Our country is located on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, with a spine called the Andes Mountains, an icy, white and bright Antarctica in our south and sealed in the north by an Atacama Desert of clear and starry skies and a copper-rich Venusian land, with saltpeter, lithium and lots of sun and cold alternately. This Nature that constitutes us is reflected in a history as an Association, full of events, variants, and resilience itself.
Our timeline shows that the first training for health professionals in South America took place in Chile in 2008: the International Postgraduate Medicin Training (IPMT). This was organised by the Corporación Médica Yohanan Therapeutes, in coordination with doctor Michaela Glöckler, president of the Medical Section of the Goetheanum at that time. The curriculum included a training program in anthroposophic psychotherapy, which was run by the psychologists Ad and Henriette Dekkers. Psychologists and doctors from Chile, Colombia, Peru and Argentina participated in this group.
At the end of this cycle in 2012, the Dekkers motivated the formation of associations of anthroposophic psychologists in each country as a requirement for accreditation as an anthroposophic psychotherapist. From that moment on, steps were taken to legalise the statutes of the Association of Anthroposophical Psychologists of Chile A.G with the signature of 33 associates on 7 June 2017, which was accepted as a member of IFAPA on 24 September of the same year. The founding members conceived APAC as an independent movement with a strength that has been maintained to this day. At the beginning, and by way of recognition for their tremendous contribution to the emergence of our association, we must mention our colleagues Adriana Masieri, who led the first meetings where the initiative began to take shape, as well as Alejandra Mancini, founding member of our association, researcher and disseminator of anthroposophic psychotherapy. We must also mention our dear colleague Joachim Beike, who accompanied seminars and meetings in which the network that made the emergence of APAC possible was woven.
We have come to the aid of major natural catastrophes which often strike our region, and we have done a lot of work to prevent post-traumatic stress for those affected. We offered support to victims of the social outbreak of 2019 in our country and subsequently provided support through group workshops to some institutions that, due to the work they carried out, had to face the risks and consequences of the confinements and threats of the pandemic. We have strengthened ties with colleagues in the Americas and have taken an active part in two of the Latin American anthroposophic psychotherapy meetings that have taken place so far (ELAPA 2020 – ELAPA 2021) and we are working together for the next one.
Our main task is to ensure the ethical development of the profession and the care of our patients; to support the continuing education of our members; to disseminate anthroposophic psychotherapy in the academic world and in different health-related fields; to build bridges with other professionals in the field; to facilitate the certification processes of our members and, although our association is mainly made up of psychologists, we also have some doctors who have previously completed training in psychotherapy.
After a period of internalisation, we are in the process of making changes and modifications that will allow us to direct our social commitment towards the future, under the unanimous vision of anthroposophic psychology. At the moment, we are moving towards a second directive, reviewing and modifying our statutes and stimulating a revival of the impulse that gave us birth.