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The Czech Republic suffers many of the problems reported in other Central European and Eastern European countries with respect to the care, treatment and prevention of mental ill health. Most psychiatric care is provided in long‐stay hospitals and the transition to a community‐based service has yet to be made. Mental health services suffer from chronic under‐investment and there is a lack of mental health legislation protecting patients' rights and autonomy. The pressures of transition to a capitalist economy have brought their own problems, in the form of increased rates of addicitions, suicide, and other mental health problems related to social, policitical and economic instability, and there is a pressing need to address the position of mental health within public health services.

There has been a recent initiative in England to establish a wider provision of psychotherapy. Studying the models of psychological treatment and experiences in other countries may enable policy makers in England to learn lessons and avoid pitfalls. This paper assesses and compares the provision of psychotherapy for adults in a selected number of European and non‐European countries. A structured list of psychotherapy features was used to collect information from each country on the number of psychotherapists, professional qualifications, the settings and models of psychotherapy, the referral procedures, funding arrangements, quality management and outcome assessments. These data were then compared in a non‐systematic way. Comparison of levels of provision was the most difficult to establish, but the findings suggest that psychotherapy that is broadly free at the point of entry is more widely available in other EU countries than in England. They also show that the plans currently being discussed for a psychotherapy service in England differ from those provided in most of the other countries in this study. The differences include the lack of statutory accreditation rules and lower qualification thresholds for psychotherapists, the concept of treatment centres, the low number of sessions, and the regular assessment of outcome data. Therefore, based on this comparison, the necessity of these features, their priority and possible alternatives may need to be considered.