the Executive two years ago has to step down for personal reasons after six years in the Executive Committee.
Dimitris Anastasopoulos (Greece), who is also the vice-chair is finishing his first four-year tem in office. He has accepted to stand again as candidate for a second four-year term.
Siv Boalt Boëthius (Sweden), elected two years ago, continues in office.
The Group Section
The Group Section Co-ordinator Rudolf Balmer (Switzerland), who is also the Treasurer of the EFPP, is reaching the end of his second four-year term in office, and must therefore step down from the Executive Committee.
Alfonso Accursio (Italy) is finishing his first four-year term and, for personal reasons, not seeking a second term.
Inger Larsson (Sweden), who is the Conference Co-ordinator for the Section conferences, was elected for a second four-year term two years ago and will stay in office.
Co-opted member
The EFPP constitution authorises the Executive Committee to co-opt members in order to fill certain specified posts. For the specific aim of developing ideas about a future EFPP policy on research and scientific advancement in general Olivier Nicolle (France) was co-opted for a two-year period by the former Executive Committee. His term as co-opted member finished during the spring 2004. He has summarised his experiences and viewpoints in a report with suggestions for future work, which has been most valuable for developing this area of work within the realms of the EFPP. The main points in the report, in combination with the contributions from the rest of the members of the Executive Committee, are presented later on in this report.
Special functions related to the work of the Executive Committee
Administrative secretary An administrative secretary, Anita Ekner (Sweden), who has considerable experience from international administrative work has been employed. She takes part in all meetings of the Executive and has a special responsibility with regard to the Delegates meeting, including for instance updating of the list of delegates and distributing material to the delegates as well as the members of the Executive Committee before all meetings.
Financial administrator. As the finances of the EFPP are conducted under the British Charity Law, Joyce Piper (UK) was asked about if she could continue with this part of her work as administrative secretary in the former Executive Committee. We are very happy that she accepted this delicate and important task, and the division of administrative functions between Anita Ekner and Joyce Piper has worked in a most satisfactory way.
Co-ordinator for Central and East European Countries. Lydia Tischler (UK) who for many years was a member of the Executive Committee has continued working with and co-ordinated the contacts between the Committee and the countries from the former Soviet bloc and the Baltic countries. These contacts and Lydia Tischler´s co-ordinating activities have been extremely important and due to this work the third EFPP conference for Central and Eastern European countries took place in January 2005.
Finances
The financial year of the EFPP is based on the period from the 1st of October to the 30th of September. As described in the Treasurer's report "the EFPP has developed a healthy balance of funds overall. The bulk of EFPP funds are kept in the Charity Aid Foundation high interest account, which we are able to use by remaining a British Charity".
The EFPP finances rely essentially on surpluses made by the conferences. Besides administration and the web site the most important factor of expenditure are the costs of the Executive meetings (travel and hotels). These costs should be covered by conferences. Since the EFPP some years ago reduced the number of conferences to one a year instead of two, there is at least one Executive meeting each year not connected with a conference.
Thanks to the excellent work by and co-operation between the Treasurer Rudolf Balmer and Joyce Piper in her role as Financial Administrator the financial situation has been kept in control on a continuous basis. We are most grateful for the work Joyce Piper and Rudolf Balmer are doing. And the solution with keeping economic matters in the UK and the administration in Sweden has worked out in a most satisfactory way thanks to Joyce Piper and Anita Ekner. As members of the Executive Committee we do our best to keep the costs for our meetings as low as possible, but unfortunately costs for travelling and hotels tend to increase over the years. Concerning the fees paid by the member countries, Joyce Piper concludes that the situation has improved, and the vast majority of member countries pay their fees on time, which is appreciated.
Conferences
Recent conferences
The fifth three-section conference in Stockholm 4th-6th of July 2003.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in our Time - when, where and for whom?
Margareta Mörner, former vice-chair of the EFPP was the head of the organising committee and it was very well organised conference with about 100 abstracts presented in 14 parallel sessions. The idea of Ongoing Workshops including several sessions each worked very well, and was appreciated as it gave an opportunity to really deepen one's understanding of a specific topic. The conference attracted about 400 participants and the attendance to plenary sessions, paper presentations as well as the discussions groups was good. The feedback from the participants was very positive and as before the discussion groups were very appreciated.
