Task Forces and Working Groups

Psychotherapy Group

Report
EFPPA PSYCHOTHERAPY GROUP
General Assembly Rome, July 10 - 11, 1999

Members of the Group

• Christine Butschek, BÖP

• Adele Kosviner, BPS

• Philippe Grosbois, ANOP

• Tuomo Tikkanen, SPL

• Milos Slepecky, SKP

• Katharina Althaus, FSP, CONVENOR

  Correspondent member: Laszlo Pota (BDP)

Meetings

The Group held two meetings :

• 19th September 98 in Helsinki

• 6th March 99 in Marseille

Terms of Reference and Objectives

The following objectives were agreed by the Group at its 1st meeting:

• To establish psychotherapy as a specialism within psychology

• To implement EFPPA Training Standards for Psychologists specializing in Psychotherapy

• To develop proposals for quality control

• To develop proposals for consumer protection

• To encourage standards in audit and research

• To promote collaboration in psychotherapy training

• To encourage and monitor the development of psychotherapy

• To communicate about psychotherapy

In the first meeting, the Group decided to prioritise the implementation of EFPPA Training Standards for Psychologists specializing in Psychotherapy.

To collect information about progress to date, a questionnaire was distributed to member associations. The Group, then , proposed that a contact person ("correspondent") be designated by each member association. This "correspondent" would act as a link between the Group (or the future Standing Committee) and the member association.

At its second meeting the Group refined its objectives and outlined an action plan to achieve them. It is outlined below.

Standing Committee on Psychotherapy

The Psychotherapy Group is very much in favour of a Standing Committee on Psychotherapy. It has discussed how this body should be constituted and proposes that the Standing Committee should consist of between 5-8 members. Care should be taken to insure both geographical representation and representation of different degrees of development of psychotherapy within countries. The Standing Committee should closely collaborate not only with EFPPA EC, but also with the "Correspondents" in EFPPA member associations.

Action Plan for EFPPA

In the field of psychotherapy after the creation of a Standing Committee on Psychotherapy

Proposals for the General Assembly in Rome, July 1999.

Mission Statement I: To ensure that EFPPA member organisations are helped to establish appropriate standards in quality control, professional development and consumer protection within the field of psychotherapy

Mission Statement II: To monitor political developments in the regulation and/or remuneration of psychotherapy in EFPPA member countries and in the EU and to communicate about psychotherapy matters particularly within political and other public circles

OBJECTIVES

With respect to mission statement I:

• To communicate about psychotherapy within EFPPA

• To implement EFPPA Training Standards

• To develop proposal for quality control

• To develop proposals for the development of psychotherapy within the profession of psychology

• To develop proposals for consumer protection

• To develop proposals for insuring direct public access to psychologists specializing in psychotherapy

 

With respect to mission statement II:

 

• To collate information about psychotherapy

   

• To disseminate information and policy statements about psychotherapy

   

• To collaborate with other bodies concerned with psychotherapy

ACTION PLAN

1. Communication about psychotherapy within EFPPA

As it has proved difficult to disseminate information within EFPPA member organizations and to get responses from them, the first step is the establishment of reliable communication channels. The standing committee will seek to establish links with named individuals within each member country who have been designated by their member organisation as the person responsible for receiving and disseminating information concerning European psychotherapy issues within their organisation, and who has a mandate to speak on behalf of the Association in reporting relevant information to the Standing Committee.

2. Implementation of EFPPA Training Standards

 

• To obtain feedback concerning implementation

   

• To function as a resource forum to enable member countries to implement EFPPA standards

   

• To encourage the publication of EFPPA standards for wider distribution

 

3. Quality control

• To encourage the development and implementation of common standards in the audit of practice and outcome in psychotherapy

   

• To develop guidelines for assessment and treatment that ensure research findings are appropriately taken into account

   

• To develop a common EFPPA data base as a resource to member countries.

The Standing Committee would collate information and draw up

(1) An ongoing data base of the research literature

(2) Protocols or templates of good practice to support the development of services along lines approved by EFPPA.

