Research evidence and the provision of long-term and open-ended psychotherapy and counselling in Germany

Abstract

At first, a description of the recent situation and the historical development of long-term psychotherapy in Germany is presented. Public health services pay for a certain amount of sessions depending on the therapy method. In 1967, psychotherapy became a standard insurance achievement. This was supported by the convincing results of a comparative psychotherapy outcome study. In 1999, the law for psychotherapists was established allowing two professions (physicians and psychologists) to get payed for psychotherapy for adults. As scientific evidence had to be proven for the different methods to be acknowledged, the Methods Paper of the Scientific Advisory Board was published as a guideline for empirical studies.Secondly, we want to answer the question: How was it possible to establish this system? We report the research that facilitated the German reimbursement situation.Thirdly, we describe how the system for psychotherapy was sustained. The necessity of evidence-based investigations enhanced several psychotherapy studies. We present recent and ongoing German psychotherapy studies, three of them are tailored for specific diseases and three of them are practice-oriented studies; all of them support the sustained benefits of long-term psychotherapy.We advocate that research efforts were necessary to implement the contemporary reimbursement system of the German health insurance system.