The third Group Section conference in Lisbon 8th - 10th of October 2004.
The individual and the group - bridging the gap
This was the third Group Section conference after the first in Amsterdam 1997 and the second in Barcelona in 1999. The Lisbon conference was very well organised under the leadership of Isaura Manso Neto and it attracted around 240 participants. Both the scientific part and the social part of the conference got a positive feedback from the participants. For the first time daily small experiential groups were offered, and even though they met early in the morning they were generally well attended and many participants expressed the view that they had been an important part of the conference.
The third EFPP conference for Central and East Europe in Tallinn 28th - 29 of January 2005.
Changing Culture and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
The conference was organised by the EFPP Sub-committee for Central and Eastern European Countries in co-operation with the Estonian Psychoanalytical Society, the Estonian Child Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy Society and the Estonian Group Analytic Society. It was a three-section conference and the main speakers were Henrik Enckell (Finland), Thijs de Wolf (the Netherlands), Malcolm Pines (UK), Eugenius Laurinaitis (Lithuania), Reet Montonen (Estonia) and Maret Rander (Estonia). The conference attracted 68 participants from 13 countries and responsible for the conference were Merike Alas, Endel Talvik and Lydia Tischler in cooperation with the local organising committee.
Future conferences
The fifth Adult Section conference will take place in Dresden the 19th - 22nd of May 2005.
The theme is Crossing Borders. Integrating Differences and Anne-Marie Schlösser is in charge of the conference. Main speakers are Christopher Bollas (UK), Michael B. Buchholz (Germany) and Bernard Golse (France). A Peer-review Session for an IPA journal of a paper on psychoanalytic psychotherapy will be offered and the chair will be Roberto Basile (Italy). A public lecture by Jan Philip Reemtsma (Germany) is announced to take place the day before the conference in order to attract younger colleagues and persons outside of the EFPP sphere. A first Announcement is being distributed.
The Syros Workshop is planned to take place at the end of September 2005.
Dimitris Anastasopoulos is the contact person from the Executive Committee for this small conference. It has taken place in the archipelago of Greece for several years in co-operation with John Tsiantis, who was a member of the Executive Committee during its first years. The aim of this workshop is to produce a friendly and relaxing working environment in which a small number of experienced clinicians with the participation of a guest speaker, would be able to explore a given psychoanalytic topic of theory or clinical practice.
Le troisième Congrés Francophone will take place in Metz the 3rd - 4th of December 2005.
The theme is Clinique et Théorie - Rupture et Continuité and Anastasia Nakov (France) is in charge of this three-section conference. The main speakers and discussants are René Roussillon with Jacqueline Amati-Mehler as discussant, Juan Manzano with Christine Frisch-Desmarez as discussant and Claudiou Neri with Evelyn Granjon as discussant.
The fifth Child and Adolescent Section conference will take place in Berlin in 2006.
The theme is Internal and Actual Parents and the two delegates responsible for this conference are Kristiane Göpel and Renate Höhfeld (Germany). A flyer with more information will be distributed at the Delegates meeting.
The sixth three-section conference will take place in Copenhagen on the 4th-6th of May 2007.
The theme is Play and Power and Anne Holländer (Denmark) is the head of the organising Committee. A flyer has been prepared and will be distributed at the Delegates meeting.
Comments: There has been a strong wish to have Ongoing Workshops in the EFPP conferences organised on a continuous basis. This implies that sessions, which can be referred to the same theme, are arranged in such a way in the programme that each one of the Ongoing Workshops (consisting of five or six sessions each) will take place in the same room for the whole conference. The themes that have had Ongoing Workshops so far are Trauma and State Violence, Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Psychotherapy, Training issues related to Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Research specifically clinically-based research and Infant Observations.
An issue that has been on the agenda for many years is how to increase the interest among younger colleagues for the EFPP activities. One way that has turned out very well both at the conference in Stockholm and in Lisbon is that a large number of students and trainees act as hostesses and guides to the participants. It has been very appreciated both by the students, who could take part in the conference at a low cost and make useful contacts, and by the participants. Another way that has been developed for the Dresden conference is to offer a public lecture the day before the conference, with a low entrance fee for students.
