This year (2025), we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of FETE – the Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe.

This occasion takes me back 10 years, to May 2015, when I arrived at the first world congress for existential therapy at the Church House in Westminster, London.

It didn't take me long to realise that that event was not going to be like any of the other events or conferences I had attended before.

It was an outstanding event.

Hundreds of existential therapists had gathered there from every corner of the globe, making it clearer than ever before that the existential approach was gaining traction all over the world.

Training institutes were being opened and they were growing, national organisations were being established, psychotherapists had begun practicing the existential approach in so many different countries – and they all spoke the language of existence.

For me, personally, it was a powerful moment that reaffirmed the choice I had made several years before, to embark on the journey of studying existential therapy – a journey that led me to explore the depth and the heights of the existential approach.

That journey began for me In London while meeting, Emmy van Deurzen at her little office at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, which was in Waterloo back then.

I am sure that, just like me, the hundreds of other attendees of the first world congress for existential therapy experienced a similar feeling of having made the right choice!

The global community of existential therapists may speak all kind of languages; but we are all united by the emotional and cognitive dimensions – tied by the language of existence!

The first world congress for existential therapy, envisioned and organised by Emmy van Deurzen and Digby Tantam, was an immense success. It was there, at that first world congress in London, that the idea of establishing a federation for existential therapy in Europe was first conceived.

I clearly remember Digby, asking Yali and I if we were heading to the room where the possibility of establishing a European group will be discussed – and we were.

It was there, in that room, on the 17th of May 2015, that existential psychotherapists from various European countries began to realise the need to collaborate in order to establish a European organisation that would focus on existential therapy and become a professional hub for all existential psychotherapists in Europe.

At this point, I would have liked to say that "the rest is history". but that would not do justice to the actual story.

In actuality, that crucial meeting in London became the starting point of a long and arduous journey that involved considerable amounts of energy and hours on hours of meetings, discussions, dialogues and disputes – of trying to agree on the right way to establish the Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe.

Starting from May 2015, a working group, which initially included 18 members, held regular online meetings, and eventually reached a consensus regarding the basic structures of FETE, during our meeting in London in November 2016.

After many more hours of working, and a meeting in Tel Aviv in 2017, this working group managed to create the constitution for FETE, along with its bylaws, and its various committees, and the organisation was approved as a charity in the United Kingdom in 2017.

Its next significant milestone came in the year 2020 in Vienna, when FETE was elected unanimously by the European Association for Psychotherapy (EAP) as the European Wide Organisation for existential therapy in Europe (EWO).

Three years later, on October 2023, during a meeting of the governing board of the EAP, FETE's application to become a European Wide Accrediting Organisation (EWAO) was approved, and it officially became the EWAO for existential therapy.

Since its registration as a charity, FETE has held an annual general meeting (AGM), as well as six annual conferences.

FETE's first conference and AGM was held in Vienna in 2019. It was an exciting gathering that marked the launch of our annual conferences.

The second conference was supposed to be in Athens in 2020; however, the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to change our plans, and, instead of traveling to Athens, we had our AGM and a webinar via Zoom.

The third conference, Loving and Losing, was organised in London by the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling in 2021 and was, once again, an online event.

The following year, in 2022, FETE had its fourth conference, Crisis and Hope. It was organised in Tel Aviv by the existential psychotherapy and counselling programme in Kibbutzim College as an online event.

Finally, in 2024, our fifth conference, Building Bridges, took place in Istanbul and was organised by the Existential Academy of Istanbul.

In May 2024, the 6th conference of FETE 'Wisdom in Practice', took place in Rome and was organised by the Scula di Psicoterapia neoEsistenziale of Italy.

Between the annual European conferences of FETE, we also met twice for the world congress. The second world congress took place in Buenos Aires in 2019 and the third world congress took place in Athens in 2023.