Origins and Organizational Development

The origins of the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies date to the historic changes in the organization of psychoanalysis as a profession in the United States that occurred in the late 1980's. These changes resulted from a lawsuit brought by a group of psychologists calling themselves the Group for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Psychology (GAPPP) against the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) and the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), which charged both organizations with restraint of trade. The settlement of the GAPPP lawsuit radically altered the policies of both the IPA and APsaA, while transforming the relationships existing between American psychoanalysts and the international psychoanalytic community.

Through most of its history, the educational policies of all APsaA institutes restricted psychoanalytic training to physicians, excluding social workers, psychologists, and other mental health professionals from training at APsaA institutes and barring them from membership in the association. At the same time, APsaA held an "exclusive franchise" in relation to the IPA. Under arrangements established before the second world war, American psychoanalysts could only be members of the IPA through membership in APsaA. The exclusionary policies of the American association thus blocked non-medical American psychoanalysts from joining the IPA, while preventing free-standing psychoanalytic institutes, formed outside the aegis of APsaA, from affiliating with the IPA. This was a very damaging set of arrangements for non-medical analysts in the United States because the IPA, the oldest and largest professional association of psychoanalysts in the world, was established by Sigmund Freud and his collaborators to provide psychoanalysts around the world with an international membership credential signifying professional competence.

The settlement of the lawsuit necessitated the abandonment of these policies by both APsaA, which renounced both its "exclusive franchise" and its exclusionary admission policies, and by the IPA, which was freed by the settlement to admit new American psychoanalytic groups to the IPA. In 1989 and 1991, four psychoanalytic societies that had long modeled their training programs and membership criteria on the rigorous standards of the IPA, were accredited by the IPA and granted provisional component status within the international association. These groups were the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR), the New York Freudian Society (NYFS), the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies (LAISPS), and the Psychoanalytic Center of California (PCC). These four societies shared a common history of exclusion from APsaA and the IPA as well as a common commitment to the promotion of psychoanalysis as an interdisciplinary profession. As the first independent component societies of the IPA in the United States, these groups confronted the challenge of establishing themselves within the international association as well as within the professional community of IPA psychoanalysts in the United States. The Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies was formed to enable its component members, "the independent groups," to promote these common goals in concert.

Since its founding, the composition of our confederation has undergone some changes. One group has left the confederation (NYFS) and two new groups have joined: the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society (NPS) in Seattle, and the Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies (IPS) in San Francisco. Both groups share a history with the four original CIPS groups, having developed outside the aegis of the American Psychoanalytic Association as independent societies, and joining CIPS after with completing initial accreditation procedures through the IPA. In 2001, following the withdrawal of NYFS from the confederation, CIPS created a membership category for "direct members" in order to permit NYFS members to retain their individual affiliations with CIPS, and to enable all interested IPA analysts to join CIPS and participate in its organizational life. In 2005, CIPS created the Direct Member Society to provide direct members with their own autonomous society within CIPS.

During the years of its existence, CIPS has energetically promoted its original purposes while expanding its organizational mission. CIPS members are now fully integrated into the organizational life of the IPA and are proportionally represented on all IPA governance bodies, committees, and working groups. CIPS actively promotes the organizational interests of the IPA in the United States, encourages psychoanalytic groups in the United States to adopt IPA standards for training, and provides consultation and other assistance for groups seeking to affiliate with the IPA. At the same time, CIPS has spearheaded a growing number of political initiatives to protect and promote psychoanalysis in the wider community. CIPS spearheaded the formation of a national coalition to lobby for stronger licensing regulations for psychoanalysts in New York State, and has participated with APsaA in efforts to protect and promote psychoanalysis in the United States, including successful joint efforts to establish "state psychoanalytic confederations" in New York and California. Although CIPS was formed in the context of a protracted struggle to overcome the exclusionary policies of the American Psychoanalytic Association, since the years of its inception, CIPS has worked more and more closely with the American Psychoanalytic Association to advance common organizational and political goals, coordinating a range of policies and joint efforts through a Joint APsaA-CIPS Liason Committee formed in 2005. At this time, the primary focus of our joint efforts are the promotion of responsible state licensing laws to will protect professional standards and the public welfare.