International Psychoanalytic Association

The International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) is an association including 12,000 psychoanalysts as members and works with 70 constituent organizations. It was founded in 1910 by Sigmund Freud, on an idea proposed by Sándor Ferenczi.

In 1902 Sigmund Freud started to meet every week with colleagues to discuss his work, and so the Psychological Wednesday Society was born. 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.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. 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 IPA is the world’s primary accrediting and regulatory body for psychoanalysis. The IPA's aims include creating new psychoanalytic groups, stimulating debate, conducting research, developing training policies and establishing links with other bodies. It organizes a large biennial Congress.

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

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 and values them highly, 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

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

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