Something crucial is being played out for psychologists, and for psychology, with the question of Europe. You only have to try to get to know about the ins and outs of this project to grasp its scale.
When Europe, or psychology in Europe, is spoken about, dates, places or figures are advanced as if their weight had some particular consistency. Articles on the subject place their emphasis on certain figures rather than others, as if this alone can justify the venture and its outcome. This is forgetting that the reference cannot be substituted for the argument. The reference cannot come on behalf of the exposition of the theses at the heart of a process.
The succession of declarations on the role and organisation of Higher Education in Europe contain a number of variations. These have to be identified if we want to get a grasp of what the objectives in question stem from, and thus be able to make choices.
It is in such a way that, wanting to brag about the mobility of individuals, the Rome treaty is mentioned, that the declaration of Bologna of 1999 is quoted with its 29 signature countries, or for psychology, that the 32 countries (or more?) declared to be behind the EFPA, are being called upon to help, and with them appears the vision of divisions of marching psychologists: 170 000, 200 000, 270 000…, depending on the authors and the moment, that have been called upon to sound the charge and gain adherence.
It is our responsibility to question this matter in order to know if the framework that is being drawn up with 'EuroPsy' authorises the possibility to train and practise in our field, the field of clinical psychology and psychoanalysis.
In fact, it is crucial to establish how our clinic, a clinic enlightened by psychoanalysis, will be able to find its place in the field which is hereby being constructed.
Let's take a closer look at the space which we are being invited to join.
Europe and teaching
Prior to Bologna there was the Lisbon Convention of 1997, which emphasised the right to education for the inhabitants of the European region and recognised the "cultural, social, political and philosophical… diversity". This convention conceived of these diversities as an "exceptional asset" which it was a matter of "fully respecting".
Hence, it insisted on the necessity of "institutional autonomy". In this manner of thinking, "the right to evaluation" only concerned each person's right to get his different studies and diplomas valued and recognised in the heart of Europe (1).
The declaration of Bologna operated a turn-around and introduced a completely different argument. Here, it is no longer a question of preserving diversities but of constructing a "common social and cultural space" and, we are told, of enriching citizenship. The aim is no longer the recognition of each person's right to education but the installation of a system allowing the comparison of diplomas and their standardisation. This is in view of their integration into the labour market and the improvement of competitiveness.
The changes that are profiled for psychologists in Europe are to be put into the context of this debate. Various conventions and programmes have come to define a field, that of competences, of practices and the means that will be allocated to psychologists in order that they may acquire and manage them.
Psychologists work with language, with speech and its effects on individual subjects and on groups. They have to take into consideration words but also their context and the significations that are attributed to them.
'Richness', 'unity', 'mobility', 'evaluation'… for what purpose, within which perspective, and for the benefit of what and who?
The EFPA and the training of the psychologies
The EFPA works on the question of the place of psychologists in Europe. This Federation, which is called the European Federation of the Association of Psychologists, has opted for certain solutions, and the framework that it proposes will lead me to make certain comments. I will present the positions that it defends and make some additional remarks.
It was the FFPP that was declared the representative association for France by the EFPA itself at Granada in 2005, despite the fact that the SNP (2) had withdrawn after the Congress which had taken place that same year.
With Europsy, the EFPA established the framework of a European diploma of psychology (DEP). This diploma is presented as "a first level" of training. This is because a project exists for a specialisation in psychotherapy, which has, in fact, already been drawn up (3).
On first impressions, the basic diploma seems close to the current French degree course: a Licence of three years, then a Master in two years, with theoretical lessons and periods of internship. In addition a supplementary year is planned, said to be "for supervised professional practice".
Obtaining the title and the right to practise are dependant on obligations that are not without importance:
- The registration of the candidate on the European register held by the EFPA.
- A written commitment to subscribe to the principles of the European Code and of the national code of ethics.
- Obligatory continuing education of at least 80 hours a year.
The EuroPsy diplomas are temporary; they are valid for 7 years. A demand for renewal must be made to the National Committee of Accreditation for the diplomas of the National Association of Psychologists, accredited by the EFPA.
Clinical psychology appears in the last draft of the EuroPsy programme. It has been absent for a long time. The basic structure, presented in 2001, for the training of psychologists in Europe did not speak about it as theoretical body, but qualified it as 'applied psychology'. In the last draft, it appeared in the explanatory theories, in a pair with health psychology (4).
This is far from being trivial as it is a question of knowing if this partition, decided by the designers of EuroPsy, has made a place or not for a psychologist oriented by psychoanalysis who considers himself a psychotherapist. The clinical/health ensemble is defined as having as its objective to "promote the mental and physical health of individuals and families" (5).
