American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry

The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry is a scholarly society including psychiatrists interested in all aspects of psychodynamic psychiatry.

The American Academy of Psychoanalysis was founded in 1956. At that time, the American Psychoanalytic Association, which was the dominant psychoanalytic organization in North America, set standards for training psychoanalytic candidates at psychoanalytic institutes and certified individual psychoanalysts and institutes as well. The seventy-six Charter members who founded the Academy were concerned that focus on certification associated with a rigid Freudian framework inhibited free and open discourse about basic psychoanalytic concepts. They wanted to establish a forum for open discussion and debate but not an organization that would certify psychoanalysts or psychoanalytic institutes. The guiding philosophy of this new organization was expressed by its first President, Janet Rioch:

"The process of communication by forum is of value to encourage honest exchange of scientific opinion and observations; to build upon and expand those basic premises which survive critical scrutiny; to have the courage to discard that which cannot be regarded as scientifically valid in light of our present knowledge."

Since the inception of the Academy, great changes have taken place in the practice of psychoanalysis and in the application of depth psychology (from the German term Tiefenpsychologie and commonly termed "psychoanalytic psychology") to psychiatric symptoms, syndromes and disorders. The Academy changed its name to The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry and became an Affiliate organization of the American Psychiatric Association in 1998. From originally being an organization of medical psychoanalysts, the Academy became an organization of psychiatrists interested in all aspects of psychodynamic psychiatry. Psychoanalysis as a treatment technique remains one of its many interests. The membership of The Academy consists of psychiatrists, psychiatric residents, and medical students. Researchers and scholars who are not psychiatrists are welcomed as Scientific Associates.

Psychodynamic psychiatry is a new discipline that has emerged from a fusion of psychoanalytic and extra-psychoanalytic psychology, neuroscience and academic psychiatry.

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