The possibility of arranging satellite conferences focussing on specific issues or specific groups of participants is also being discussed. One topic for a sattelite conference that is being explored is research with regard to child and adolescent psychotherapy. Specific groups of interest for a sattelite conference are trainees in various types of training programmes as well are paricipants from the Central and East European countries and supervision of case presentations.
Another question that needs to be considered is the frequency of conferences to be organised by the EFPP. A few years ago the EFPP had two conferences a year. But many delegates felt that this was too much, and the decision was taken to have only one a year. With the old system with two each year, each section had a conference every two years. Now four years are separating the specific conferences, which raises the question of continuity and what type of continuity is needed. The possibility of arranging smaller conferences has also been discussed, but experiences indicate that at least 150 participants are needed in order to break even financially as the situation is today. However, with more use of the EFPP web page, the costs for information could be decreased and the number of participants needed for break even could probably be decreased.
The Working Group for Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Psychotherapy
The issue of how to integrate Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Psychotherapy (PCFP) in the EFPP has been discussed for a long time in the EFPP. At the last delegates meeting in Luxembourg a proposal to form a fourth section was debated. However, as the group of delegates was divided in their opinions about this issue, the Executive for further deliberations withdrew the proposal. The two major issues discussed were (a) standards of training, and (b) national networks or organisations of relevance for this potential fourth section.
A new working party was formed with the aim of developing a proposal to present at the delegates meeting in 2005. A considerable amount of work has been done since then, and a representative from the working group has taken part in a meeting with the Executive Committee, in order for the members of the Executive to get as good an understanding of the issues at stake as possible. In our view this has been a fruitful way of working. The contact person with the Executive Committee Rudolf Balmer, in his role as co-ordinator of the working party, has summarised the work and the conclusions the group has agreed upon in a separate report, to be discussed at the Delegates meeting.
The EFPP and the Central and Eastern European Countries
During 2004 ten countries in Central and Eastern Europe became members of the EU. This is a development that has been foreseen by the EFPP and contacts with many of these countries have been developed since the start of the EFPP. As the co-ordinator of the Sub-committee for these countries Lydia Tischler has had most of the contacts with representatives for these countries, together with the Section Co-ordinators. In the Executive Committee we try to keep ourselves updated about as many of these contacts as possible, and will continue to do so. During the period of 2003-04 three members of the Executive Committee have been invited to give seminars or to work as supervisors in Israel and Ukraine. Siv Boalt Boëthius was invited to Tel Aviv to give a lecture and take part in seminars on psychoanalytic psychotherapy and issues of training, and Rudolf Balmer and Inger Larsson to Kiev to give a seminar and to work as supervisors.
The conferences held in Prague (October 2001), Riga (September 2002) and Tallinn (January 2005) have been instrumental in the way they have given opportunities for wide-ranging discussions about specific situations and problems encountered by the countries represented at the different occasions. The extent to which participants from Central and Eastern Europe have presented their own work i relation to presentations from other parts of Europe has varied between the different conferences. The use of the type of Group Discussions as a means to develop the interaction among the particpants that characterize the EFPP conferences has also varied. Representatives from the Executive Committe at the Tallinn conference were Anne-Marie Schlösser (Adult Section), Dimitris Anastasopoulos (Child and Adolescent section), Rudolf Balmer (Group Section), Siv Boalt Boëthius (Chair) and Lydia Tischler (Co-ordinator of the Subcommittee for Eastern and Central Europe).
It is clear that there are vast differences between the countries both with regard to conditions for working with psychoanalytic psychotherapy and in terms of opportunities for training. But the general policy that the individual countries continue developing their own training facilities, by themselves as well as by means of various degrees of co-operation with training institutions from other countries, is important. We perceive that the conferences with presentations by a combination of national and international colleagues are instrumental for increasing the quality of the therapeutic work that is being done.
