Masaryk University Autumn 2017 Psychotherapy: Theory, practice and research 15^th December 2017 Psychotherapy in Ukraine: short outline. Psychotherapy and its development is relevant topic currently in Ukraine. Psychotherapy is poorly justified by law and government, which leads to the lack of control on activity of psychotherapists and this way to huge amount of nonprofessional’s, who provides “psychotherapy” services. To fully present a current situation in the field of psychotherapy in Ukraine we need to go through its policy. First, we will look on governmental policy, which is represented by relatively old order “On Approval of the Procedure for the Application of Methods of Psychological and Psychotherapeutic Impact” (2008). It gives very general description of psychotherapy and does not provide any regulation on it. Due to the lack of governmental control there are several private and independent organization in Ukraine that manage psychotherapeutic policy in their own way. The most respected and well-known are: · Ukrainian Umbrella Association of Psychotherapy - representative of European Association for Psychotherapy European Association for Psychotherapy, who have more than 100 approved psychotherapists. · Ukrainian Society of Psychotherapists - member of the, who have near 300 approved psychotherapists. Of course, there are much more organization that is not representatives of some major European organization. But paying attention to the numbers we can see that compartment with population (45 millions of people) shows us a sad picture. I do believe that the main problem is not lack of professional accredited psychotherapists, but numerous amount of people who provides so called “psychotherapy” even without any psychological or medical education. Obviously not all those people are frauds, some of them are decent and well-known professionals[C1] , but it`s relatively hard to get any kind of accreditation for psychotherapists today. According to an information above we would highlight first problem in field of psychotherapy in Ukraine – lack of legal framework. Currently there many [C2] institutions that somehow connected with psychotherapy. Some of them provides psychotherapy courses of psychologists, so they can use it as an additional tool in their practice. Others provides teaching that is called to make students psychotherapists and they are rarely connected with any major European institutions. We will look closer on this situation with a help of an example. In Ukraine exists Ukrainian association of cognitive-behavior therapy and they are valid accredited member of the European Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. This organization is the biggest one in Ukraine that provides teaching and accreditation on behavioral and cognitive therapy. They have pretty much a monopoly and manage rules and requirements for accreditation themselves. Situation like that is much better in case of nonexistence of legal framework, but still make everyone who wants to become to psychotherapists or to attend psychotherapy sessions dependent on organization rules and prices. This section above is directly related to the question of legal framework lack [C3] and gives broader understanding of a disorganized state of psychotherapy field in Ukraine. Outlining situation with psychotherapy we cannot avoid mentioning dominant approaches, which present in Ukraine today. Psychodynamic Therapy. Since 1994, 5-year training projects for group analysis have begun. They were provided under the auspices of the Ukrainian Union of Psychotherapists (USP. 2017). Also in 1999 began the formation of the Jungian analysis. (IAAP. 2017). There are analysts who have received education in Austria and Germany. Represented by the International Institute of Deep Psychology and Ukrainian Society of Psychotherapists, that was also mentioned above. Cognitive and behavioral therapy. Newer approach than psychodynamic, actively developing in the last 10 years (Ukrainian association of cognitive-behavior therapy. 2017).[C4] Gestalt therapy. It can be called the most popular [C5] method in Ukraine, developing due to numerous projects and schools, mainly under the auspices of the Ukrainian branch of the Moscow Gestalt Institute Client Centered Therapy. This direction has been actively developing since 2000 in the Kharkov master school of client-centered psychotherapy (All-Ukrainian Institute of Client-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy. 2017) and the Kiev school of psychotherapy (Curriculum for psychotherapists. 