Humanistic Psychotherapy in Germany

Report of a blockade

Abstract

Five years ago, the German «Scientific Advisory Board on Psychotherapy» (WBP) not only rejected Humanistic Psychotherapy as a «scientifically recognized procedure» in an expert opinion, but even withdrew the «recommendation for advanced training» from Person-centered Psychotherapy – an approach which had already been recognized by the WBP in 2002. After initial protests by many scientists and institutions against this evaluation, a standstill must be reported. The WBP evades discourses about this critique and the evaluation complained. This paper takes the 5-year anniversary as an opportunity to provide a report of the contexts and circumstances of this blockage of Humanistic Psychotherapy in Germany. This is because many are unfamiliar with this German administrative regulatory framework. The report focuses on publications after 2018. For it is becoming increasingly clear that the German ideology of strictly separated approaches, whose «scientificity» must be proven exclusively by experimental RCT studies with regard to specific factors, does not stand up to findings from international psychotherapy research. Increasingly, research supports a view which has prevailed especially by Wampold since 2001, according to which contextual factors in particular contribute significantly to the success of therapy. These are above all aspects that play a central role in Humanistic Psychotherapy. The article concludes with the hope that the WBP will register these discourses and come to a changed evaluation of Humanistic Psychotherapy.