& maintenant la même chose en anglais. Nos voisins britanniques, ceux de UKCP, voient eux-mêmes leur situation évoluer tant et si bien que leur modèle, de phare pourrait passer au statut de feu de naufrageurs.

Voici ce que leur écrit Michael Randolph leur rapportant la situatin française. Nous profitons de l’occasion pour rayonner au-delà de la sphère d’influence de notre francphonie, et procurer aux lecteurs anglophones le plaisir de changer de langue pour un temps, ça rafraîchit parfois.

En attendant de vous attaquer à Cassandra’s Daughter, mordez déjà dans ces quelques §§.

Philippe Grauer

Hi Maria, Here’s a brief outline of the French psychotherapy situation:

 Five years after a surprisingly vindictive and destructive psychotherapy law was passed in France, we are still arguing about its practical modalities. In the absence of any university based psychotherapy training, the government is trying to corner the use of the title of psychotherapist for clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. The local committees supposed to administer the registration are unlikely to contain any members from the psychotherapy community and will likely stick to the minimal stance demanded of them, checking the number of hours spent studying psychopathology and in clinical training in psychiatric units, for the most part essentially unsupervised and radically disconnected to any normal psychotherapy practice.

As in other countries, the French government is trying to impoverish even further the poor cousin of mental illness treatment. By some wayward amalgam, all psychotherapy has been drawn into this budgetary fray, and is often portrayed in parliamentary committees and sometimes in the press, what’s more, as a stalking horse for sectarian alienation. Creating even more confusion, the ranks of the psychoanalytic establishment, a quarrelsome brotherhood, can never seem to decide whether the writing is also on their own bedroom wall, or whether they would rather hold on to their usual disdainful rejection of psychotherapy as an inferior offering in every way. The net result is a feeling of backs to the wall (if only a Gauloise between the teeth and the running-board  of a flat six Citroen were suitable psychotherapeutic accoutrements, there would be many Résistants and few Collabos.)

In spite of important battles won – the Council of State has knocked back much of the content and formulations designating certain professional groups registered by simple decree as being unconstitutional – it is unlikely that the law will be shelved in favour of something more enlightened. This dismal picture is also darkened by the awareness that university psychology teaching has been almost completely taken over by a particularly unimpressive and truncated curriculum of cognitive-behaviorist leftovers.

The unassailable arrogance of triumphant  Lacanian psychoanalysis monopolizing psychology faculties in the seventies and eighties has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been replaced by the present unassailable arrogance of their erstwhile defeated enemies.  Nonetheless, in nooks and crannies, relational psychotherapy training, a hardy plant, thrives and will continue to train many outstanding students for a profession which is not about to bask or even warm itself in any form of official recognition.

Sounds a bit grim, but grim it is, unless you’re a Polyanna!

Do you know the book { Cassandra’s Daughter  by Joseph Schwartz (Karnac Books)? Really the best short history of the whole psychoanalytic movement up to the present (almost) that I’ve ever read. A remarkable piece of intellectual history enlightened  by a clear understanding and exposition of most of  the major clinical issues. Well worth suggesting to your students.

Michael}