2017). Transactional analysis. It is developed through the educational projects of the Ukrainian Association of Transactional Analysis, in which leading experts from the US and Europe taught (Trainers who teach at UATA. 2017). Psychodrama. This direction is popular, developing since 1995 in the framework of the educational project "Truskavets 1". Then in 1996 a psychodramatic training project was launched in Kiev under the auspices of the European Institute of Psychodrama and in 1999 a psychodrama school was established in Kiev under the auspices of the Moscow Institute of Gestalt and Psychodrama (P. Gornostay. 2008). As we can understand from the information above - psychotherapy is widely, but wildly represented in Ukraine. However, it has appeared not long time ago due to the history of psychology development. We will look closer to this question in the next section. Due to the lack of psychotherapy background in history of psychology development [C6] in Ukraine, research on psychotherapy are not systematized and multidirectional. But there are several key figures we would mention: T.S. Gurlyeva and Z.G. Kisarchuk. They both are members of Institute of Psychology named after G.S. Kostyuk. Main Z.G. Kisarchuk direction of studies in the field of psychotherapy relates to socio-cultural factors of psychotherapy usage, especially in domestic conditions of Ukraine. T.S. Gurlyeva has close interests in psychotherapy. Her studies also related to socio-cultural factors and to usage of mass media in popularizing psychotherapy. Almost everything that happens in psychotherapy field in Ukraine comes from abroad, due to the same reason we mentioned above – poor presence of psychotherapy in history of Ukrainian psychology and lack of time for developing current approaches. That made psychotherapy dependent from foreign mentors, which is not bad thing by itself, but make psychotherapy teaching expensive and not easy accessible. Conclusion. Situation in the field of psychotherapy in Ukraine seems to be kind of uncertain. I would describe the current state of it as an early development stage. Psychotherapy is present in Ukraine, but it lacks many things we went through in this essay: legal framework, accessibility and prevalence, specifically Ukrainian research and methodology. However, current psychotherapy professionals in Ukraine are aware about those problems. So, we can consider Ukraine as a promising field of psychotherapy development. The main goal for psychotherapy society in Ukraine right now is to create an productive atmosphere for future development[C7] . Sources 1. About us. Standards of training. [Electronic resource] / Access mode: http://gestalt.org.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71&Itemid=86 2. All-Ukrainian Institute of Client-Centered and Experiential Psychotherapy. About us. [Electronic resource] / Access mode: http://pca.kh.ua/about/trainers. 3. Curriculum for psychotherapists (direction - client-centered psychotherapy). [Electronic resource] / Access mode: http://www.kappp.com.ua/skoolterapy/progrcct.html 4. Gornostay P. Psychodrama in Ukraine: pages of history // Psi: Conscious about the unconscious. - 2008. - No. 1 (2). - P. 3536. [Electronic resource] / Access mode: http://users.i.com.ua/~p_gorn/publ57.htm 5. Kiev group of development IAAP. History and modernity. 2012 [Electronic resource] / Access mode: http://www.jungians.kiev.ua/index.php?page=devgroup%2Fkgroup 6. Order: On Approval of the Procedure for the Application of Methods of Psychological and Psychotherapeutic Impact / [Electronic resource] / Access mode: http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/z0577-08 7. Ukrainian association of cognitive-behavior therapy. 2017 http://www.uacbt.org.ua/accreditation/ 8. Section of group psychoanalysis USP. 2012 / [Electronic resource] / Access mode: http://www.usp.lviv.ua/?lang=ua&modul=about&id=s_gruppsyh 9. Trainers who teach at UATA. [Electronic resource] / Access mode: http://www.uata.org.ua/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=191 ________________________________ [C1]I see. There are similar situations in various countries... It looks that it is realy the result of bad « policy » [C2]? there are ? [C3]Repeatedly said L [C4]To me, more info would be needed and appreciated !! [C5]It is interesting news and I can see it, because the popularity of gestalt theryp increased in the two last decades in many countriers. It could be good question : why ? [C6]It is not well understandable. What do you mean with the term background ? [C7]However, it is poor contribution to the mapping of the field. It could be / should be more informative and more in detail written. Essay enables the subjective explanations, but it should be built on more fundamental knowledges. I accept the text, but to become close to the article about psychotherapy in Ukraine, it should be longer and sofisticated contribution ! Grade D.