Welcome to our first EAP Newsletter edition for 2025.
This is another short newsletter with EAP updates, particularly about the EAP Board and General meetings in March as well as the next EAP -UUA Symposium which happens at a crucial time for Ukraine and for Europe. Moreover, some of you will have noticed that the EAP website has changed. EAP Vice President Catalin Zaharia offered his skills and expertise to help us rejuvenate the website. The new EAP website went 'live' at the start of 2025 to the delight of EAP officers and staff. While this development entails a necessary visual change (we did not own the legal rights to the previous website design), the most important changes are actually 'under the hood', namely in the much enhanced capacity to manage website based services improvements, for example introducing interactive features for EAP website users in future. But please be patient, the new EAP website is 'work in progress' and not everything will be available or quite function as intended straight away. In the meantime, please contact the EAP staff if you get stuck or cannot find a form document you require.
We hope you enjoy this Newsletter.
The EAP Newsletter Team
Anne Colgan, Andra Rampu, Tom Warnecke
EAP Governing Board, Annual General Meeting and Committee meetings
Sigmund Freud University,
Vienna 13 – 15 March 2025
All individual members and representatives or delegates of EAP member organizations are invited to join the meetings of the EAP Governing Board, Annual General Meeting, and EAP Committee meetings. Please inform the EAP office ( office@europsyche.org) if you are planning to attend the Board meetings as there may be space restrictions (sometimes we can get a larger space if known in advance). Attendance is not possible online on this occasion (but you may ask a colleague to help with transmission from their laptop, of course).
With the exception of the Executive Committee, meetings are usually open for all EAP members and delegates/representatives to attend as (non-voting) "guests". Some committees restrict participation to committee members for part of a meeting, e. g. to discuss confidential matters. Please contact the Chair of the committee you want to join directly.
This year, we also scheduled a meeting for individual EAP Members for Thursday 13 March, before the 1st Board meeting, as well as meeting for EAPTIs on Friday.
We hope to welcome you in Vienna.
Tom Warnecke,
EAP General Secretary
EAP Public Policy and "AI" Virtual Therapy
EAP guidance documents make important contributions to national public discourse, for example on the terms 'Parent Alienation Syndrome' (PAS) and 'Parental Alienation' (PA), see: https://www.europsyche.org/Psychotherapy/EAP-Position-Statement/Quality-Standards . PA and PAS are commonly argued by (usually unqualified) 'experts' in family courts and this EAP guidance is being put to good use to educate family courts and solicitors, or inform public debate, in several European countries we are told.
'AI' platforms and chat-bots have become a frequent item in current news. Psychotherapy related 'AI' news are no exception and reports range from 'AI assisted' therapy, to creating one own 'therapist avatar' or 'AI therapist bots''. Inevitably there is much debate and indeed some polarisation about the pros and cons of using of 'AI' tools in psychotherapy. But beyond such necessary discourse and debate, there are also occasional mentions of 'AI therapy services' in the news, namely propositions for autonomous 'AI therapists' or 'virtual psychotherapy' services.
'AI therapists' or 'virtual psychotherapy' services would present a crucial issue for EAP, particularly for ethical perspectives. The technology industry are not making the huge financial investments we are reading about for the sake of internet chat-bots. According to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, they aim to create 'virtual employees' to hire out, as Altman declared on 6th January 2025. Attempts to sell autonomous 'AI therapists' to national health services are apparently already made, by Microsoft for example. "Move fast and break things" is widely associated with Silicon Valley alongside assumptions that to create cutting edge technology, companies need to accept that things will get damaged in the process.
The issue of autonomous 'AI therapists' raises two primary areas of concern for EAP and for EAP's responsibility to provide guidance on quality and ethical standards:
- Ethical, accountability, client/patient's safety, as well as confidentiality issues.
- The capability of 'AI' to simulate or mimic human interactions for the purpose of therapeutic interventions and relationships.