During the conference in Tallinn in January 2005 the role of the Subcommitte for Central and Eastern Europe was raised by a panel concisting of Lydia Tischler, Ludek, Vbra and Dimitris Anastasopoulos. The participants who took part in the meeting expressed opinions indicating that the committee might have fullfilled its aim, as more countries have developed their training standards and are joining the EFPP either as full members or associate members in the same way as other European countries do. A suggestion that was supported by many was that the next step could be different forms of continued supervision in order to enable those who now have finished their training to develop their therapeutic work further and eventually be able to work as teachers and supervisors themselves. The possibility of forming some kind of international network linked to the EFPP that could work with supervision was discussed.
The EFPP Certificate
In all sections the work with the EFPP Certificate has been characterised by a long process of continuous, often intense discussions and a lot of work have been put into this issue. As the different conditions for developing a certificate in the three sections and the present situation for each section are described in the Section Reports, only a short summary is given here.
In the Child and Adolescent Section the discussion concerning the Certificate was concluded at the Delegates meeting in Luxembourg, as the proposal put at the meeting was accepted. Since then a considerable work with the consequential changes of the bylaws for this section has taken place, with the aim of discussing them in Stockholm.
In the Adult Section a working party was formed at the meeting in Luxembourg, with the aim of developing a proposition for a Certificate for training standards in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with adults for the Delegates meeting in 2005. The working group will present this proposal to the members of the Section.
In the Group Section a working group was formed at the meeting in 2001. In March 2003 the delegates discussed a preliminary report and the majority were in favour of creating a certificate. At the Lisbon meeting in 2004 the Section Co-ordinator submitted a first draft of a report, which was discussed and a new working party was formed and the results from discussions by e-mail will be presented at the Delegates meeting 2005. The aim is to present a final version to the Delegates meeting in 2007.
The EFPP Book Series
After the former editor John Tsiantis (Greece), who initiated the Monograph Series and fostered it for many years with much devotion retired from his post, the responsibility as joint editors was taken over by Monica Lanyado (UK) and Didier Houzel (France) in 2003. At the time of their arrival on the scene the contact with Karnac had been quite problematic for some time. A change of publishing company was explored by the Executive, but left aside due to various complications. However, after many and sometimes quite difficult negotiations the two new editors managed to get a new contract with Karnac, which seems quite promising.
The negotiations with Karnac have led to several changes of major significance. One is to change the name to The EFPP Book Series in order to be more attractive to the public; another is that a new front page has been designed, which can be seen on the EFPP web site. The economic contract has also been changed in a way that is decidedly more favourable for the EFPP than the earlier one was. As can be seen in the Treasurer's report the finances of the EFPP Book Series are now dealt with in a separate balance account. Thanks to the fantastic work done by Monica Lanaydo and Didier Houzel we have now a fairly good situation in this independent account.
The contact person in the Executive Committee responsible for the co-operation with the two editors is Dimitris Anastasopoulos. For the time being the possibility of forming a Book Series Editorial Committee or an Advisory Board is discussed. The work of members of this committee would be to inform colleagues in their countries about the possibility of submitting book proposals for the EFPP Series, to encourage them to do this, and to aid in the process of peer review of book proposals that are received. The book proposal form is being worked on and will become available soon, either directly from the Series co-editors or online from the EFPP web site section about the book series.
Publications from 1996-2004 are:
1. J. Tsiantis, A.M. Sandler, D. Anastasopoulos, & B. Martindale (Eds.) (1996): Countertransference in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents.
2. B. Martindale, M. Morner, M.E. CidRodriges, & J.P. Vidit (Eds.), (1997): Supervision and its Vicissitudes.
3. J. Pestalozzi, S. Frisch, R.H. Hinshelwood, & D. Houzel (Eds.), (1998): Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Institutional Settings.
4. D. Anastasopoulos, M. Waddell, & E, Layou-Lignos (Eds.), (1999): Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy of the Severely Disturbed Adolescent.
5. J. Tsiantis, S. Boalt Boethius, B. Hallerfors, A. Horn, & L. Tischler (Eds.), (2000): Work with Parents: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents.
6. S. Frisch, R.D. Hinschelwood, & J.M. Gauthier (Eds.), (2001): Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. The Controversies and the Future.
7. P. Richardson, H. Kächele, & C. Renlund (Eds.), (2004): Research on Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Adults.
