NEW LAWS ON PSYCHOTHERAPY IN EUROPE: HOW DID SLOVENIA GET STUCK?

NOVI ZAKONI O PSIHOTERAPIJI V EVROPI: KAKO SE JE ZATAKNILA SLOVENIJA?

In 2018 Croatia and Malta passed Laws on Psychotherapy, Germany reformed in 2019 and in 2020 Serbia has a draft law before parliament. But efforts in Slovenia have failed so far, despite the fact that the Slovene parliament on 27th March 2018 passed a Resolution for a 10 year national programme for mental health. This Resolution prioritised the task of organising psychotherapy and psychosocial counselling with a draft law by the end of 2018, passing the law in parliament by the end of 2019 and implementing it by the end of 2020.

Under the auspices of the Ministry of Health (MZ) a new governmental working group was formed in March 2018 with the task of preparing a draft law for the regulation of psychotherapy in Slovenia. This governmental working group consisted of representatives from three Ministries (Health, Social Services and Education) and representatives from the key organisations running psychotherapy and psychosocial counselling programmes in Slovenia (including the members of the working group that has organised this Round table). We submitted to the Ministry of Health in October 2018 all the documentation that was required of us (over a hundred pages), including:

  • a detailed draft law on psychotherapy in Slovenia that included thorough explanations of all the articles
  • a current analysis of the situation on psychotherapy in Slovenia including the reasons why a law regulating the profession of psychotherapy was urgently needed
  • a comparison of the regulation of psychotherapy and counselling in other European countries
  • proposals regarding the professional standards of psychotherapy practice and education
  • code of ethics
  • proposal for an education programme on psychotherapy, and
  • glossary of terminology.

In almost two years there has been no response and all our efforts to communicate and cooperate have been met by silence.

Guests of the round table

  • Prof. dr. dr. Alfred Pritz, Psychologist and Psychoanalyst, Rector of SFU in Vienna since 2005, and the prime mover behind the Austrian Law on Psychotherapy in 1990.
  • Doc. dr. Katharina Reboly, Psychoanalyst and Founding Director of SFU in Berlin since 2013.
  • Zoran Milivojević, dr. med., Psychotherapist and President of the Serbian Association of Psychotherapists, key person in shaping the current draft law on psychotherapy.
    Contact: drzoranm@gmail.com
  • Dr. Tamara Prevendar, Psychologist and Psychotherapist in training, the author of a monograph on psychotherapy in Croatia and the process leading to the law being passed in 2018.
  • Tomaž Flajs, Gestalt Psychotherapist (EAP) and Vice president of the Slovenian Umbrella Association for Psychotherapy, founding member of the working group for a psychotherapy law in Slovenia.

The round table will be chaired by

Mag. Miran Možina, Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, Rector and Director of SFU in Ljubljana, founding member of the working group for a psychotherapy law in Slovenia.