Slovenia's new Act on Psychotherapeutic Activity: what it brings, what it fixes and why it was contested

In November 2025 something happened in Slovenia that the profession had waited three decades for: parliament passed the Act on Psychotherapeutic Activity. It did so in a repeat vote, after the National Council had imposed a suspensive veto a month earlier — 57 votes in favour, 6 against.

For many this is dry news from the politics pages. For me, and for anyone who will ever look for a psychotherapist, it is considerably more. Until now something applied that most people do not know: the title of psychotherapist was not protected here. Anyone could use it — someone with four years of training and supervision, and equally someone with a weekend course.

In this piece I explain what the law brings, what it resolves, where its weak points are, and why it passed amid loud opposition from part of the profession. I will try to be fair to both sides, although I stand on one of them — and I say so at once.

What applied before: nothing

To be clear about the size of the change: there was no previous law. That is not an exaggeration or a simplification — psychotherapy in Slovenia was not a legally regulated activity.

In practice that meant three things. First, the title was not protected, so verifying competence was not possible in any official way. Second, there were no binding training standards — those were set by professional associations, but membership was voluntary. And third, users had neither clearly defined rights nor an address to complain to if something went wrong.

Serious schools and associations did of course have demanding standards — several years of training, personal therapy, practice and supervision. The problem was that meeting them was not required in order to call yourself a psychotherapist.

What happened and when

The timeline matters, because the law is not yet fully in effect.

The Act was passed on 21 November 2025 and came into force on 19 December 2025. It only begins to apply on 19 April 2027. The intervening period is for setting up the chamber and registers, defining the permitted psychotherapeutic approaches, and processing the applications of existing therapists.

Until then, the old, unregulated situation applies. If you are looking for a therapist today, you still have to rely on checking things yourself — I wrote about this in what to check before a first session.

What the law actually introduces

Four things worth knowing.

Psychotherapy becomes an independent healthcare activity. This is the largest change in principle and at the same time the heart of the dispute I describe below. Until now psychotherapy sat somewhere between healthcare, social care and the open market; it is now defined as a healthcare activity with its own rules.

A Chamber of Psychotherapists of Slovenia is established. A body of public law with compulsory membership for everyone providing psychotherapeutic treatment. The chamber keeps registers, issues licences valid for seven years and carries out professional oversight. For users this is the most tangible novelty: for the first time there is an address where a therapist can be checked and a complaint lodged.

A licence becomes a condition. Without one, providing psychotherapeutic treatment will not be permitted. Specialists in psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, and clinical psychologists also need a licence, even though psychotherapy is an integral part of their work.

Users gain defined rights. The Act sets out the rights and duties of people in psychotherapeutic treatment and the oversight of practice. Until now, rights were derived indirectly from other regulations and from associations’ ethical codes, which bound only their own members.

Who will be able to practise and on what conditions

There are three conditions and they must be met together: a minimum age of 28, meeting the general conditions for healthcare workers, and demonstrated professional competence.

Two routes lead to that competence.

Professional training. The starting point is a level-8 qualification in psychology, pedagogy, social work or healthcare. This is followed by an extensive programme: roughly 1,200 hours of foundational knowledge, 600 hours of theory in the chosen approach, 180 hours of personal experience and 650 hours of supervised practice. At least four years in total.

An accredited study programme. University study with equivalent content. There is an important restriction here: for the first five years after the Act begins to apply, such programmes may be accredited only at public universities.

Numbers alone say little, so two comparisons. In total this is about 2,600 hours, considerably more than many trainings that have until now been sold here under the name of psychotherapy. At the same time, 180 hours of personal experience is a moderate requirement by European standards — some schools require substantially more.

What this means for you as a user

From April 2027, three things change for someone looking for help.

Checking becomes simple. Instead of browsing websites and inferring from the text, you will be able to look at a register. Either they hold a licence or they do not — a question with two possible answers.

You gain an address for complaints. Until now, after a bad experience you could turn to an association if the therapist was a member. If they were not, effectively nowhere. A chamber with professional oversight changes that.

The standard becomes uniform. Whoever you choose, they will have behind them a comparable amount of training, their own experience of therapy, and supervised practice.

What does not change: the law brings no funding from the public purse. Psychotherapy remains largely self-funded, which I wrote about in what psychotherapy costs and why. And it does not guarantee that a therapist will be right for you — fit remains a matter of the first session, not of a register.

The transition: what about existing therapists

This is the part that in practice affects the most people, myself included.

Therapists already practising will be able to apply for recognition of their professional competence within six months of the permitted psychotherapeutic approaches being defined. On the basis of documentation, practice and professional recommendations, the ministry may waive individual parts of the examination.

An interesting detail: for transitional candidates the Act accepts any level-8 qualification, not only psychology, pedagogy, social work or healthcare. This is a sensible move — without it, therapists with years of practice and a different first degree would be excluded overnight — and at the same time one of the opponents’ arguments.