• To encourage an enriching reciprocation between research, training and clinical protocols.

   

• To develop a forum for the exchange of training requested and training offered, between member organisations. Any training offered would meet EFPPA standards.

   

• To encourage lifelong supervision and Continuing Professional Development (CPD), linked to standards that may differ according to the psychotherapy model.

 

4. Professional Development

• To establish in member associations that psychotherapy is a specialism within the science and profession of psychology

   

• To encourage and monitor the development of psychotherapy in member associations, in professional practice and in science.

   

• To communicate about psychotherapy issues within EFPPA, within member associations and within Europe

 

5. Consumer Protection

• To encourage the development of appropriate ethical guidelines and procedures

   

• To ensure the public is offered a professionally appropriate, safe and effective service, based on appropriate choice and professionally assessed need and in accordance with scientific developments

 

6. Direct access to psychotherapy

To develop proposals to ensure the general public have direct access to all appropriate psychotherapies provided by psychologists (such access not being prejudiced by financial, demographic or geographical factors).

7. Collate information about psychotherapy matters

• To collate information about developments in political, legal, and/or social insurance issues from member associations .

   

• To collate information about initiatives undertaken or planned by other bodies concerned with psychotherapy, whether sympathetic or unsympathetic to the aims of EFPPA.

   

• To draw EFPPA ECs attention to possible necessary political initiatives in the field of psychotherapy

 

8. Disseminate information and policy statements about psychotherapy

• To publish EFPPA Training Standards as a policy statement.

   

• To establish in member associations and within Europe that psychotherapy is a specialism within the science and profession of psychology

   

• To communicate about psychotherapy matters on an ongoing basis within Europe. This would include information about training standards; standards to ensure consumer protection and quality control; relevant scientific developments and political issues relating to psychotherapy

   

• To disseminate information about the work of EFPPA in the field of psychotherapy

 

9. Collaboration with other bodies concerned with psychotherapy

• To collaborate with other bodies concerned with the dissemination of research findings into clinical practice and training

   

• To seek communalities with other bodies active in the field of psychotherapy and foster collaboration where appropriate and possible

 

 

May 1999

Katharina Althaus

Convenor

 

NOTE: The General Assembly Rome 1999 has established an EFPPA Standing Committee on Psychotherapy following this Report´s Action Plan.

Update: 1.4.2000

Traffic Psychology Group

Report
Traffic Psychology Group
General Assembly Rome, July 10 - 11, 1999

1. Goals

Traffic psychologists have to concentrate on two goals:

Goal 1

In connection with drivers licensing, the position of psychology has to be clarified: There is a field that has to do with psychological topics like driver attitudes, performance, mental health problems connected to orroncous learning processes, post-traumatic syndromes, etc. That, however, in many countries is taken care of by medical doctors. Only in some countries (to my knowledge Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain) are psychologists involved, although these aspects belong to the psychological sphere, to a large degree. Also, most working places are to be found in this area (drivers' diagnostics), together with psychological rehabilitation work ("driver improvement" in, e.g., Austria, France, Germany).

These working places are to be protected: there have been official papers in Brussels, dealing with these areas, where the word "psychology" did not appear. So it is a matter of first priority, to defend these working places when new regulations are issued by the European Commission. The next step is that psychologists get involved in the mentioned areas even in those countries where they aren't working in the field, yet. To achieve this, research projects (e.g., to prove validity of psychological methods) have to be carried out, that need international co-operation. At the same time, the distributionof existing know-how in the area to relevant people has to be seen to, and lobbying has to be added. After all, no important decisions are based exclusively on facts: There are always different perspectives on things, and the interpretation of facts is to a large extent a matter of clever argumentation and of power.

