When Policy Meets the Unconscious

In France—historically a stronghold of psychoanalysis—a proposed reform seeks to exclude psychodynamic psychotherapy from public reimbursement.
Not a ban, but a powerful shift: the withdrawal of public recognition and legitimacy.

This raises deeper questions:
✨ Can the depth of the therapeutic process be captured only through measurable, short-term outcomes?
✨ Who defines what counts as “evidence” in mental health?
✨ Can a health system be equitable if it recognizes only what it can quantify?
These questions lie at the heart of my doctoral research across seven European countries, exploring how psychotherapy is organized, regulated, and valued as a public good.

From this work, one insight is clear:
The real tension is not between therapeutic modalities— but between efficiency and meaning, measurability and subjectivity, standardization and depth.

Suppose psychotherapy is to remain a public good. In that case, its value cannot be judged only by what is visible, measurable, or economically efficient—but also by its ability to make room for complexity, depth, and human subjectivity.

So, can mental health policy truly serve people—if it listens only to what can be measured?