report from the Venice conference
On October 26, the conference “Psychological therapies for anxiety and depression: new forms of clinical and organizational integration“, Event chaired by prof. Paolo Michielin and Dr. Novara and organized by the Consensus Conference on psychological therapies for anxiety and depression, a working group founded by Professor Enzo Sanavio that is spreading the knowledge and promotion of good psychotherapy practices based on evidence of done between mental health workers and users: psychologists, psychiatrists, territorial medicine, family associations and so on.
Advertisement The main speech of the conference was that of Prof. David Clark of Oxford University and IAPT Program Consultant (Improve access to psychological therapies) a health program that performed a similar function to the Consensus in the British health service. In his presentation, Clark described the historical path of the IATP, a program that has received very rich state funding and has been designed specifically for British healthcare. After discovering, Clark recommended that the IATP be considered an inspiration and not a model to be pedestrially imitated. Surely the IATP has reached a unique level of achievement, having had the full support of the state, while the Consensus performs more a function of promotion, encouragement and dissemination of a culture that gives confidence to psychotherapy of proven effectiveness.
Before Clark spoke the President of the National Institute of Health, prof. Silvio Brusaferro, which in turn has the wealth of information on the historical path and objectives of the Consensus. Born from a conference organized by prof. Ezio Sanavio and dedicated to the theme of efficacy proven in psychotherapy, the Consensus saw the participants in that congress consolidate themselves in a working group. After looking at the United Kingdom and Italy, finally, the intervention of Dr. Roberto Mezzina of the Program Development World Federation for Mental Health provided insight into the World Health Organization (WHO) mental health programs and reports around the world.
Subsequent interventions presented various reasons and data in favor of the adoption and dissemination of these good practices in the Italian health service. The Prof. Giovanni de Girolamo of the Fatebenefratelli of Brescia spoke of the degree of confirmation of efficacy psychotherapies supported by evidence-based evidence. His was the only partially dissonant voice, expressing some critical arguments against the factual evidence coming from the literature of the relational-contextual paradigm as it was baptized by prof. Bruce Wampold, a paradigm that seems to be opposed to the medical-empirical one that, from Beck and Clark onwards, instead supports the goodness of the evidence. In truth, Di Girolamo also ended up criticizing the workhorse of the relational-contextual paradigm, that is the centrality of the therapeutic alliance. His speech was therefore critical at 360 degrees, an attitude that on the one hand certainly stimulates critical thinking and intelligence but which perhaps was not entirely suitable for a conference that was to promote growth in confidence in empirical evidence encourage psychotherapies of proven efficacy.
The report of the Dr. Giuseppe Nicolò of the National College of Mental Health Departments which has the current state of adoption of good practices in the Italian health service. Similar interventions but dedicated to the populations of infancy and adolescence have carried out the Prof. Renata Tambelli of the Department of Dynamic, Clinical and Health Psychology of the “Sapienza” University of Rome, la Dr. Maria Antonella Costantino of the Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico of Milan and the Prof. Alessandra Simonelli of the University of Padua.
Advertisement The conference ended with a round table with some interventions by both health professionals and user and patient associations. During the round table the Dr. Moreno De Rossi of the College of Psychiatrists and University Clinics of Psychiatry of the Veneto told what they are the strengths of the medical-psychiatric and psychological-clinical model of the Italian health serviceor the multidisciplinarityor the presence of different specializations around the patient, the capillaritythat is the diffusion of these specializations on the territory and the transmuralitythat is, the easy communication between these different specializations.
Next to the operators, the representatives of patient and family associations who expressed their requests for a more widespread and more punctual service, such as the Italian Association for the protection of mental health, the National Union of Associations for Mental Health, the Italian League against anxiety, agoraphobia and panic disorders and the Association of Mental Health Volunteers. Finally, the central conference was closed by Prof. Sanavio, central exponent of the Consensus, who confirmed the mission and purpose of the Consensus, ie by promoting and promoting the culture of proven effective psychotherapy among operators and users. In addition to this conference, Consensus has published an online work that collects the state of the art of its mission and which you can find here: https://www.iss.it/documents/20126/0/Consensus_1_2022_IT.pdf
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