Letter from London

Psychoanalysis has found a home in Britain since 1913. Even though London could be seen as the main city where psychoanalysis started and developed this has greatly changed with psychoanalysis being currently practiced in different regions of the country. There are two component societies of the IPA in London, the British Psychoanalytical Society (born in 1913/1919) and the British Psychoanalytic Association (born in 2006). The British Psychoanalytical Society and the Institute of Psychoanalysis have a long and rich history. The Institute of Psychoanalysis is the outward face and training body of the British Psychoanalytical Society.

First established by Ernest Jones on 30 October 1913 as the London Psychoanalytical Society, it became the British Psychoanalytical Society on 20 February 1919 and has nurtured and benefited from the work of profoundly innovative and inspiring psychoanalysts, including Melanie Klein, Anna Freud, Wilfred Bion, Ronald Fairbairn and Donald Winnicott, among many others. It is no surprise therefore that its charitable aims, as stated in its Articles of Association, are to increase the “knowledge of the branch of science known as psychoanalysis” and that the pursuit of these aims is as vigorous today as it ever was. This commitment to dialogue has been embodied in the Society, and in true psychoanalytic fashion, the structure of the Society also reflects its history.

During the 1930s and ’40s, a large number of analysts, Sigmund and Anna Freud included, fled to London from Nazi persecution in Germany, Austria, Hungary and elsewhere. The Viennese group found a home in the UK and joined others such as Melanie Klein already established here. The tumult of the Second World War and the bombing of London had an unforeseen impact on the Society, as summarised by Sylvia Payne who noted:

Before the British Society had time to assimilate and unite with their colleagues who came from Vienna, it was faced with a scattering of its own members owing to the a