Waimh Europe

EUROPEAN AFFILIATE GROUPS
ESCAP Congress 2003 (Paris)
By Bernard GOLSE

On Monday, 29th 2003

Dear colleagues,

I am very pleased to have now the opportunity to make a short presentation of the european affiliate groups and of our common work since a few years. We are now ten groups corresponding to fifteen different countries. Here is the listing of the groups with their actual presidents, if no change occured recently.

A new group could be set up soon in Spania, organized by Alberto LASA. Anyway, we are geographically so closed groups that it seems very important for us to increase our mutual knowledge in order to try to share common goals, common tools, common research projects, and also to discuss about our interesting differences. It is possible to say that the groups from northern Europe are chiefly working in the perspective of a developmental point of view, whereas the groups from southern Europe still remain very influenced by the psychoanalytic approach, but this description is certainly too schematic. For instance, the english group is very attached to the psychoanalytic markpoints and the italian groups are very involved in the reflexion about attachment. As a matter of fact, for the time being, most of the european groups take into account both the attachment theory and the psychoanalytic theory.

Sam TYANO (Israel), Massimo AMMANITI (Italy) and I organized in Paris, on (25th and 26 th) January 2003, a new meeting of the European affiliated Waimh groups. The first one was also in Paris on January 2000 but, between these two meetings, for different reasons, it has been difficult to gather all the groups even it was tried in Israel, Lisboa, Pisa and Amsterdam. This time, in Paris, all the groups were represented, invited two days in Paris by the french-speaking group, thanks to different sponsorings. The meeting took place at Necker-Enfants Malades hospital where I am working, in presence of Peter de CHATEAU (Sweden), our actual president of Waimh and of Tuula TAMMINEN our elect president.

• Then, Peter de CHATEAU reminded us that Waimh has to consider three different levels, international, regional and then national, and how these different levels interact. Apparently the Waimh board has been trying to get rid of one of these levels, preferably the middle, regional one, as they felt it made the administration too top heavy. But they had found that this did not work. There was some thought that there was a difference between Europe and America in the overall approach to Waimh. In the discussion it was noted how in Europe the “ clinical discussion ” is considered to be very important; and this was seen as perhaps favouring a different emphasis from the more research oriented approach from America. During this meeting, there was also a plug for the Melbourne Conference in 2004, and apparently the bid for Paris to host the 2006 Congress seems to be the favoured one. As soon as this location is officially confirmed, they will be planning how to give it a more “European” slant. I talked about the importance of the links that the European Group have with Waimh, and (as did everybody else) spoke of the discrepancy in numbers between the National Affiliates and the Central Organisation. A theme that threaded itself through the two days was: should more people be encouraged to join Waimh, and how could this be brought about ? Peter de Chateau pointed out then, that there are different resources to encourage mernbership and perhaps, we can come back to this point during the discussion.
• After that, each group gave a presentation of its functioning and it is difficult to resume here the different and so stimulating contents. One special point concerns the training politics set up by the Finnish group about supporting Health Visitors in Finland. They have trained over 2,500 persons, and this includes all in Tampere and Helsinki. This training is recognized by higher salary, and it consists of eight days spread over several months plus ongoing supervision for two years. The delegate from Finland spoke of how they had tried to "make differences interesting rather than threatening". They too have been thinking of how to promote infant mental health at all levels.
• To close this session, Tuula TAMMINEN, the President elect of Waimh, underlined the three main goals of Waimh : a scientific goal, an educational goal and a charitative one. She did it in the light of the different levels of infants’ development and drew a parallel between the ways to improve the infants’developement and to improve Waimh’s functioning. Everybody noticed the importance accorded by Tuula TAMMINEN to the scientific goal of the association, and specially to the psychopathologic point of view of our reflexions.
• The Israeli group presented the new computerized chart for infants and toddlers they have created for IMH work. This records all relevant details of assessment and treatment, it will abolish paper files, and it is called the “ PRINCE ” system. It is right now available for purchase and it has been already set up in different french teams, and also in Belgium, so it will be probably in the future a very useful tool to share a common way to gather clinical data and to manage some common european research projects.
• In the last part of this meeting, I and my group explained our project on the semantic and behavioural precursors of speech. This is a new piece of research, just at its beginning and we are looking for some European co-operation, as a first example of european Waimh common research project.
• Another session was also devoted to the business meeting which opened with a discussion about membership fees and how Waimh is financed. People stressed how a wider membership might mean reduced fees, so how could this be made attractive? At this time, nominations of new members of the Waimh board were shortly due, and Peter de Chateau invited proposals from Europe, but the question was wider, it was the one of a good representation of all the affiliate Waimh groups. The general idea seemed to be that Waimh should take on more of a role in integrating the different Affiliates, especially as the importance of infant mental health is best promoted at local level. The idea was proposed setting up a European Group as a separate entity. It was generally agreed that this would be a good idea and would provide a forum for an exchange of knowledge and ideas ... People thought about if this could lead to a single European Group meeting with a representative from each country, but it was recognised that this would first need to be discussed at a local level. There are practical issues here, such as how is this to be financed. People also brought up the need to bear in mind how many countries are now joining Europe, and certainly infant mental health needs to be promoted there as well. Each countries Affiliate needs to generate a mandate to proceed with this idea, moving towards setting up some form of European network. It was suggested that there may be EEC funds that could be accessed, but practical details were a little bit vague. Finally, I invited the European Affiliates to start thinking about the place of the European Groups in planning the Congress in Paris for 2006. The meeting ended with this idea, one that will have to be developed when Paris is finally officially confirmed as the site for the 2006 Congress.
• To conclude, I will show you now some powerpoints pages that different groups have sent me for this congress. Until now, I have received documents from five groups on ten: Israeli group, Greek group, Belgium and Luxembourg group, English group and nordic one.

And at last, here is the powerpoint page from the french-speaking group

As you see, the european affiliate groups make a very alive whole and, until now we are working in a very friendly atmosphere and with a great conviviality. So, we are sure to be able to contribute usefully to the work of international Waimh where we are proud to bring up the european positions in the field of prime infancy, and specially about the psychopatholocical approach. A last word to announce that a website for european Waimh groups will be opened in a few days in Necker-Enfants Malades hospital, and it will be certainly a very useful way to exchange various informations, clinical data and research programs : that is to say a light, unformal and, could we say, an on-line european federation.