Consultation Service

Consultations are all with psychoanalysts who are Members or Fellows of the Institute of Psychoanalysis and registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council. Most of the consultants also hold qualifications in psychiatry, clinical psychology or social work and many also hold senior positions in the NHS.

Consultations take place either at the Clinic in Maida Vale or at consultants’ private consulting rooms in and around London. We are also able to offer some consultations and referrals to psychoanalysts in other parts of the UK.

Consultants will make a careful assessment over one or more meetings of what would be the most suitable recommendation and next step. This may be to the Clinic low-fee scheme or to the Clinic referral service.

If you would like to have a Clinic Consultation, please contact the Clinic. It would be helpful if you would briefly outline your reasons for looking for help now and what help, if any, you have had in the past.



Consultation Fees
The full fee for a Clinic Consultation is £100 for a first appointment and £60 for subsequent meetings.

For those on benefits or low income, we are able to reduce the full fee to £30 for a first appointment and £20 for subsequent meetings.

Low-fee Scheme

The London Clinic of Psychoanalysis has a number of places each year for full, five times weekly psychoanalysis for people for whom this would be the treatment of choice but who cannot afford full fees. Recommendations are considered by the Clinic and if a suitable place is likely to become available within a reasonable period of time, applicants can go onto our waiting list. We try not to keep people waiting for more than six months. These places are offered by members of the Clinic staff, many of whom are in the final stages of their training at the Institute of Psychoanalysis.

Low-Fee Psychoanalysis
Fees are according to the patient’s means, usually with a minimum of £5 per session, for five times weekly treatment for a minimum of two years. No one is excluded on financial grounds and lower fees can be negotiated at the Clinical Director’s discretion.

Referral Service

We also have a referral service so that if a Clinic Consultant has recommended psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic therapy, we can put you in touch with a fully qualified psychoanalyst or psychoanalytic psychotherapist with a suitable treatment vacancy. All clinicians in our referral service are registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council.

Fees for Psychoanalysis or Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy via the Referral Service
Fees are negotiated with the psychoanalyst to whom you are referred but are usually in the range £35 to £60, often depending on the frequency of sessions.

 

Child and Adolescent Services

Consultations are offered for children and young people / adolescents up to the age of 18 years where there is a wish for assessment for psychoanalysis up to 4 or 5 times per week. This may be suitable for those who have not had psychoanalytic treatment before or for those who have already had some psychotherapy.

Clinic Consultants in the Child and Adolescent Department are qualified and experienced Child Analysts, and the fees for consultations are similar to those for adults, as outlined above. Following the consultation, usually one or two meetings, and for children a preliminary meeting with parents, a recommendation may be made for a low fee psychoanalysis through the London Clinic, or a referral for psychotherapy made to a child and adolescent psychotherapist.

For further information about our Clinic services for children and adolescents, or to make an enquiry, please contact the Head of the Child and Adolescent Department, Mr Denis Flynn, or the Clinic Administrator, Ms Trudy Turmer, on 020-7563-5002, or by e-mail at clinic@iopa.org.uk
 

Contact

To arrange a consultation or for any enquiries about the Clinic services, please contact the Clinical Director Ms Penelope Crick or the Clinic Administrator Ms Trudy Turmer. It would be helpful if you could give your postal address so that we may send you relevant information.

email: clinic@iopa.org.uk

telephone: 020 7563 5002

Concerns and Complaints

 

Anyone who has received or is receiving treatment or a consultation through the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis is welcome to get in touch to raise concerns or make a complaint if need be.

You should, wherever possible, talk about this to the analyst concerned in the first instance.

If a satisfactory resolution cannot be reached in this way, you can speak to the Clinical Director (Penelope Crick  clinic@iopa.org.uk  Tel: 020 7563 5002)

All Clinic staff are bound by the Fitness to Practice requirements, code of ethics and complaints procedures of the British Psychoanalytical Council (BPC) and any complaint and concern can also go directly to that organisation (www.psychoanalytic-council.org   Tel: 0207 561 9240)



British Psychoanalytic Council
Suite 7, 19-23 Wedmore Street,
London N19 4RU
Telephone: 020 7561 9240
Fax: 020 7561 9005
Email: mail@psychoanalytic-council.org

 

Further Information

For general enquiries about psychoanalysis, events and lectures:

Institute of Psychoanalysis
112a Shirland Road, London W9 2EQ
020 7563 5000
www.psychoanalysis.org.uk

For information about registration and other possibilities for finding psychoanalytical psychotherapists:

British Psychoanalytic Council
West Hill House, Swains Lane,
London N6 6QS
0207 561 9240
http://www.bcp.org.uk/

Useful publications

'A short introduction to psychoanalysis' by Jane Milton, Caroline Polmear and Julia Fabricius, Sage 2004.

‘Making sense of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy’ a MIND publication.
www.MIND.org.uk
0845 766 0163

What is Psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalysis is the most intensive form of the talking therapy, devised by Sigmund Freud one hundred years ago, but developed continuously and radically since then. Patients attend five fifty minute sessions weekly, usually for several years, working with their psychoanalyst to examine and to explore unconscious conflicts of feeling, emotion and phantasy that are at the root of their symptoms and the problems that are troubling them.

Psychoanalytic theory suggests that it is by no means only genetic and constitutional factors that make up the personality. Other central influences include the experience of birth, of the early relationships with parents, of sexuality, of love and hate, of loss and death. These crucial experiences, worked over and lived out in the core relationships of the family, lay down patterns in the mind of feeling, phantasy and relationship - patterns which provide unconscious templates, or models of relationships. Such unconscious versions of relationships are often at the root of the problems which lead people to seek help.

The regular sessions of psychoanalysis provide a setting within which these unconscious patterns can be brought into awareness and worked on with a view to change. The relationship with the analyst is influenced inevitably and powerfully by the patient’s unconscious ways of behaving and itself becomes a central area of study, enabling light to be thrown on the patient’s patterns of relationship in the immediacy of the sessions.

The work of psychoanalysis is long and arduous, for both patient and analyst. When successful, however, psychoanalysis can be a unique and profound experience that often leads to long-term development in close relationships, work and creativity. Success depends on both analyst and patient and on the quality of their joint work.