GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Dear EAP members,

lt is a great honour for France to be entrusted with the EAP presidency and, in the name of the

French Federation of Psychotherapy, I would like to thank all of our European colleagues who

have elected me unanimously.

I would first like to pay homage to my elected predecessors:

- In Vienna in 1991, the Hungarian JANOS HARMATTA

- In Budapest in 1992, the German WILLI MEYER

- in Berlin in 1993, the Englishman KEN EVANS

- in London in 1994, the Swiss ERNST SPENGLER

- in Zurich in 1995, the Austrian HEINER BARTUSKA

- in Vienna in 1996, the Italian RICCARDO ZERBETTO,

and to congratulate my successor elected in Rome in 1997 as the future President for 1998-99, the Belgian WILLY SZAFRAN.

This year starts under exceptional auspices since we have just succeeded in developing the European Certificate of Psychotherapy, thanks to the wonderful work of a large international team coordinated by EMMY VAN DEURZEN and DIGBY TANTAM. A new era is opening up in the pursuit of the recognition of our specific identity.

Moreover, the British Standards Institution is finishing the process of standardization of the psychotherapeutic profession in Great Britain, and we have just initiated in France the same process with the AFNOR („Association Francaise de Normalisation", i.e. French Standards Association). Once this will have been done in several countries, it will be possible to elaborate European-level standardization. 1 thus invite all the countries that can to undertake such work.

This year should be placed under the sign of intense political and diplomatic activities, notably in respect to the European authorities. lt will end with the Paris Congress, from June 25 to 27

1998, on the theme:

Since the General Assembly will take place on June 28, those who will wish to prolong their stay will have the joy of attending the semi-finals of the World Soccer Championships.

I invite you also to participate very actively in the various commissions, who have a very important part to play.

1 would like to end by insisting on the very great symbolic value of peace that it represents for me, a Frenchman, to be working with my Austrian friend Alfred Pritz. In a world which is the prey of wars and terrorism, where many people have lost their reference points, psychotherapy presents itself as a real hope, if its integrity and its identity are respected. Let´s get to work, all together, to succeed in this endeavour.

MICHEL MEIGNANT

this year has been a very intense one for the EAP. Beside the European Training Standards Commission on the ECP on which the co-chairs D. Tantam and E. van Deurzen will relate, the main issues on which the association has been working on, through its Governing Board and the Executive Committee, can be summarized as follows:

Beside the entrance of new NUOs, which will be reported by A. Pritz, a Membership Committee has been nominated in order to evaluate the requisites of the applying organisations. In the Italian scene, where both FIAP and FAIP asked to be recognised as NUO inside the EAP, there has been an intense work which has produced the following agreement: FIAP will represent Italy for the coming year (with a representative also accepted from FAIP) while a representative of FAIP will also participate to the Board meetings without a voting right. Three representatives from both, FAIP and FIAP, will constitute a commission with the aim of working out possible perspectives of integration or cooperation.

An active policy has been carried on, especially by the Presidency, in order to contact the European associations in representation of the more aknowledged approaches in psychotherapy. While Transactional Analysis, Family Therapy, Body-, Group-, Integrative- and Gestalt Psychotherapy (PT), Logo- and Existential PT, - beside some more recent approaches like Communicative Therapy, Biosynthesis, Neurolinguistic Programming, Sophiaanalysis and Positive PT - are already institutional members of the EAP, other EWO´s expressed their interest to apply for membership like Neo-Freudian, Adlerian and Bioenergetic Analysis, Rogerian-, Transpersonal-, Psychosynthesis, Autogenic Training, Hypnosis, and Music PT.

Also contacts with Freudian, Jungian, Cognitive-Behaviour mod. Therapy and Psychodrama international organisations have been carried on. In order to support this complex process a EWO-Committee (EWOC) has been established with Mony Elkaim as coordinator.

The EAP MC - actually constituted by A. Pritz, H. Bartuska and M. Elkaim - already presented the criteria for electing National Umbrella Organisations - NUO. The approval of the ECP and the individuation of the National Awarding Organisations will represent the concrete instrument to fulfill the statutory requirements for the recognition of associate EAP Members as ordinary Members.

D. Boadella and M. Tordjmann have been in charged by the EAP Board to present suggestions and proposals on this topic and how to regulate arguments, chairs and procedures for the coordination of the WG. A questionnaire has been distributed and the processing work still needs to be completed.

Updated situation concerning the contacts between Wien and Brussels EAP will be related
by R. Zerbetto, E. van Deurzen and D. Tantam.

The EAP web page - http://www.psychother.com - voted at the past GA is functioning since September '97. More recently, the program of the EAP Conference and links with other sites on psychotherapy have been included. Since a general decision to go on in this direction has been confirmed by the Board during the Amsterdam meeting in February, all EAP Members,

especially NUO, EWO and other institutional ones, may send the documents to be edited into EAP-web page actually on the basis of a free financial contribution. The edition of the EDP - European Directory of Psychotherapists will follow the implementation of the ECP. Since some countries, like United Kingdom, Austria and Switzerland, already have - or are in the process to build up - a national web page, there will be a distinction between the informations for national interest from the ones of european interest.

The SVSC, chaired by Riccardo Zerbetto, which has been voted during the past GA in Vienna and formally established in Rome by November '96, has completed a preliminary work identifying some criteria which should be met, in perspective, to be aknowledged as EWO within the EAP. Even if some quantitative standards have not yet been agreeded a wide consensus has been reached on some general principles like:

• having a comprehensive epistemological framework according to the definition in 4.1.3.4 of the EAP statutes;
• being in existence since a considerable period of time with training activities and publications throughout that period;
• having an adequate scientific production including articles published in well known international scientific journals, lectures given at scientific institutions or international congresses and published with the proceedings;
• having a properly constituted training program according to the EAP standards in at least 6 European countries;
• demonstrating to have a significant number of psychotherapists who are applying the same method as a preferencial one in Europe;
• having a formally constituted European Wide Organisation which represents the specific approach. and a code of ethics compatible with the one of the EAP;
• being mentioned by some of the currently existing handbooks on psychotherapy;
• having a theory of reference which should include a metatheory (general principles and philosophical backgrounds), a theory of therapy (general and specific theory on the psychotherapeutic approach), a theory of practice, elements for falsification and indication of limits for the application in the clinical area.

A more precise definition of competences and tasks of the SVSC as well as the inclusion of new members and, possibly, consulting experts is going to be focused in the forthcoming year.

The EAP has a web page on Internet: http://www.psychother.com

In the same one you may find general information on the EAP, the code of ethics, the composition of the board, national organisations connected with EAP, training programs, congresses, links with other sites on psychotherapy and, in progress, the European Directory of Psychotherapists.

Riccardo Zerbetto