The implementation challenge is not small. In roughly sixteen months a chamber must be established, registers built, permitted approaches defined and the applications of everyone already practising processed. If that slips, a delay to the Act is more likely than timely implementation.

Why the law was contentious

Now to the part the media usually summarise with the word “controversial”.

Opposing the law were the Association of Psychiatrists, the Chamber of Clinical Psychologists, part of the academic sector, and the National Council, which passed a suspensive veto in October 2025. Their objections were threefold.

First: independent treatment without clinical healthcare training. Because the Act defines psychotherapy as a healthcare activity while allowing entry to people without clinical healthcare education, in their view it permits the independent treatment of patients by persons not adequately trained for it.

Second: the demedicalisation of serious mental disorders. The concern that people with depression, psychotic states or eating disorders will end up with a therapist who does not recognise when medical treatment is needed. Their formulation was clear: a therapeutic conversation should not be equated with clinical treatment.

Third: the institute of the “psychotherapy candidate”. They objected most strongly to candidates being permitted to work with patients under supervision during their training. Let me declare my interest immediately: I work as a trainee under supervision, so this is a provision that concerns me.

One more thing often lost in the reporting: the opponents did not demand a monopoly. Their public position was that they support legal regulation of the field, the practice of licensed psychotherapists outside healthcare, and the establishment of a chamber. What was contentious, in their view, was the boundary — who may treat mental disorders.

What the psychotherapy side answers

Supporters — the Slovenian Umbrella Association for Psychotherapy, some faculties and certain user groups — answered on two levels.

On substance: that the opponents’ positions do not follow contemporary findings in psychotherapy research in Europe and worldwide, and that there is no empirical basis for claims that people are endangered. Psychotherapy training on the European model rests on the premise that competence for psychotherapy comes from in-depth psychotherapeutic training rather than from the first degree — a model that has worked for decades in several European countries.

On the system: that the opposition was also a defence of professional monopoly, and that the law finally ends an unregulated market in which anyone could practise with no oversight at all.

My own view, since it seems fair to state it: both arguments carry weight and they are not incompatible. The concern that someone without adequate knowledge will fail to recognise a serious condition is legitimate and not invented. It is equally true that the situation until now — where anyone could open a door and call themselves a psychotherapist — was considerably riskier for people than anything the new law brings.

How it is regulated elsewhere in Europe

The Slovenian dispute is not original. The same debate — whether psychotherapy is an independent profession or a specialisation within psychology and medicine — runs across Europe and has produced two different models.

The independent-profession model. Its oldest example is Austria, which in 1990 passed the first psychotherapy law in the German-speaking world. There, psychotherapy has been an independent profession with its own register for decades, separate from psychology, which has its own legislation. The law was overhauled in 2024 and the new arrangement applies from the beginning of 2025. Similar arrangements exist in some other European countries.

The specialisation model. Elsewhere psychotherapy is built on top of a degree in psychology or medicine — a second stage within an existing profession. Germany reformed its law in 2019, in force from September 2020, with the notable feature that it introduced a direct university route into the psychotherapy profession.

By its logic, the Slovenian law sits closer to the first model: psychotherapy is an independent activity with its own chamber and licence, and entry is possible from several starting qualifications. That is precisely the core of the domestic dispute — the opponents would be closer to the second model.

What is fair to add to the comparison: the Austrian model has worked for thirty years and has not produced the catastrophic scenarios that were predicted there too. At the same time, the Austrian arrangement is not identical to the Slovenian one in its details, so appealing to it is an argument rather than proof.

What I think the law resolves and what it does not

What it resolves. Protection of the title. Verifiability. A uniform minimum training standard. An address for complaints. Mandatory supervision and continuing education as a condition of licence renewal. These are all things users did not have before.

What it does not resolve. Accessibility — cost and waiting times remain as they were. The question of who treats the most severe conditions, which was central in the debate and is now left to secondary legislation and practice. And the risk that a chamber with compulsory membership becomes chiefly an administrative apparatus, as has happened in other professions.

The relationship to the public network also remains open. As long as psychotherapy stays self-funded, it will be best regulated for those who can afford it — a problem no law on a profession can remove.

What this means for you today

Practically: until April 2027 the old situation applies and checking is still up to you. Ask where a therapist trained, how long it took, and whether they are in supervision. Check membership of a professional association. If someone flinches at these questions, you have your answer.

After April 2027 checking will be simpler, but one thing stays the same even under the best law: a licence tells you someone is competent, not that they are right for you. That shows itself only at a first or second session — I wrote about it in preparing for your first visit.

If you want to know how the professions actually differ, another useful piece is psychotherapist, psychologist, psychiatrist — who is who. The debate about the law was in large part a debate about exactly those boundaries.