President of EATA 2013 until 2015

We find ourselves in a time of transition: the European TA Community has grown greatly during the first decade of this century. It changed deeply its characteristics and moved from a community of psychotherapists to a largely differentiated one: with educators, counsellors and organizational consultants.

These changes are quite different in the various countries: some of our national associations are still largely psychotherapeutic communities, while in others the presence of psychotherapists is greatly reduced or almost disappeared.

Meanwhile, the scientific world has changed and demands more and more proof of efficacy for the psychological approaches.

Another aspect is that the globalization requires that Europe considers itself a part of a larger network, and that a policy of TA development is interconnected with other countries and continents.

For these reasons, the main challenges during my presidency were (and still are, in my opinion) how to promote democracy, participation and cooperation in a complex community with different needs and perspectives; how to keep it close to our roots, in order to preserve a deep sense of belonging with our original values and culture and the vivid fire of Berne’s intuitions; how to promote research to validate TA and ensure it a sound place in the scientific and academic world; and finally how to develop common policies with the ITAA and other non-European TA associations.

I think these challenges will be at the horizon of our next decades. The ways to deal with them will determine the future of EATA and of TA itself in Europe.