Forum Meetings and Symposia

Forum Meetings

FORUM meetings are held twice a year over a weekend, hosted by one of the FORUM organisations.

FORUM members are required:

To send a delegate to the FORUM meeting, or if this is not possible, to send an apology for absence. Members who have not attended for a year, nor sent apologies, are contacted and asked to rectify the situation. Continued non-attendance or non-payment of fees after two years results in the organisation forfeiting their FORUM membership, and also thereby any FORUM and EABP accreditation of their training, or endorsement of their professional activities.
To attend one meeting in each calendar year.

The FORUM meetings decide upon issues relating to the training and accreditation of body psychotherapy training institutes. Topics that are discussed at the meetings include membership matters, the implementation of EABP Training Standards, accreditation procedures, relationships with the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) and National organisations (NUO/NAO), codes of ethics, research programmes in body psychotherapy, continuing professional education, eventual joint projects in the future and refining any relevant regulations.

The FORUM elects its own Chairperson, who is a full voting member of the EABP

Board. S/he represents the interests of the FORUM there and informs the FORUM about issues that affect it. The EABP General Assembly ratifies this nomination to the EABP Board.

Currently a three-person Executive committee (PDF) heads the FORUM and one of these, Stefan Bischof is the FORUM representative to the EABP board.

The FORUM also sends an independent representative to meetings of the EAP.

FORUM finances

The EABP Treasurer maintains FORUM income and costs separately from EABP central funds and presents accounts and budgets to the FORUM annually.

Meeting costs, circulation of minutes, payment for printing of FORUM booklets and information, postage and secretariat costs and small contributions to other EABP costs (website, Training Standards Committee) directly relating to the FORUM are paid for by FORUM membership fees.

Decisions about other expenditure from FORUM fees are a matter for the FORUM meetings, and subject to a vote.

The FORUM membership fees do not include travel, accommodation and meals for participants. Only the FORUM Secretary is compensated for attending the meetings. Arrangements are usually made to keep these costs as low as possible.

FORUM Voting Procedure

All fully paid-up member organisations of the FORUM have one vote at FORUM meetings, which they may also assign to another organisation's representative (proxy voting).

Motions or resolutions passed by a simple majority vote at these FORUM meetings are taken directly to the Board of EABP, which is advised to take cognisance of these opinions and to respond suitably by the next FORUM meeting.

Forum Symposia

In the first six years of the FORUM's existence the participants developed a greater openness to each other and a wish to share how each works and what theories lie behind the many different approaches and viewpoints.

For this reason the twice-yearly political and organizational meetings were expanded from two to three days so that one whole day is dedicated to showing, presenting, sharing and dialoguing about different methods and approaches.

One or two institutes present their work followed by discussion on theory and method, providing excellent opportunities for in-depth professional exchange. As institutes come from many European countries, their teachers have very varied backgrounds, languages and cultures, and combined with different body psychotherapy modalities, this often brings quite opposing views. However there is an atmosphere of inquiry, a vigorous exchange of theory and methodology and the institutes are slowly become familiar with each other's approaches and are moving towards more common ground.

Some of the themes that have been discussed in 2007, 2008 and 2009 are:

Jerome Liss gave a presentation based on his article: Vertical Brain Mechanisms for Understanding Conscious, Unconscious and Non-Conscious Knowledge
How Neuropysiological Maps Justify the Different Schools of Psychotherapy
Irit Peleg (Reidman International College for Body-Centered Psychotherapy, Tel-Aviv, Israel) gave a presentation on the research that she did with some hospital patients.
Death and Dying and how we deal with this in our body psychotherapy practice Ð Bettina Schroeter from the Aus- und Fortbildungszentrum Transformative Koerperpsychotherapie, Berlin, Germany
Psychotherapy and the Spiritual Dimension Ð Thomas Riepenhausen Asas e Ra’zes, Terapia e Forma�‹o Lda, Porto, Portugal
Ethical guidelines on Touch Ð Markku VŒlimŒki, Finnish Institute of Character Analytic Vegetotherapy, Helsinki, Finland
What works really in our therapeutic work? Beyond the books, the advertising brochures etc., with all our decades of experience in therapeutic work and training ... what do we still believe in, what are we disappointed at, tired of, resigned about? Bettina Schroeter

Members are all finding this an extremely important way of getting to know how the different institutes actually work, what they are 'standing' for specifically and what inspires and provokes the foundation of each institute. This is definitely a way to expand our view about body psychotherapy, and to increase the understanding of and the respect for each other. It is greatly appreciated by all who participate.

Next meetings

2013

26-28 April Tel Aviv, Israel
Hosted by Reidman International College for Body-Centered Psychotherapy
4-6 October Rome, Italy
Hosted by SIAR Società Italiana di Analisi Reichiana
2014
25-27 April Strasbourg, France
IFCC, Institut de Formation en Communication et Thérapie Psycho-Corporelle

Training