Goal 2

New technology is introduced at an increasing speed in the field of traffic and transport. Official institutions know of experience that this will cause problems. Thus, parallel to research that should lead to new equipment and new systems ("in order to be able to compete with the US and with Japan"), the topics of "user needs" and "sustainability" are mentioned and underlined in connection with virtually every project in the area of traffic and transport that is paid by the Commission. For the moment, both user needs and sustainability are defined and tackled more or less exclusively by engineers, as if they were objective, technical things (the government tells the citizen, what is sustainable). I stress that these two areas - user needs and sustainability - have to be taken care of interdisciplinarily, that psychologists should play a leading role in this connection, and that we - and only we - have the methods tro deal with the subjective side of these aspects in a scientifically adequate way. All efforts of colleagues in this area should be supported.

2. Possible working methods of the traffic psychologists in EFPPA

First of all, it has to be made sure that colleagues agree that the mentioned two goals are the most relevant ones. Maybe, goals are completed and/or changed in the first phase of co-operation (although experiences so far would not lead to such a conclusion).

After that, four main activities of such a group can be foreseen:

1. Collecting and forwarding information about both scientific and lobbying activities in the mentioned areas (e-mail be a natural channel to be used for this)
2. Getting active when official activities are obviously to the disadvantage of the psychological discipline (letters to, but even meetings with, official persons and institutions)
3. Networking when research projects in the mentioned areas are called for, supporting co-operation with other disciplines, finding partners of our discipline in other countries
4. One annual meeting

For such a group to become effective, a formal structure is necessary, but it is not enough. Motivation is necessary on the members' side. Such a motivation has developed very clearly in the former Task force, and it kept becoming stronger. It is the optimistic conclusion that it will start developing again as soon as there is an official structure installed.

Ralf Risser

Traffic Psychology Group

June 1999

Standing Committees

Tests and Testing

Presentation

The current EFPA Standing Committee on Tests and Testing has its origins in the previous Task Force on Tests and Testing that the EFPA General Assembly had established in the Athens meeting, 1995. The Task Force was renewed in 1997, and then in 1999 (Rome), the Task Force was transformed into the Standing Committee. During these past years the Task Force has developed different projects and actions in order to improve tests and testing in Europe.

Following the path initiated by the Task Force in 1996, the main goal of the Standing Committee will be to continue organizing and promoting actions aimed at improving testing practices in Europe. The first meeting of the Standing Committee took place in London, March 23rd, 2000, the second in Stockholm, July 25th, 2000, the third was held in London, July the second, 2001, and the fourth one will take place in Winchester, England, June 15th.

Standing Committee on Tests and Testing
European Federation of Psychologists Associations EFPA
Convenor : José Muniz

Testing Practices in European Countries

José Muñiz1, Dave Bartram2, Arne Evers3, Dusica Boben4, Kruno Matesic5 ,  Kathia Glabeke6, José R.  Fernández-Hermida7, Jac N. Zaal3

EFPA Standing Committee on Tests and Testing1, British Psychological Society2, Dutch Association of Psychologists3, Slovenian Psychological Association4, Croatian Psychological Association5, Belgian Federation of Psychologists6, Spanish Psychological Association7 

__________________________

Address correspondence to:
José Muñiz
Facultad de Psicología
Universidad de Oviedo
Plaza Feijoo, s/n
33003 Oviedo (Spain)

E-mail: jmuniz@correo.uniovi.es

Test Adaptation Guidelines ITC

(April 21, 2000 Version)

 

Context

C.1      Effects of cultural differences, which are not relevant or important to the main purposes of the study, should be minimized to the extent possible. 

C.2      The amount of overlap in the constructs in the populations of interest should be assessed.

Test Development and Adaptation

D.1      Test developers/publishers should insure that the adaptat­ion process takes full account of linguistic and cultural differences among the populations for whom adapted versions of the instrument are intended.

D.2      Test developers/publishers should provide evidence that the language use in the directions, rubrics, and items themselves as well as in the handbook are appropriate for all cultural and language populations for whom the instrument is intended.

D.3      Test developers/publishers should provide evidence that the choice of testing techniques, item formats, test conventions, and procedures are familiar to all intended populations.

D.4      Test developers/publishers should provide evidence that item content and stimulus materials are familiar to all intended populations.

D.5      Test developers/publishers should implement systematic judgmental evidence, both linguistic and psychological, to improve the accuracy of the adaptation process and compile evidence on the equivalence of all language versions.

