International Psychoanalytical Association

Plaque commemorating the founding of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) in 1910, Le Méridien Grand Hotel Nürnberg.[2]

In 1902 Sigmund Freud started to meet every week with colleagues to discuss his work, thus establishing the Psychological Wednesday Society. By 1908 there were 14 regular members and some guests including Max Eitingon, Carl Jung, Karl Abraham, and Ernest Jones, all future Presidents of the IPA.[3] The Society became the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society.

In 1907 Jones suggested to Jung that an international meeting should be arranged. Freud welcomed the proposal. The meeting took place in Salzburg on April 27, 1908. Jung named it the "First Congress for Freudian Psychology". It is later reckoned to be the first International Psychoanalytical Congress. Even so, the IPA had not yet been founded.

The IPA was established at the next Congress held at Nuremberg in March 1910.[4] Its first President was Carl Jung, and its first Secretary was Otto Rank. Sigmund Freud considered an international organization to be essential to advance his ideas. In 1914 Freud published a paper entitled The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement.

The IPA is the international accrediting and regulatory body for member organisations. The IPA's aims include creating new psychoanalytic groups, conducting research, developing training policies and establishing links with other bodies. It organizes a biennial Congress.

There is a Regional Organisation for each of the IPA’s 3 regions:

• Europe—European Psychoanalytical Federation (or EPF), which also includes Australia, India, Israel, Lebanon, South Africa and Turkey;
  • The IPA is incorporated in England, where it is a company limited by guarantee and also a registered charity. Its administrative offices are at The Lexicon in Central London.
• Latin America—Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies of Latin America (or FEPAL);
• North America—North American Psychoanalytic Confederation (or NAPSAC), which also includes Japan and Korea.

Each of these three bodies consists of Constituent Organisations and Study Groups that are part of that IPA region. The IPA has a close working relationship with each of these independent organisations, but they are not officially or legally part of the IPA.

The IPA's members qualify for membership by being a member of a "constituent organisation" (or the sole regional association).

Constituent Organisations

• Guadalajara Psychoanalytic Association (Provisional Society)
• Moscow Psychoanalytic Society (Provisional Society)
• Psychoanalytic Society for Research and Training (Provisional Society)
• Vienna Psychoanalytic Association

• American Psychoanalytic Association ("APsaA") is a body which has in membership societies which cover around 75% of psychoanalysts in the United States of America (the remainder are members of "independent" societies which are in direct relationship with the IPA).

"Study Groups" are bodies of analysts which have not yet developed sufficiently to be a freestanding society, but that is their aim.

• Campinas Psychoanalytical Study Group
• Center for Psychoanalytic Education and Research
• Croatian Psychoanalytic Study Group
• Fortaleza Psychoanalytic Group
• Goiania Psychoanalytic Nucleus
• Korean Psychoanalytic Study Group
• Latvia and Estonia Psychoanalytic Study Group
• Lebanese Association for the Development of Psychoanalysis
• Minas Gerais Psychoanalytical Study Group
• Northern Ireland Psychoanalytic Society
• Portuguese Nucleus of Psychoanalysis
• Psychoanalytical Association of Asuncion SG
• South African Psychoanalytic Association
• Study Group of Turkey: Psike Istanbul
• Turkish Psychoanalytical Group
• Vermont Psychoanalytic Study Group
• Vilnius Society of Psychoanalysts

"Allied Centres" are groups of people with an interest in psychoanalysis, in places where there are not already societies or study groups.

• Korean Psychoanalytic Allied Centre
• Psychoanalysis Studying Centre in China
• Taiwan Centre for The Development of Psychoanalysis
• The Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies of Panama

The first 23 Congresses of IPA did not have a specific theme.

