Chapter 1: Psychology in the Conflict of the Faculties: On the Past and Present of German Psychology Between Academic Freedom and Professionalization

The year 2020 marks the beginning of a fundamental transformation of German academic psychology. After almost twenty years of negotiations, a law entered into force in September 2020 that reorganized the legal foundation and training of psychotherapists in Germany. Overshadowed by a pandemic that held the world in suspense, the consequences of this law for academic psychology have not been fully recognized yet outside of the German-speaking world. Representatives of many different professions and disciplines, political parties and government authorities were involved in the making of this law. The outcome has to be understood as the result of a competition in the largest field of psychological practice in the second half of the 20th century in Germany. As is usually the case in such scenarios, not all groups that were involved during the preliminary negotiations could make their voices heard as much as they wished. Predictions about the consequences for psychological practitioners and academics differ significantly. After providing a short overview of the contents of the new law and its impact on German academic psychology, this reform is taken as an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between the university, academic freedom and the training of professionals from a historical perspective. Arguments put forth by Immanuel Kant on the “conflict of the faculties” are taken into consideration to gain a broader understanding of the challenges that psychology faces today.