8. D. Anastasopoulos, & E. Papanikolaou (Eds.), (2004): The Therapist at Work: Personal Factors Affecting the Analytic Process
Forthcoming books are:
D. Houzel, & M. Rhode (Eds.) Psychotic Children and Adolescents.
J. Tsiantis, & J. Trowell (Eds.) Research in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.
Development with respect to other psychoanalytic organisations
The contacts with organisations working with psychoanalytic psychotherapy and the links to Allied Organisations (see appendix in the list of delegates) have been upheld mainly by Serge Frisch, with Siv Boalt Boëthius as the contact person in the Executive Committee. In his former role as chairman of the EFPP Serge Frisch spent a lot of work with good result in developing contacts between the EFPP and various psychoanalytic organisations. When asked about it, he volunteered to continue keeping in touch with these organisations even after leaving the Executive, which we appreciate very much.
Since the start of the EFPP the connections between EFPP and the member societies of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) have been a crucial issue for the Executive Committee and a lot of work has been done to improve the links between the EFPP and various psychoanalytic organisations. In my view a very important step was taken at the last Delegates meeting in Luxembourg when Professor Daniel Widlöcher, as the chairman of the IPA, gave a very inspiring paper on the need for more co-operation between psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Based on among other things a decreasing number of persons applying for psychoanalysis in many countries, there is a real need for a more fruitful co-operation than we have seen so far. One line of co-operation that is developing is that psychoanalytic psychotherapists are welcome to publish their papers on psychoanalytic psychotherapy in a psychoanalytic journal.
One way to encourage the co-operation with the IPA is an initiative suggested by Serge Frisch. It implies arranging a Peer-reviewed Session with somebody on the Editorial Board of the IJPA in Europe. For the first time in the EFPP this kind of event will take place at the Dresden conference 2005. Dr. Roberto Basile from Milan, who has had quite a lot of experience with this type of Peer-reviewed Sessions in large groups, has agreed to chair this Workshop, which we appreciate very much. The workshops have generally been run as follows. Those who decide to participate in the Workshop need to make it known at the stage of registration for the conference. A leading figure of the Journal proposes well in advance an anonymous text to those who wish to participate in the Workshop. The text has usually been available for downloading to study at the time of the peer review without any restriction from the IJPA web site. Some invited members of the Editorial Board have been asked to give a written or oral commentary on the text from the point of view of an Editorial Board. The leader of the group usually underlines the specific aspects of each commentary. A discussion then follows and all people present at the Peer-review can intervene either on the text or on the Editorial Members commentaries. Only at the end, the leader of the Workshop informs the audience of what the IJPA Editorial Board has actually decided with regard to that manuscript. Also this can of course give rise to some further discussion. We think this would be a very interesting way of getting a deeper understanding of the dynamics involved in reviewing a clinical paper for this type of journal. We also hope that it will encourage more EFPP members to publish clinical papers on psychoanalytic psychotherapy in this journal.
The EFPP Web-site and the EFPP brochure
The main channel for communication with the outside world is the EFPP web site, which is developed and administrated by Peter-Christian Miest in co-operation with Dorothy Leser (both from Switzerland). The contact person in the Executive Committee is Eva Wold. The web site works very well and gives proper information about EFPP, and a considerable amount of improvements have been made since the start of the web site. The experience today is that the web site is one of the most important tools for information about the EFPP conferences.
There is a clear indication that the EFPP web site has a very high ranking compared to similar organisations with regard to "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" in terms of "relevance", "specificy" or "importance", when a search on Google or similar search engines is done. When using "psychoanalytic psychotherapy" on the Google search page, there will be about 39.000 World Wide Web sites dealing with Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Our web site will be on the first or second place, which is quite impressive!
An important aspect of the web site is the information about the EFPP as an organisation with its three sections including the list of delegates. It is therefore important that this list is kept updated and that it is correct. All delegates are asked to send information about changes to Anita Ekner, who is responsible for the list and keeps in contact with Peter-Christian Miest. Regarding the information from the Executive Committee, Eva Wold and Peter-Christian Miest have agreed that a short comment about the Executive meetings on the web site is useful and the need for other types of information as well is also being discussed. Plans for further improvements and for keeping archives and various types of documents on the web etc. are discussed. As the work with the web site takes a lot of time and also costs money it is important to be clear about what kind of improvements are both useful and desirable.
