Slovenia

Situation Psychotherapy in Slovenia

There is no law for psychotherapy in Slovenia, nor any other form of legal regulation of the profession of psychotherapy.

In the past, during the years 2006 and 2010 the Ministry of Health had formed the Working group for preparing the draft law. When the working group had finished its work by having created the draft, the Minister of Health changed and as the new Minister was not in favour of it, he ‘put it in the drawer’.

Since then there have been various attempts and intitatives to renew the process of creating legislation for psychotherapy. The situation within the professon has been constantly changing and as a result there are now three major professional organizations which try to provide for some kind of regulation in their ranks:

1. the Slovene NAO – the Slovene Umbrella Association for Psycotherapy (SKZP) which has collective membership and unites National Associations of different psycotherapeutic schools (reality therapy, gestalt therapy, psychodinamic psychotherapy, transactional anaylsis, transpersonal psychotherapy, systemic family psychotherapy, integrative therapy, integrative psychotherapy, logotherapy, psychoanalitic psychotherapy, psychodrama). Within our NAO we have created the Register of Holders of ECP and the Slovene Diploma for Psychotherapy. Recently, we have articulated the criteria for the continuous professional development on the basis of the EAP criteria, which now serve as the criteria for renewal of registration every 5 years.
2. the Association of Psycotherapists of Slovenia (ZPS). This association unites mainly but not solely clinical psychologists and psychiatrists who work within the National Health System and its membership is individual.In the past there was some co-operation between the two above mentioned organizations, but it was now put to a stop due to the change of leardership in the ZPS. Both organizations had their representatives in the above mentioned Working group in the Ministry of Health.
3. the Slovene Association of Psychotherapists and Counsellors (SZPS). This association has come into existence in 2017. It has inidividual membership and unites psychotherapists and counsellors with the background of psychotherapy and counselling trainings at the Universities (the Sigmund Freud University for Psychotherapeutic Science of Ljubljana; Theological Faculty of Ljubljana; the Faculty for Applicable Social Studies of Nova Gorica).

In the Spring this year (2017), the Ministry of Health sent to all professional organizations that it considers relevant for the field of psychotherapy (including the Slovene NAO) a requirement to choose their respresentative in the Working group for norming the field of psychotherapy. The group hasn’t met yet and this is as far as we have come regarding regulation so far.

Ljubljana, 10.11.2017

Tomaž Flajs
President of the Slovene NAO SKZP
by Slovenian Umbrella Association for Psychotherapy (SKZP)

www.skzp.org

Situation Psychotherapy in Slovenia 2017 (pdf, 78,1 KB)
Slovenia Situation of psychotherapy 2014 (pdf, 58,7 KB)