Psychoanalysis has been scrapped from the basic health insurance package with immediate effect, the body charged with deciding what treatments are covered said this week.

Psychoanalysis, the body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud, is no longer part of the standard health insurance package because there is insufficient scientific evidence that it works, the CVZ said.
Patients who are currently undergoing psychoanalysis will still be covered but newcomers will have to pay the cost – an estimated €12,500 a year – themselves, the Volkskrant said. Around 600 people are being treated a year, the paper said.
Rob van der Plank, chairman of the Dutch psychoanalysts association, said it is a ‘black day’ for the sector and ‘disastrous’ for patients.
Although health insurance in the Netherlands is offered by private companies, the government is responsible for deciding what treatments should be covered.