Introduction to the directory This booklet provides information on Arts Therapy Education Training Institutions for each Ecarte member country, in terms of educational guidelines, professional practice and professionalisation. You will find : • An overview of the professional and educational situation of Arts therapy in each country. • A presentation of the different courses with : Entry requirements Course philosophy Course contents Duration of studies Contact address Over the last 5 years, the Consortium has been enlarged all over Europe... Such an enlargement of partners reflects not only the growing interest that traditional institutions put on the significance on the preverbal in the treatment of psychiatric patients, but also the emergence of new client groups to which the arts therapy practices can give a new and relevant answer. However the professional context differs from one country to another. Some countries have already obtained a state recognition while others are still negotiating it. The development of nationally validated training gives impetus to a movement for greater professional credibility all the more so as a fruitful European collaboration at institutional level is bound to help the profession to achieve recognition. Even if we are all eager to promote arts therapists’ qualification, questions may be raised about the qualifications we refer to. Thus, an overview of the proposed training courses offers a great variety of approaches and levels depending on the institutions. The setting-up of the courses within the departments of arts, medicine, social sciences, education, psychology and others necessarily induce different orientations and theoretical backgrounds. Along with some institutions that propose psychoanalytic theories as their main orientation for example, most of them refer to several theoretical approaches. Besides, for some institutions, the necessity to have a personal psychotherapy or arts therapy is required from the students. This also highlights the questioning on the position of arts therapies among the other practices. Is arts therapy considered as a psychotherapeutic practice or not ? Nevertheless, most diploma titles are linked to a specific artistic identity. Some institutions do not specify the artistic medium used, others propose several. Most institutions agree on evidence of substantial practice and knowledge of art as one of the entry requirements. However, the role and the status of arts within the therapeutic relationship do not clearly appear. Between arts considered as autonomous processes or as mere means to achieve therapeutic goals, there exist a great variety of approaches to apprehend them. The Ecarte members propose four categories of diploma : Degree in Arts therapy whose levels could be different from one university to another, a Bachelor (only one proposed) and then Postgraduate and Master. So far 10 Masters have been created. This diversity could have reflect each country’s specific professional identity but actually we noticed that within the same country various perspectives could exist. It is thus irrelevant to speak in terms of a national professional identity for arts therapists at the moment. To a certain extent, this also illustrates the diversity of professionals’ practices. As the understanding of the professional and educational functioning is more obvious now, it is important to pursue our tasks and perspectives. The European directives have compelled the institutions to reorganize the educational field. Consequently the institutions have to clarify the obtained qualification. Ecarte had already anticipated by developing a network designed to share the information to set up courses : the further stage would be to implement Master’s diploma. Some professional associations have already made this choice. Such a perspective should make us consider the collaboration with the professional association at national and European levels. Their position and influence are quite different. Hence as collaboration become more and more necessary as they are taking part in or could support the process of recognition on the political stage. A further step is to stimulate research programs to foster the development of an autonomous corpus of knowledge and practice. Besides, current trends for evidence of efficacy of treatments have obliged the practitioners to become researchers of their own practice and institutions have to provide assessment methodology to help them, to carry out their tasks. This also means to encourage publications. Thus congresses are good opportunities to pool the latest results obtained by our colleagues ; the publications of papers also constitute a stimulating means to release such information. They foster a growing interest from professionals to understand the evolution of Arts therapy. By developing these guidelines we will be able to face the current questioning on Arts therapy. I would like to thank Sarah Scoble and Jan-Berend van der Wijk for their efficient and fruitful support to release the third edition of Ecarte directory. Il would also like to thank the Ecarte members for providing useful information concerning their countries. Christine Lapoujade (Chair of Ecarte