Number	Year	City	President	Theme
1	1908	Salzburg
2	1910	Nuremberg	C. G. Jung
3	1911	Weimar	C. G. Jung
4	1913	Munich	C. G. Jung
5	1918	Budapest	Karl Abraham
6	1920	The Hague	Sándor Ferenczi
7	1922	Berlin	Ernest Jones
8	1924	Salzburg	Ernest Jones
9	1925	Bad Homburg	K Abraham / M Eitingon
10	1927	Innsbruck	Max Eitingon
11	1929	Oxford	Max Eitingon
12	1932	Wiesbaden	Max Eitingon
13	1934	Lucerne	Ernest Jones
14	1936	Marienbad	Ernest Jones
15	1938	Paris	Ernest Jones
16	1949	Zürich	Ernest Jones
17	1951	Amsterdam	Leo H. Bartemeier
18	1953	London	Heinz Hartmann
19	1955	Geneva	Heinz Hartmann
20	1957	Paris	Heinz Hartmann
21	1959	Copenhagen	William H. Gillespie
22	1961	Edinburgh	William H. Gillespie
23	1963	Stockholm	Maxwell Gitelson
24	1965	Amsterdam	Gillespie/Greenacre	Psychoanalytic Treatment of the Obsessional Neurosis
25	1967	Copenhagen	P.J. van der Leeuw	On Acting Out and its Role in the Psychoanalytic Process
26	1969	Rome	P.J. van der Leeuw	New Developments in Psychoanalysis
27	1971	Vienna	Leo Rangell	The Psychoanalytical Concept of Aggression
28	1973	Paris	Leo Rangell	Transference and Hysteria Today
29	1975	London	Serge Lebovici	Changes in Psychoanalytic Practice and Experience
30	1977	Jerusalem	Serge Lebovici	Affects and the Psychoanalytic Situation
31	1979	New York City	Edward D. Joseph	Clinical Issues in Psychoanalysis
32	1981	Helsinki	Edward D. Joseph	Early Psychic Development as Reflected in the Psychoanalytic Process
33	1983	Madrid	Adam Limentani	The Psychoanalyst at Work
34	1985	Hamburg	Adam Limentani	Identification and its Vicissitudes
35	1987	Montreal	Robert S. Wallerstein	Analysis Terminable and Interminable – 50 Years Later
36	1989	Rome	Robert S. Wallerstein	Common Ground in Psychoanalysis
37	1991	Buenos Aires	Joseph J. Sandler	Psychic Change
38	1993	Amsterdam	Joseph J. Sandler	The Psychoanalyst’s Mind – From Listening to Interpretation
39	1995	San Francisco	R. Horacio Etchegoyen	Psychic Reality – Its Impact on the Analyst and Patient Today
40	1997	Barcelona	R. Horacio Etchegoyen	Psychoanalysis and Sexuality
41	1999	Santiago	Otto F. Kernberg	Affect in Theory and Practice
42	2001	Nice	Otto F. Kernberg	Psychoanalysis – Method and Application
43	2004	New Orleans	Daniel Widlöcher	Working at the Frontiers
44	2005	Rio de Janeiro	Daniel Widlöcher	Trauma: New Developments in Psychoanalysis
45	2007	Berlin	Cláudio Laks Eizirik	Remembering, Repeating and Working Through in Psychoanalysis & Culture Today
46	2009	Chicago	Cláudio Laks Eizirik	Psychoanalytic Practice - Convergences and Divergences
47	2011	Mexico City	Charles Hanly	Exploring Core Concepts: Sexuality, Dreams and the Unconscious
48	2013	Prague	Charles Hanly	Facing the Pain: Clinical Experience and the Development of Psychoanalytic Knowledge
49	2015	Boston	Stefano Bolognini	Changing World: the shape and use of psychoanalytic tools today
50	2017	Buenos Aires	Stefano Bolognini	Intimacy
51	2019	London	Virginia Ungar	The Feminine
52	2021	Vancouver	Virginia Ungar	The infantile: its multiple dimensions
53	2023	Cartagena	Harriet Wolfe	Mind in the Line of Fire

In 1975, Erich Fromm questioned this organization and found that the psychoanalytic association was "organized according to standards rather dictatorial".[5]

In 1999, Elisabeth Roudinesco noted that the IPA's attempts to professionalize psychoanalysis had become "a machine to manufacture significance". She also said that in France, "Lacanian colleagues looked upon the IPA as bureaucrats who had betrayed psychoanalysis in favour of an adaptive psychology in the service of triumphant capitalism".[6] She wrote of the "IPA['s] Legitimist Freudianism, as mistakenly called "orthodox" ".[7]

On the other hand, most criticisms laid against the IPA tend to come from a 1950s Lacanian point of view,[8] unaware of recent developments, and of the variety of schools and training models within the association in recent decades.[9] One of the three training models in the IPA (the French Model), is mostly due to Lacan's ideas and their perspectives regarding the training.[10]

• Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research

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• Official website