The training of psychiatrists in Italy (1966)

After a premise by Pier Francesco Galli, the introduction by Gaetano Benedetti to a meeting on "The training of psychiatrists" organized on December 11, 1966, by the "Milan Group for the Advancement of Psychotherapy" (which in the 1970s took the name of Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane) is reprinted, together with summaries of the papers by Christian Muller and Johannes Cremerius who described, respectively, the training models in Switzerland and Germany. Finally, the project of a teaching hospital presented by the "Milan Group for the Advancement of Psychotherapy" is described in detail; this project, implemented in the city of Sondrio (Italy) in 1967, was aimed at disseminating a method of psychiatric training in Italy where the university system, at the time still based on the teaching of neurology, was unprepared to face the growing need of psychiatrists. The covert and overt oppositions on the part of public administrations and the university system are analyzed. (These papers originally appeared in the Proceedings of the meeting of December 11, 1966, and the project of the teaching hospital was reprinted in issue no. 1/1967 of the journal Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane). The discussion, with about 20 interventions, is also published.