On reading through, it seems that clinical psychology "as a rule, will necessitate a post-graduate training", this being a specialisation. It is specified that a "supervision guide" will be published soon to promote "the diffusion of these appropriate practices" (6).
The idea of making clinical psychology and health psychology a specialisation is also mentioned in the latest EFPA report (7).
The domain of psychology
It seems to me that the questions to which psychology will have to reply are formulated in terms of the different behaviours, considered as problematic or worthy of interest, above all, for society:
"How should drug or cigarette dependence be treated? How can we get children to be more creative? How can athletes use psychological techniques to optimise their capacities? What are the personality traits and values implied in consumer behaviour?" (8).
This approach isolates behaviours, considers them as disorders, and approaches them without a theory of the subject since the question of the treatment is posed without asking how a particular form of behaviour might be articulated to the core of a symptom, if even this behaviour is a symptom. Neither does this approach question the place such a form of behaviour holds for the subject in his relation to the symbolic, the imaginary and the real.
A look into the psychology syllabus of the Europsy diploma shows that psychoanalysis is totally absent. Psychoanalysis does not appear in the theories founding psychology (medicine and philosophy), nor in the accepted theories, said to be explanatory. The non-psychological theories that are mentioned are epistemology, philosophy, sociology and anthropology.
Psychotherapy and psychology
The EFPA also works on a specialisation in psychotherapy. It expects the candidate to hold the basic diploma and to have two years of supervised professional experience.
The training lasts three years and includes 500 hours of supervised practice and a personal training psychotherapy of at least 100 hours (9). This makes for 6 years of basic university training, 2 years of experience and 3 years of complementary university training; a total of 11 years is thus required for a psychologist to qualify for the practice of psychotherapy.
This made Roger Lécuyer, president of the FFPP, the French representative at the EFPA, say that this is "quite far, at a European level, from article 52 and from the project for the application decree" (10). If we are only thinking in terms of the amount of time spent on university studies, indeed, it remains to know what is studied and why.
It is expected that the personal training of at least 100 hours will allow students to "become aware of their personal implication and to know how to handle it in an appropriate manner", as well as "their contribution to the progress of the therapy that they practise" (11). The student in psychotherapy should also become familiar with a broad range of therapeutic practices and we are told that this is so as to be able to take on the role of "consultant", and to know the limits of a psychotherapeutic model and of one's own.
Students should also be trained to "evaluate the therapies that they (he/she) practise(s)" (12).
With regards to this specialisation, the tasks that will be allocated to the bearers of the psychology diploma of 6 years are unknown, but a distinction is made by Europsy between "expert status" and "simple specialist" (13). It is declared with precaution that "the development of high level qualifications could, in the long term, limit the places of exercise, the level and the tasks" of those who only have the basic diploma. This goes back to the terms of the last activity report of the EFPA (14).
The training centres
The training institutes maintained are to be "approved by the body of psychologists", this being the association of psychologists authorised to give accreditation. They are to cooperate with university psychology departments and other research centres for the evaluation of the psychotherapies and accept to be audited by the professional body of psychologists.
Concerning psychotherapy, "100 hours (at least) of personal training psychotherapy is required" during the 11 years of study. Here, it is a matter of counting. This psychotherapy is to take place within one of the "accepted" schools of therapy. These schools, said to be "major therapeutic schools", have to prove that they are based "on a body of psychological knowledge", covering human development, psychopathology, a theory and strategies of intervention" (15).
How will psychoanalysis be able to position itself within this framework when the time comes? Do Freudian psychologists (16) not have an action to lead here by virtue of their qualification ["es-qualité"] that is to say, in the name of the Freudian specification of a certain orientation of psychology?
Supervisor psychologist and good practices
A "supervisor psychologist" will be responsible for "the competence of the future practitioner-in-training", including psychotherapy, the university's 'new arrival'.
The guarantee of the competence of the supervisor resides in an authorisation bestowed on him by "the National Awarding Committee or by the national association" (17).
The guarantee of "good practice" will be ensured on the base of a contract where supervisor and student agree upon the chosen professional field, the type of client, the role that is to be played in the field the student has chosen to make his intervention, and the competences to be called upon for this type of practice.
These "good practices" are referred to pre-established norms as twenty of them have already been pinpointed in advance and listed.
Thus, the supervisors are to assess the competences of future practitioners.
How is this to be done? By filling out an assessment form, and basing it on the "assessment guidelines" published by the "European Awarding Committee" (18).
