Editorial

Abstract

This is part two of our ‘State of the Psychoanalytic Nation’ Special Issue in which we are publishing papers from around the world describing how psychoanalytic psychotherapy has been developed, implemented and researched within the public sectors of different countries, how psychoanalytic psychotherapists are trained, and how psychoanalytic practitioners locally have responded to the challenges of evidence-based practice. This issue focuses on six European countries – Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, Poland, Luxembourg, and Bosnia and Herzegovina – all of which provide psychoanalytic psychotherapy within their respective national health systems, but this varies considerably due to differences in socioeconomic and political circumstances and in the historical support for psychoanalysis in each country. In contrast to the other countries examined in this volume, and to the majority of countries in the Special Issue as a whole, Switzerland stands out in being a nation that enjoys a high level of support for psychoanalytic psychotherapy, which holds a prominent place in the Swiss public health care system. This is attributed not only to the rich psychoanalytic tradition of the country in which psychoanalytic practice was established in the 1930s, but also to psychotherapy being an integral part of psychiatric training such that the qualification of psychiatrist is a ‘dual title’ of a specialist in both psychiatry and psychotherapy. Several large psychiatry departments have been led by psychoanalysts for years, which has allowed the development and implementation of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Furthermore, psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Switzerland has a less conflictual relationship than in other nations with the other two predominant psychotherapy modalities – cognitive-behavioural treatment (CBT) and systemic therapy, a state of affairs that the authors attribute to the tradition of Swiss peacemaking and federalism in which the art of consensus and multicultural dialogue is part of the country’s foundation. Similarly, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a small, multicultural country surrounded by Belgium, France and Germany, and where almost half of the population are foreigners, has meant that diverse psychotherapeutic practices sit amicably side by side, inspired by the psychotherapeutic practices predominant in each of the neighbouring countries. Such favourable historical and geopolitical influences which have promoted and sustained the status of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Switzerland and Luxembourg unfortunately do not exist in most other European countries where psychoanalytic psychotherapy is under threat of being replaced by shorter, more Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 2021 Vol. 35, No. 2, 85–88, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02668734.2021.1939985