D.6      Test developers/publishers should ensure that the data collection design permits the use of appropriate statistical techniques to establish item equivalence between the different language versions of the instrument.

D.7      Test developers/publishers should apply appropriate statistical techniques to (1) establish the equivalence of the different versions of the instrument, and (2) identify problematic components or aspects of the instrument, which may be inadequate to one or more of the intended populations.

D.8      Test developers/publishers should provide information on the evaluation of validity in all target populations for whom the adapted versions are intended.

D.9      Test developers/publishers should provide statistical evidence of the equivalence of questions for all intended populations.

D.10    Non-equivalent questions between versions intended for different populations should not be used in preparing a common scale or in comparing these populations. However, they may be useful in enhancing content validity of scores reported for each population separately.

Administration

A.1      Test developers and administrators should try to anticipate the types of problems that can be expected, and take appropriate actions to remedy these problems through the preparation of appropriate materials and instructions. 

A.2      Test administrators should be sensitive to a number of factors related to the stimulus materials, administration procedures, and response modes that can moderate the validity of the inferences drawn from the scores.

A.3      Those aspects of the environment that influence the administration of an instrument should be made as similar as possible across populations for whom the instrument is intended.

A.4      Test administration instructions should be in the source and target languages to minimize the influence of unwanted sources of variation across populations.

A.5      The test manual should specify all aspects of the instrument and its administration that require scrutiny in the application of the test in a new cultural context.

A.6      The administrator should be unobtrusive and the administrator-examinee interaction should be minimized.  Explicit rules that are described in the manual for the test should be followed.

Documentation/Score Interpretations

I.1        When a test is adapted for use in another population, documentation of the changes should be provided, along with evidence of the equivalence.

I.2        Score differences among samples of populations administered the test should not be taken at face value.  The researcher has the responsibility to substantiate the differences with other empirical evidence.

I.3        Comparisons across populations can only be made at the level of invariance that has been established for the scale on which scores are reported. 

I.4        The test developer should provide specific information on the ways in which the socio-cultural and ecological contexts of the populations might affect performance on the test, and should suggest procedures to account for these effects in the interpretation of results.

European Legal Matters

REPORT
of the
Standing Committee
on European Legal Matters of EFPPA
to the delegates of EFPPA General Assembly
11-12th July 1999, Rome

This is a brief report on the work carried out by the EFPPA Standing Committee on European Legal Matters, established by the General Assembly at the occasion of the Dublin General Assembly in July 1997 for the purpose of dealing with European Legal Matters relevant to academically qualified psychologists.

The Standing Committee succeeds the former Task Force on European Legal Matters (1993-1997) and the Working Group on Brussels (1991-1993).

Three meetings of the Standing Committee took place since the last General Assembly, i.e.

in London, 5 September 1998
in Brussels, 18 December 1999 
in Brussels, 22 May 1999

Members and participants of the group and the meetings are:

EFPPA Member-Association	London Sept. 98	Brussels Dec. 99	Brussels May 99
D - Germany	Gerd Pulverich (convenor)	Gerd Pulverich	Gerd Pulverich
DK - Denmark	-	-	Jan Klit Jensen Peter Needergard
E - Spain	Carlos Rodriguez-Sutil	Carlos Rodriguez-Sutil
F - France			Alain Letuvé
FI - Finland	Vesa Nevalainen	Vesa Nevalainen	Vesa Nevalainen
NL - Netherlands	-	-	Rein Baneke
S - Sweden	Birgit Hansson	Birgit Hansson	Birgit Hansson
SK - Slovakia	-	-	-
UK - United Kingdom	Ingrid Lunt	Ingrid Lunt	Ingrid Lunt

 

Since the minutes of the meetings of the Standing Committee were sent to all EFPPA Member organisations, only a few topics dealt with by the Standing Committee, on which initiatives were undertaken, will be touched on here.

Tasks and aims of the Standing Committee

Changes in law in European countries

It was agreed that the Standing Committee should report to all Member Organisations about all changes in law in the individual countries in a written form, respectively to ask for reports and to send these reports to the EC and to the Member Organisations.