Assessment [évaluation] is the key word here. What is the difference between a non-assessed psychologist and an assessed psychologist, between an "accepted" school and one that isn't? To put it in the terms used by Jean-Claude Milner, it could be said that both of them have "the same characteristics", or respond to the same school definition… but when it comes down to it, to the crux of evaluation, whether it concerns a psychologist or a school, they both enter into the circuit of "the set of evaluated beings and objects".
A transformation has been operated and they have entered into the "paradigm of measurement", of the calculable (19).
It is a question of "taking possession of the other's knowledge", says J.-A. Miller, in order to "obtain from the other the knowledge that he has of his own practice" by means of an operation of comparison and elimination, or the necessity of transforming those who do not satisfy the criteria, or who satisfy less that the others, always in light of the established criteria" (20).
As discussed previously, we can see an appropriation of psychotherapy by psychologists being drawn up, who, it seems will decide alone on the competence of future practitioners.
It has to be pointed out that a fine network is being woven in this way which subordinates training centres, the schools of therapy and research to those orientations that are decided upon exclusively by the psychologists and by the EFPA.
The Europsy organisation refers the whole system to the European Committee. It is advanced that the ambition here is not "intended to supersede or replace national licensing regulations". How is this to be heard other than as a denegation, since what is said in the following sentence is that "the more the Europsy project becomes recognised, the more national prerequisites will conform to it" (21). This leads us to interrogate the desire that animates such a project and to reflect on how to point out, in this ensemble, the specificity of our Freudian orientation. This is urgent.
What orientates the desire of a psychologist according to Europsy?
The Europsy text founds "the primary intention that presides in the desire to be a psychologist" on the "concern for applying and developing […] psychological principles" which take their orientation from a "scientific and ethical" point of view (22).
We are interpolated by this term "scientific", and having looked in the glossary, we see that the term of "scientific knowledge" designates the "knowledge accumulated in the scientific literature of the discipline of psychology and shared in the community of researchers and teachers of psychology" (23).
We are referred to what constitutes science, to what is considered to be scientific. The recent debate that took place after the Inserm rapport on conduct disorder considerably questioned this concept.
The Freudian psychologists resolutely subscribe, in their name and with the group "Pasde0deconduit", to the calling into question of the evaluation methods which proclaim themselves scientific.
What is this literature said to be scientific? Anglo-Saxon literature? A literature which relies upon the diagnostic criteria of DSM type? On those methods said to be scientific because they are "objectivisable". On research that relies on statistical calculations or on neurobiological correlates?
What desire animates the designers of the Europsy project?
It is said that the Europsy criteria were inspired by the work carried out by the British Psychological Society (BPS) to establish the prerequisites for its applied psychology diploma, but this does not seem to explain everything, even if the BPS distinguishes, for example, many types of psychologists, associated or specialists.
It is known that the ENOP [European Network of Organizational and Work Psychologists], (or ENWOP [European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology]), the equivalent of the EFPA for work and organisational psychology, had developed in the 1990s a "training model for work psychologists in Europe". ENOP has also contributed to the setting up of the Commission of 14 members who managed to write the Europsy report and its criteria.
This point is not without importance if we take the orientaton of work psychology into account and the fact that the name of Madame Claude Leboyer, who was the president of the International Association of Applied Psychology, founder of ENOP's bureau, and who appears in the bibliography of Europsy.
Madame Leboyer works on motivation at work, on skills management, personnel evaluation using psychometric tools, behaviour questionnaires and statistical methods, with the aim of increasing competitiveness.
A commentary on her book, on the subject of motivation in the company, begins by the following lines: "Competition is played out on a global scale. Productivity and quality have a central role. Due to this fact, the motivation of men at work represents a capital factor for company success" (24).
This resounds with the comments of the president of the EFPA, for whom Europe, having given itself the aim of becoming the economic leader in terms "of competition, skills and technology". It is not just a question of allowing "capital and goods to circulate freely", but also to render this possible for professionals, and in particular for those who have superior qualifications, and thus to attain "maximum mobility" (25).
The Europsy team
The team that runs Europsy has also caught my attention. Most of its members being present from the instigation of the project and as such might well consider it as being their own.
I am only taking into consideration the Europsy team and not the Committee that established the criteria for the specialist diploma in psychotherapy. They are professors, concerned with research in their speciality. Certain wear several hats that do not always correspond with the titles of French diplomas. Social psychology, work, leadership and organisational psychology are excessively represented by five of them.
