The future of psychotherapeutic training: The reception accorded to the Research Review.

The future of psychotherapeutic training: The reception accorded to the Research Review. - The ongoing discussion in Germany on the reform of training for psychological psychotherapists and psychotherapists for children and adolescents indicates the sense of identity attained by psychotherapy in the health-care system ten years after the Psychotherapeuten-Gesetz (Psychotherapy Law) came into force. Triggered by the pan-European reformation of higher education following the Bologna resolutions and stimulated by the Research Review on the future of psychotherapeutic training commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Health, present-day debate focuses on four aspects: 1. conditions for admission to psychotherapeutic training, 2. organization and content of practical activity during training, 3. joint features in training for psychological psychotherapists (PP) and psychotherapists for children and adolescents (PCA), 4. recognition in social and professional law of one health-care profession or two health-care professions (PP and PCA). This debate demonstrates that competency and allocation conflicts in the health-care sphere have relegated scientific/academic considerations to a back-seat role. Accordingly, central findings produced by the Research Review have been more or less completely ignored in the present discussion. The issue that poses itself for psychotherapy in these areas is whether the psychotherapeutic skills required can be taught at universities or whether this kind of training is fundamentally unsuitable for the acquisition of a license to practice medicine in the context of a medical course at university.