It was in 1908 when a number of individuals interested in psychoanalysis gathered around Karl Abraham in Berlin. Two years later, in 1910, the International Psychoanalytic Association was founded. A first psychoanalytic outpatient clinic opened its’ doors in Berlin in 1920, and the Frankfurt Psychoanalytic Institute was founded in 1929. The Berlin Psychoanalytical Institute looks back on a long history. With its close connection between practice and theory, teaching and research, it became the model for numerous other psychoanalytic institutes in Europe and America.

Psychoanalytic Institutes in Germany were part of the German Psychoanalytical Society. After the National Socialists came to power, the DPG board chaired by Max Eitingon was replaced in 1933. Felix Boehm became the new chairman, with Carl Müller-Braunschweig as his vice-chairman.

However, from 1933 onward, Psychoanalysis in Germany experienced deterioration and self-sabotage: Jewish members were pressured out of the German Psychoanalytical Society. Without protection, they were eventually forced to emigrate or faced persecution and murder in Nazi Germany. The German Psychoanalytical Society was dissolved in 1938. Meanwhile, a number of psychoanalysts continued to work in the German Institute for Research in Psychology and Psychotherapy known as the “Goering-Institute”. Among them was Harald Schultz-Hencke who gained influence with his theory on “Neoanalysis” apart from the International Psychoanalytic Association and in dissonance with common psychoanalytic theory.

Succeeding the German Psychoanalytical Society, the Berlin Psychoanalytic Society was founded in 1945. Soon after, a growing dissent between its’ chairman, Carl Mueller-Braunschweig, and a group of psychoanalysts adhering to Harald Schultz-Hencke’s “Neoanalysis” lead to the departure of the group around Mueller-Braunschweig from the society and the formation of the German Psychoanalytic Association. It identified with the heritage of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. With Carl Mueller-Braunschweig as president, the German Psychoanalytical Association was admitted as member organization to the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1951.

Since its’ founding, the Germany Psychoanalytical Association (DPV) has maintained close relationships with other psychoanalytic societies in Europe, the United States, and South America. Today, the German Psychoanalytical Association, the German Psychoanalytical Society (DPG), and the German Society for Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics, and Depth-Psychology (DGPT) are joined together in a common effort to promote psychoanalysis among professional organizations, in the political arena and the process of policy making in Germany.

The German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV) has, in order to organize and to control psychoanalytic education, installed a central education committee (zAA). This committee regulates and assures the observance of the educational standards, as they are proposed in the wide range of the IPA. This is organized in educational standards, that regulate admission, the process and content of education, graduation and specialisation.

Members of the central education committee (zAA) are training analysts who are nominated by the institutes and centres of the DPV and are voted by general assembly of DPV members for two years. Therefor the institutes and centres are present in the zAA and have a voice and vote. Representatives of the institutes and centres in zAA are at the same time representatives of the local education committees, responsible for the educational standards.

The education as „Psychoanalyst (DPV/IPA)” takes place in the local institutes. Because there is a law concerning the practice of psychotherapy all DPV institutes have a governmental recognition to educate psychologists according to the law and to educate medical doctors according to the regulations of the medical associations. 

At the moment there are about 270 persons (medical doctors, psychologists and some persons from other academic roots) in psychoanalytic education in the DPV.

The Summer University Psychoanalysis exists since 2008. It is a project of a committee founded by the board of the German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV). The committee is cooperating with the local institute of psychoanalysis in Frankfurt, the Sigmund Freud Institute, and the University of Frankfurt. The one-week course is directed at those who are interested in finding out about current topics in psychoanalysis, undertaking training or further training in psychoanalysis, or making use of psychoanalytical insights in their work. The aim of the DPV is to increase the number of candidates seeking psychoanalytic training. 

The Summer University gives basic knowledge of psychoanalysis and will provide comprehensive information about current psychoanalytical theories. We will give an introduction to the developmental stages of human life and we want to explain psychoanalytical methods and approaches with the help of case studies. Insights into psychoanalytical social and cultural theory will be provided.  We want to make clear that psychoanalysis has a decisive contribution to make to answering the burning questions of the day.

Classes at the Summer University are given by university lecturers in psychoanalysis, and experienced and well-known lecturers at psychoanalytical training institutes. In 2020 we will have the 13th course with about 300 participants. This number of participants is constant over the last years. The fees for participants are 190 €, for students 95 € for one week. This is possible because of the engagement of many colleagues who contribute voluntarily and create an atmosphere of enthusiasm.

The DPV Summer University was the first in Europe. Meanwhile there are different copies of summer universities of psychoanalysis in many countries. The EPF offers EPCUS, the European Psychoanalytic Conference for University Students, since 2016 and the IPA organized a students programme at the London congress 2019 for the first time. The EPCUS conference as well as of the IPA students programme was inspired by the DPV Summer University.

Visit www.psychoanalyse-aktuell.de where you will find an online journal of the DPV - the German Psychoanalytical Association. A few years ago, members of the association realised that  psychoanalytic thinking and perspectives have become increasingly absent in public debates in the fields of culture, society and politics. As an attempt to compensate this deficit, they had the idea to reach out to the public themselves by founding a psychoanalytical online journal. 

As a medium accessible to all interested users, the online journal is aimed at psychoanalytic laymen and psychoanalysts alike. It is structured in the same way as it is usual for feature pages of newspapers and contains reports on the following areas: psychoanalysis and science, clinical research and practice, developmental issues, politics and society, culture and media, book reviews and a section for letters to the editor (especially those not published in the print media). The readers have the possibility to write comments on the published articles. The online journal wants to ensure that psychoanalytical reflection finds its rightful place within clinical work and society.