Psychotherapy training in a changing world: A Swedish perspective

Abstract

SUMMARY The incorporation of psychotherapeutic competence was among the ambitions of the latest reorganisation of the Swedish mental health services during the 1980s. This led to the installation of a number of postgraduate psychotherapy training units. Moreover, an interest in the study of the learning process led to the initiation of the systematic training of supervisors. The taxonomy of such a training is presented. The present dismantling of the social welfare state raises the following question. How can one maintain a platform for analytic psychotherapy in the decade of the brain: when resources are shrinking; when the rules in organisations are changing; and when preconceived notions of right and wrong are endangering creativity and paralysing initiative? Two probable scenarios for the future of training for psychoanalytic psychotherapy are presented. The uneven competition that other kinds of therapies offer is one problem; the other, serious one is the relative lack of well-documented research, which can prove to ‘third parties’ the value and efficacy of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The pertinent questions that confront us are: how to define ‘results’ that are relevant to the task of psychotherapy and how to connect the results with the therapeutic process itself.