Bring together
Gathering psychoanalysts from France and abroad around a shared work.
Institut national de psychanalyse
Where psychoanalysts meet.An international institute.
Seminars, close reading of the founding texts and dialogue between the schools of psychoanalysis.
Our purpose
Bringing together those who keep psychoanalysis alive.
Psychoanalysis remains a living field as long as its practitioners meet, read one another and contradict one another.
The Institut national de psychanalyse brings together psychoanalysts and practitioners who wish to study the founding texts, set the different schools side by side and continue the dialogue through seminars — in France and abroad.
In the age of video consultations, digital tools and artificial intelligence, the Institute stands for a contemporary psychoanalysis. Technology can ease access to care, enrich training and bring practitioners closer to distant patients; it never replaces the encounter, the listening, the transference or the singularity of each subject.
Open the dialogue
Giving voice to the convergences, the ruptures and the open questions.
Transmit
Returning to the texts, laying out the concepts and sharing rigorous points of reference.
The legacies
A constellation of thought.
Neither artificial synthesis nor frozen reading: the Institute opens a space where each body of work can be studied in its coherence and its tensions — from Freud to Winnicott, by way of Sándor Ferenczi’s contributions on trauma and the therapist’s involvement.
1856 — 1939
The unconscious and transference
Sigmund Freud
With Freud, listening to the unconscious opens a new path for thinking about dreams, symptoms, transference and psychic conflict. The Institute returns to the texts to test their reach, without freezing them.
1875 — 1961
Symbol and individuation
Carl Gustav Jung
Jung’s analytical psychology shifts the gaze towards images, symbols and the process of individuation. This orientation is approached in its singularity and in its departures from the Freudian tradition.
1901 — 1981
Language and desire
Jacques Lacan
Lacan’s return to Freud brings language, desire and the division of the subject back to the foreground. His seminars call for a reading that is attentive, critical and constantly put back to work.
1902 — 1987
Empathy and the relationship
Carl Rogers
Though foreign to the classical psychoanalytic tradition, the person-centred approach nonetheless has a place in this reflection: empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard remind us that no technique bears fruit without an authentic therapeutic relationship.
1913 — 1981
The Self and recognition
Heinz Kohut
Self psychology turns attention to narcissistic wounds, the need for recognition and the fragilities of identity. Empathy becomes a tool of clinical exploration, helping the patient restore a sense of inner cohesion.
1896 — 1971
Holding and the true Self
Donald Winnicott
Good-enough mother, holding, transitional space, true and false Self: Winnicott shows how much the capacity to be oneself depends on the quality of the emotional environment in which the subject was formed.
Clinical practice
Relieving without reducing the subject.
For decades, psychoanalysis and cognitive-behavioural therapies waged a fratricidal war. Yet they shared the same ambition: to understand psychic suffering and to give back their freedom to those held captive by it.
The patient does not come to take part in an epistemological controversy. He comes because he is suffering.
He asks to be able to sleep, breathe, leave the house, love, work, think without being besieged by anxiety. But he also asks — sometimes without managing to put it into words — why this suffering took hold, why it comes back and why it seems to replay an old story.
There are two symmetrical forms of therapeutic violence: letting a subject suffer in the name of the depth of the work, and wanting to rid him too quickly of a symptom without hearing what it is trying to say. One sacrifices the present to the past; the other erases the past in favour of immediate adaptation.
Relieve first
Act on what prevents living: avoidance, catastrophic anticipation, rumination, rituals, hypervigilance. Getting back sleep or the subway is no small thing: the world becomes habitable again.
Then understand
Once speech becomes possible again, look for why this situation triggers this anxiety in this particular subject. Which experience is being replayed, which conflict, which loyalty, which wound is still at work.
Hold both
Keep up a constant dialogue between action and working-through. Reduce the suffering without reducing the subject; explore its roots without postponing relief indefinitely.
Work in motion
The Institute’s seminars.
Two gatherings a year, on two continents, to read together, compare interpretations and let speech circulate.
Geneva, March 2027.
The Institute’s first international seminar. The theme, detailed programme and practical arrangements will be sent to members as soon as they are confirmed.
The Institute carries its work beyond Europe. Exact dates, theme and registration details will be sent to members in advance.
Discover the members’ areaNews
Psychoanalysis under debate.
A press review followed by the Institute: what is being discussed, contested and decided around psychoanalysis.
(Article in French)
Malaises dans la psychanalyse et la psychiatrie
Les bouleversements politiques, culturels et technologiques actuels affectent profondément la condition du soin psychique.
Read the articleFaire dialoguer cerveau et psychanalyse
Le module « Cerveau et psychanalyse » du TP d’excellence ORION met étudiants et cliniciens autour d’une même table.
Read the articleLa psychanalyse, hors-sujet
Depuis que la Haute Autorité de santé a recommandé de leur soustraire l’accompagnement de l’autisme, les milieux analytiques sont mis en cause.
Read the articleAutisme : la Haute Autorité de santé durcit le ton
La psychanalyse n’est pas recommandée face à l’autisme : la HAS l’affirme désormais clairement, tranchant un débat de longue date.
Read the article« L’élimination de la psychanalyse n’a jamais amélioré le soin »
L’amendement visant à dérembourser les actes se réclamant de la psychanalyse, depuis retiré, traduit la réactivation d’un vieux procès.
Read the article
Join us
Three ways to join the Institute.
Membership applications are made online. Each application is reviewed individually by the board of directors.
Friend of the Institute
For those who are neither psychoanalysts nor in analytic training, but who take an interest in psychoanalysis and wish to take part in the Institute’s meetings, lectures and activities.
Candidate analyst
For those discovering or deepening psychoanalysis who wish to join the Institute as part of their path towards analytic practice.
Accredited psychoanalyst
For practising analysts who wish to join the Institute as accredited members, take part in its work and become part of its professional network.
- Annual membership fee
- €90 at the full rate
- Student rate
- €50 with proof of status
- Validity
- Twelve months from payment
Payment is only requested once the application has been accepted. An email then confirms admission and sets out the payment options, by bank card or bank transfer. Renewal is done through a new application: the previous file is automatically retrieved.
At the heart of the Institute
A space designed for members.
Seminars are at the heart of the Institute’s life. When it opens, this area will bring together the calendar, reading resources and reports.
Calendar of meetings
Resource library
Members’ directory
The presidency
A voice carried by study and transmission.
The Institut national de psychanalyse is chaired by Rodolphe Oppenheimer, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, specialist in cognitive-behavioural therapy and lecturer in CBT.
Rodolphe Oppenheimer