About the British Psychoanalytic Society
The London Psychoanalytical Society was founded by Ernest Jones on 30th October 1913. With the expansion of psychoanalysis in the United Kingdom the Society was renamed the British Psychoanalytical Society (BPAS) in 1919. Soon after, the Institute of Psychoanalysis was established to administer the Society’s activities.
BPAS is a component society of the International Psychoanalytical Association, a body with members on all five continents that safeguards professional and ethical practice, and a member of the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC). All members of the British Psychoanalytical Society are required to undertake continuing professional development.
Through its work – and the work of its individual members – the British Psychoanalytical Society has made an unrivalled contribution to the understanding and treatment of mental illness. Members of the Society have included Michael Balint, Wilfred Bion, John Bowlby, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, Joseph Sandler, and Donald Winnicott.
The Society currently has 439 members and 37 candidates. The majority of them live in or near London, though there are also members in many different countries and in other parts of the British Isles. Many psychoanalysts work in public organisations, principally in the Health Service, as well as in private practice. A significant number also work in universities. Recently it has become possible for those living at a distance from London to do the training.
Members of the Society come from a diversity of countries and cultures, offering treatment in over 22 languages, including Armenian, Catalan, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Iranian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and Urdu. Today as in the past, approximately half of the British Psychoanalytical Society are women.
A complete list of qualified UK Institute trained psychoanalysts is available here. Members of the public considering psychoanalysis may want to consult this list to make sure that a practitioner describing themselves as a psychoanalyst is in fact qualified genuinely to practise this intensive form of treatment. The term ‘psychoanalyst’ is often used rather indiscriminately. Strictly speaking, a psychoanalyst must have undergone and completed a training approved by the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). Those named are properly entitled to call themselves psychoanalysts because of their Internationally recognised training.