The Europsy team is comprised of one health and health education psychologist and one educational psychologist. We find two cognitive psychology specialists, with a developmental aspect with Roger Lécuyer. Another specialises in neuropsychology, whilst another member also avows his interest for the subject and works in the field of linguistics. Transcultural psychology count for one representative. The Danish representative is qualified as 'psychologist' without further specification.
Dave Bartram is a grand specialist in testing and validating evaluation procedures and the selection of personnel (26). He is very active and has recently come up with some models for EFPA for the description and evaluation of psychological tests within the framework of work psychology.
It is more difficult to class Tuomo Tikkanen, who is qualified in philosophy and psychology. He defines psychology as a science, and is interested in neuropsychology and the results of studies that might prove, he says, that psychotherapy has "a long term effect on the chemical processes of the central nervous system".
Curiously, after giving this example, he denounces the reductionism of today's psychology and the fact that the natural sciences want to reduce it to "purely neurophysiological phenomena". Although he expects something from psychotherapeutic methods, it is nevertheless with the hope of basing it on a scientific psychology (27).
Conclusion
The aim of Europsy goes well beyond the question of the recognition of diplomas in Europe and the mobility of students and professonals. Its intention is not to preserve the national cultural "diversity", nor to conceive of them as a richness "to be fully preserved".
The Europsy project aims at creating a psychology diploma in Europe and a system of specialisations, with the eventual creation of many different professional levels in the form, for example, of associate or expert status.
It aims at promoting a "standardisation and transparency of qualifications" (28), this being to dispose of psychologists that are subordinate to the obtaining of renewable diplomas or certifications, relative to the criteria chosen by the EFPA.
It is evident that in this case, research will only have to follow on, "standardised", in compliance, and that it will reply to the expectations and theoretical orientations upheld by the European Committee.
The orientation of teaching, of training, and of psychology practice
The Europsy team cannot claim to be the only one to represent the range of theories having a relation with the human mind. How can psychology as a whole, said to be "clinical and health" psychology, the speciality in psychotherapy that Europsy claims to found, how can it diverge from the orientations being put in place?
How will psychology, particularly clinical and health psychology, and the psychology that deals with psychotherapy, be able to question its own concepts whilst at the same time guaranteeing its independence in such a framework? This is the challenge that befalls us.
Psychology leadership
Via the Bologna procedure, Europsy is aiming at distributing its own standards, assessment and accreditation and not proposing to render the different national programmes readable in Europe - unless we consider that it is the national programmes, as it is formulated, that will align themselves with Europsy's own criteria. If so, these criteria cannot be said to be national, even if an association of psychologists said to be 'national' will be in charge of getting the Europsy criteria respected.
In fact, the work of the National Awarding Committees can be brought to a halt if the European Committee judges that their work is not "in accordance with the stated regulations". It is no more than a "delegated authority" (29).
The Europsy team is also developing a marketing policy, a policy for the dissemination of its objectives, using the notion of "valorisation": it is a matter of "the process of enhancing or optimising project outcomes through experimentation and exploitation with a view to increasing their value and impact" (30).
As such, an experiment is currently being conducted in six countries in order to proceed to the registration and certification of those holding the title of psychologist. The EFPA in fact wants "the experiment to be extended to the thirty-two countries where it has a base in 2008" (31).
It also intends to deliver a professional card, we are told, "conforming to what is planned in the European directive. 2005/36/EC". Will it discover that the fervour of the European Commission is diminishing?
Indeed, contrary to what the EFPA and the FFPP hoped, the Commission published a directive in 2005 - 2005/36/CE - which stipulates in its article 15 that "the competence of the member States" to determine "the qualifications required for the practice of professions on their territory", "the content and the organisation of their systems of teaching and of professional training" is not affected by the possibility for organisations to present communal "platforms" to the said Commission (32).
These "platforms", such as Europsy for psychologists, cannot thus claim to impose themselves from the outset to the member States of the European Union. The ambition of Europsy extends, in any case, well beyond Europe. Eastern Europe is evoked in the activity report of 2005: Russia, Romania, Serbia… (33). Other sources quote Canada, the Mediterranean region, or more widely the Commonwealth: New Zealand and Australia, for example (34).
Europsy is thus pursuing objectives that surpass by far the framework of the recognition of diplomas in the European framework or the sole quality of its members.
No doubt, we can hope that the demand for transparency that the authors of the project press upon individuals will make a return on them… It is the duty of psychologists to contribute to this. In doing so, they will be keeping themselves informed, with precision, of what is at stake in this programme, a programme that defines a veritable politic whose consequences will bear down on their practice.