Another important but different source of information about the EFPP in relation to the outside world is the EFPP Brochure. A partly revised version of the brochure will be available at the meeting in Stockholm. However, as members of the Executive as well as other delegates have expressed a wish to change the logo that has been part of the brochure since 1991, a decision has been taken in the Executive to create a new logo. As this takes time the plan is that the new logo will be presented at the next delegates meeting in 2007, and ready for use after the Copenhagen conference in 2007.
The Issue of Confidentiality
Another topic the Executive Committee has addressed is the issue of "confidentiality" when working with psychoanalytic psychotherapy. This topic was brought up during the delegates meeting in Luxembourg. A working group was formed consisting of Luc Moyson, Dimitris Anastasopoulos and Alfonso Accursio, as the co-ordinator of the work. During the Dresden conference the theme of Confidentiality will be one of the suggested themes for the conference and we hope this will be met with interest.
A first workshop, arranged by the EFPP in collaboration with the University Center Sint-Josef Kortenberg in Belgium, specifically focusing on the theme of Confidentiality, is planned to take place the 21st-22nd of October 2005. Luc Moyson will be in charge of this workshop.
II. The development of a Working Group for Research
EFPP Scientific Committee
As a result of the report in April in 2004 on "EFPP and Research" by Olivier Nicolle and the discussion in the Executive, Liselotte Grünbaum and Olivier Nicolle were asked to form a first small working group. Liselotte Grünbaum would be the link with the Executive together with Siv Boalt Boëthius as background support. The aim of this group was to start thinking together and to plan for the formation of a scientific committee according to the principles suggested in Olivier Nicolle´s paper (presented on the web site).
Ideas regarding research projects have been discussed and the importance of inviting both clinically and theoretically based-research has been agreed upon. One of the first and most important aims of this work is to further the link between clinical work and research, e.g. further an extended understanding both among clinicians and researchers of the dual needs both for clinically based research and for systematising the experience of psychotherapeutic work.
The various ways of organising this have been discussed in terms of small workshops where clinicians present research projects, which can be discussed from specific methodological points of view for instance, as well as research-oriented conferences with a limited number of participants. As this will take some time to organise it is important to make as good use as possible of the space available for research workshops at the ordinary EFPP conferences, for instance in the way it was carried out at the Stockholm conference in 2003.
III. Forthcoming changes and concerns
Incontestably, the main change of the society in the two last years is the extension of EU by ten new member countries and the implications of this political change for society. The effect of this can be seen in many ways. For the EFPP this implies for instance that the number of countries that are eligible to apply for membership has increased. The centre of Europe can be seen as widening and the balance between the different parts of Europe from east to west and from north to south will be changing too as a consequence of this development. Hitherto the main concern in the EFPP has been to keep a balance between the countries in the south and the north, which is a difficult and continuously ongoing balance depending on differences in, among other things, culture and language. With the wider range of countries on the axis from east to west, with their different cultures, languages and political systems, this balance has taken on a new dimension. So far we are only in the beginning of this process, and finding ways to contribute to the process of integration of the different member countries is of great importance.
The second major change that is affecting the EFPP is that the place of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in society, and the Public Sector seems to have become less stable compared with the situation only a few years ago. Although the conditions for working with Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy vary in the different countries, a general decrease in demand can be seen in several countries. One aspect of this is that the concept of "The Public Sector" is more diffuse today and the boundaries between the Public and Private Sectors are less clear. A more thorough understanding of issues connected to this change is of importance, if the EFPP shall be able to fulfil its aim. Acknowledging the demands from the general public, health care administrators etc. to get a better understanding of what psychoanalytic psychotherapy is, in its different forms, is another aspect. We must be able to communicate our understanding of, for instance for whom psychoanalytic psychotherapy is useful in what situation and what the potential benefits are etc. Ways of sharing our knowledge that we think would be fruitful to develop in the future are different kinds of systematic documentation of clinical psychotherapeutic work in order to develop clinically based research, as well as an increased amount of publications including the EFPP Book Series.