Unlike autonomous 'virtual therapists', 'AI' tools are selected and managed by a psychotherapist for a particular purpose, and clinical responsibility and professionally accountability are not affected or diluted by such tools. The EAP Governing Board will have to carefully consider autonomous 'AI therapists' issues. According to news reports, there is already at least one suicide linked to a 'therapeutic AI' chat bot.
Technology develops at a fast pace and the EAP Governing Board should not delay discussing and developing an EAP position regarding autonomous virtual psychotherapy services, as a guidance document for instance. But we should also consider whether autonomous 'AI psychotherapy' can meet EAP's Ethical Principles?
Tom Warnecke
EAP General Secretary
Times of war and uncertainty: Mental exhaustion, loss, grief, and positive developments in psychotherapy
7th UUP and EAP Fifth Joint Online Symposium – 21 February 2025
Our Seventh Symposium will take place at the time of the third anniversary of the full scale war in Ukraine. This is a sombre moment - three years of war, so much loss of life, so many wounded and emotionally scarred, and at the moment there is no end of the war in sight. The world context within which the war is taking place has changed significantly with the inauguration ceremony of the new President of the United States. This adds new and anxiety provoking elements of uncertainty, which intensify the nature and impact of the war.
We asked those who have been attending our Symposiums regularly, and finding them so valuable, what would be a helpful focus for the Seventh Symposium. They said please talk about the mental exhaustion of war, the scale of loss and grief, and how to continue when we are exhausted, and also please give us some hope and something positive to take us forward and give us courage.
We considered this carefully and reflectively, and the realisation came to the Alliance who plan the Symposiums that it has been during times of war and uncertainty that Psychotherapy has made some significant advances. It was during the Vietnam war that Francine Shapiro developed the theory which underpins EMDR, and this was used extensively and effectively for Vietnam veterans; during the global Covid pandemic we developed the understanding of how to conduct Psychotherapy effectively online, and the whole profession shifted to working online to help those in need during the lockdown period; and now during the Ukraine war Psychotherapy has flourished, with many people coming forward to train as Psychotherapists and new techniques emerging. So indeed there is hope, and our seventh Symposium will cover both the cost and negative impact of times of war; and also the new shoots of hope and growth that spring up through the time of adversity.
EAP will financially support the Seventh Symposium, from the Mony Elkaim Fund. We cordially invite European Psychotherapists to join with Ukrainian Psychotherapists in this Seventh Symposium, as it is vital for our Ukrainian colleagues that they have the opportunity to be connected with, and in relationship with, colleagues from other European countries as they face their challenging lives in the present, and prepare for their future. The benefit is felt by both Ukrainian and European Psychotherapists!
To take part in this free event, it is necessary to register. Please register before 17.00 CET on Wednesday February 19th 2025 by contacting:
https://www.uasymposium.online
A certificate will be sent to you after the Symposium confirming your attendance.
We welcome you!
Patricia Hunt FRSA,
Chair of the Ukrainian and European Psychotherapy Alliance
How to contribute to the EAP Member Information / Newsletter
The EAP Newsletter team is asking for your active contribution to the EAP newsletter. Please download information about the Newsletter Policy and a document providing all instructions about formatting of your contributions. Our E-mail address for sending contributions: news@europsyche.org .IMPORTANT: If your information or article will likely be longer than 80 words, please provide an URL for a Read-More Link to link to your entire online published information.
Next EAP Governing Board Meetings and Events
21 February 2025: 7th UUP and EAP Fifth Joint Online Symposium - Times of war and uncertainty: Mental exhaustion, loss, grief, and positive developments in psychotherapy
This is a free online only event. For further details, please check the EAP website or the Symposium website: https://www.uasymposium.online/
13 – 15 March 2025: EAP Governing Board, Annual General Meeting and Committee meetings at the Sigmund Freud University in Vienna, Austria
16 – 18 October 2025: EAP Governing Board and Committee meetings in Prague, Czech Republic
The EAP Newsletter team
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