Action: The Standing Committee collects reports about changes in law relevant to psychological activities and informs the EC and the Member Associations.

Addiction program of EU

The Standing Committee had to realise that the EU had edited an addiction program without mentioning the profession and the competence of psychologists.

 

According to the opinion of the Standing Committee, it is very important that psychology and psychologists should be integrated within this programs. The activities of the Standing Committee with regard to this point are to be deferred for the time being, since the task of producing the 3rd Edition of the Inventory has priority.

Action: It seems to be sufficient that the individual Member Associations make their own efforts to be integrated within the program in their respective countries.

The Standing Committee will find out, whether and how far programs exist in the individual countries and whether in these national programs psychologists are involved.

1. It is suggested to the EC to inform the European Parliament about all governmental programmes, in which psychologists are involved and to plan an involvement of psychologists in the European Addiction Programme, accordingly.

    

2. It is suggested to the EC to inform the European Parliament about all governmental programs, in which psychologists are involved and to plan an involvement of psychologists in the European Addiction Program, accordingly.

EAP Certificate on European Psychotherapist

The European Association of Psychologists (EAP) issues an European Certificate on Psychotherapy and tries to co-ordinate this with the EU-Commission. EAP already had been invited by the EU-Commission and also by the group of co-ordinators of the EU member states and so had the opportunity to draw attention to the EAP Certificate.

 

Several Member Associations of EFPPA expressed their doubts regarding the Certificate, particularly the Austrian Association of Psychologists (BÖP). According to the resolution concerning Psychotherapy at the General Assembly in Dublin and the efforts of the "EFPPA Psychotherapy Group" chaired by Dr. Katharina Althaus an intervention to the EU-Commission is considered a necessity due to the following reasons:

A European Certificate for Psychotherapists has to guaranty the same entry qualifications concerning education and

must also be recognised amongst psychologists themselves.

It is considered essential that EFPPA should contact the EU-Commission directly.

Action: Based on the resolutions of Dublin and on the work of the EFPPA Psychotherapy Group a discussion with the EU-Commission should be conducted. It is suggested that members of the EC, of the Psychotherapy Group and a Member of the Standing Committee should take part in this dialogue.

Third Edition of Inventory on Regulations for Psychologists

On the suggestion of the EC, the third edition of the Inventory on Regulations for Psychologists in European countries should be published by the Standing Committee, and not by the Network of Secretaries General of EFPPA as it was published till now. The Secretaries General of EFPPA, their Member Associations respectively, already declared their agreement to the change in authorship. The Standing Committee prepared and edited a new questionnaire that was sent to all Member Associations. In future the Inventory also will contain a text, summarising the basic legal conditions for the work of psychologists in each country.

 

Unfortunately, the return date, April 30, 1999, was not observed by most Member Associations. Only six questionnaires had been returned by April 30, so that the Inventory cannot be published at the moment. The Member Associations will be reminded again to return the filled in questionnaires. The results of the first questionnaires sent back to us are attached to this report

Action: 1. The Standing Committee will publish the third Inventory on Regulations for Psychologists in European countries. The Member Associations will be given opportunity to add a short report to the Inventory about the basic legal conditions.

2. The members of the General Assembly will receive the returned questionnaires as a first information.

3. The Inventory will be distributed to all public institutions and should be made available to all governments by the Member Associations.

Final remarks

The following tasks will be to tackled and realised by the standing committee:

• Permanent monitoring of EC-documents and publication of compilation of EC-Directives of the past, which are of relevance to psychologists;
• Publication of the Inventory, third edition;
• A compilation of a catalogue of legal basic conditions to be demanded for the profession of psychologists and to become common standard in Europe.

It will be necessary that these projects have to be harmonised with the EC and to be co-ordinated with other task forces and other standing committees

Bonn, 17th of June 1999

Gerd Pulverich

Convenor

Ethics

Recommendations for teaching ethics for psychologists

The European Psychologist in forensic work and as expert witness

The provision of psychological services via the internet