Let's question ourselves: in what way will you be held to an obligation when it was a matter from the outset of giving you a right, of providing the recognition of diplomas in Europe whilst respecting existing diversity and the autonomy of institutions?
The idea of creating an "Ordre des psychologies" in France, currently being discussed, would do well to be rethought in the context of these coordinates, which have been, until now, left in the dark.
Translated from the French by Victoria Woollard
- Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the European Region, Lisbon, 11.IV.1997 :http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/165.htm]
- [TN : The SNP, 'Société National des Psychologues', is the French national society of psychologists.]
- Lécuyer Roger, EuroPsy, certification européenne en psychologie, FFPP, 12 10 06, http://www.ffpp.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=189
- http://www.efpa.eu/europsy/booklet
- Roe Robert A. : Europsy development and state of affairs, doc-1082.ppt, p 21
- http://www.efpa.be/doc/2005_2007EFPAActivityPlan.pdf, page 5 [TN : Translated from the French. See p. 38 of the English version of the Europsy booklet]
- Ibid.supra, European Diploma in Psychology, p. 38
- EFPA, Optimal standards for professional training in psychology, point 7.9
- Bulletin Psychologues et psychologie, Normes de formation pour les psychologues se spécialisant en psychothérapie recommandées par l'EFPA, n° 160, p. 66-68
- Lécuyer Roger, Ibid supra.
- [PDF] EFPA STANDING COMMITTEE ON PSYCHOTHERAPY Convenor : DAVID LANE ...http://www.efpa.be/doc/SCPsychotherapyreporttoGAGranada2005.pdf Format de fichier: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Version HTML, page 19.
- Ibid. supra, Point 5.4, page 15
- PDF European Diploma in Psychology, Ibid. supra, page 3
- 2005_2007 EFPA Activity Plan. Format de fichier: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Version HTMLhttp://www.efpa.be/doc/2005_2007EFPAActivityPlan.pdf, page 3
- [PDF] EFPA STANDING COMMITTEE ON PSYCHOTHERAPY, voir supra, page 29.
- [TN: See: http://www.psychologuesfreudiens.org/]
- PDF European Diploma in Psychology, Ibid. supra, page 36 in the English version
- Ibid.
- Miller J.-A., Milner J.-C. : " Voulez-vous être évalué ? ", Editions Grasset, 2004, page 15-16.
- Ibid. supra, page 60.
- PDF European Diploma in Psychology, Ibid. Supra, p. 7 in the English version. [TN: the French text differs somewhat from the original English text which runs as follows: "To the degree that the standard implied in the basic EuroPsy is felt to be meaningful in different national settings, it is hoped that it will be taken into account in future changes of licensing regulations."].
- Ibid, page 30. [TN: Again, this differs somewhat from the original English text which runs as follows: "The overall purpose of practising as a professional psychologist is to develop and apply psychological principles, knowledge, models and methods in an ethical and scientific way in order to promote the development, well-being and effectiveness of individuals, groups, organisations and society."]
- Ibid, p. 20.
- Levy-Leboyer Claude : "La motivation dans l'entreprise ", Modèles et stratégies, Edition d'Organisation, 1998 ethttp://www.cnam.fr/lipsor/dso/articles/fiche/levy.html
- " The european diploma in psychology (EuroPsy) and the future of the profession in Europe ", Tikkanen T. , 2003, Status_o_profession_2003.pdf. The Present Status and Future Prospects of the Profession of ...http://www.efpsa.org/pdf/NEWS_tikkanen.pdf
- Bartram Dave: http://www.intestcom.org/itc2004/speakers.html
- European Psychologist Abstracts Tuomo A.J. Tikkanen http://www.efpsa.org/pdf/NEWS_tikkanen.pdf
- [DOC] Valorisation Guidance Note http://www.europe-education-formation.fr/docs/Leonardo/Valorisation-Guidance-Note-Leonardo-EN.doc Format de fichier: Microsoft Word,page 44
- PDF European Diploma in Psychology, Ibid . supra, Article 18, page 12 [TN : The English version runs: "A National Awarding Committee that in the opinion of the European Awarding Committee does not work in accordance with these Regulations shall have its delegated authority removed by the European Awarding Committee, until the failure to observe the Regulations has been remedied".]
- Valorisation Guide Note, voir supra, page 10
- Lécuyer Roger, FFPP, 12 10 06, Ibid. supra
- Ibid supra, article 15
- 2005_2007 EFPA Activity Plan. Page 4
- Valorisation Guide Note, see supra, page 44.
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