More than thirty years ago, in remote Western Lapland, a psychotherapist and professor of psychotherapy named Jaakko Seikkula initiated, together with psychiatrist Birgitta Alakare and other colleagues, a small revolution in the approach to severe mental disorders. Now, slowly but surely, it seems to be spreading to the rest of Europe and taking root in the Far East and America.
They called it Open Dialogue, a name that illustrates quite accurately what Seikkula and his colleagues intended; to abandon the traditional bilateralism of psychiatric treatment in order to involve not only patients and professionals but also their environment. And dialogue, of course. Dialogue on the options of the main interested party, the patient, on their concerns, on their decisions. A support network that is essential in situations of special vulnerability to which, as Seikkula himself warns, we can all be exposed at any time in our lives.Professor Seikkula was in Barcelona on 20 October as a speaker at the 1st International Conference of the New Psychiatry Association, and it was a pleasure to listen to him and translate.
