Regulations Governing the NIPaS/IPA Integrated Training Programme in Adult and Child & Adolescent Psychoanalysis

This guide sets out the regulations governing the training in psychoanalysis available through NIPaS. The programme of training for membership of NIPaS normally lasts a minimum of four years. Qualified Members of NIPaS become Members of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and are registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC). The member organizations of the BPC are those with the most rigorous selection and training standards in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the United Kingdom.

Selection for Training

Basic requirements for application for Student Membership

  • Applicants shall already possess a university degree, or a qualification to practise in a caring profession.

  • An applicant shall have completed a minimum of one year of 4- or 5-times-a-week personal psychoanalysis with a recognized training analyst at the time of consideration of the application. Candidates are free to choose their own training analyst from among those recognized by NIPaS as qualified to conduct a training analysis. Advice about identifying a training analyst may be obtained by contacting a member of the NIPaS Training Committee.

Application for Student Membership

  • The candidate shall obtain an application form from the Honorary Secretary of NIPaS. The completed application form shall be submitted to the Chairperson of the Training Committee. This may be done after 9 months in analysis, to allow time for the Training Committee to arrange two selection interviews. The selection interviews shall be conducted by Members of NIPaS approved by the Training Committee (one of whom must be a training analyst). The Training Committee shall consider the application, taking into account the reports of the interviewers, the applicant’s references, and all other relevant information (which may include the applicant’s public presence on social media).

Training in Psychoanalysis

Admission as a Student Member

  • When accepted for training, the student is allocated a Progress Adviser, who shall discuss with the student all the stages involved in training. The student shall meet with the Progress Adviser at least every six months throughout the course of training. The Progress Adviser shall receive six-monthly reports on supervised clinical work from the student and from the student’s supervisor; these reports, together with the student’s report on theoretical education, shall form the basis of a six-monthly progress interview.

The different elements of training are as follows:

  • Personal analysis: Candidates shall complete a minimum of five years of 4- or 5-times-weekly personal analysis with a recognized training analyst (including one year prior to admission as a Student Member). The analysis must continue at least until the completion of training and election to membership.

  • Clinical experience in a psychiatric setting: The student must have experience of clinical contact in a variety of settings and be acquainted with a full range of mental disturbance before starting supervised training cases. If the student has had no previous experience, this may be arranged during the pre-clinical stage of training. A minimum of 140 hours of clinical experience in a psychiatric unit must include interviewing and assessing patients under the supervision of a consultant psychiatrist.

  • Completion of an infant observation, weekly for at least twelve months, with accompanying seminars, led by an approved seminar leader.
    (An infant observation completed in connection with an earlier psychoanalytic training shall be accepted as satisfying the above requirement.)

  • Educational requirements: Prescribed theoretical and clinical seminars must be attended over four years, totalling a minimum of 342 hours. These shall include compulsory theory seminars on the nosology and technique of Child & Adolescent psychoanalysis.

  • Supervised training cases: Three training cases shall be supervised weekly: one young or latency child, one adolescent (up to the age of 18 years at the beginning of treatment) and one adult. The adolescent and adult cases shall be one female and one male. The student must apply, with the agreement of their Progress Adviser, to the Chairperson of the Training Committee for approval to begin each training case, normally at least one year after admission as a Student Member. The assessment of each case as suitable must be endorsed by the proposed supervisor. The Progress Adviser shall assist the student in identifying a suitable supervisor. Each case must be treated at least 4 times weekly in psychoanalysis. All sessions must take place on different days. The adult case must be in treatment for a minimum of two years and the child and adolescent cases each for a minimum of twelve months (not including the summer break). Each case must be supervised by a different approved supervisor. At least one supervisor shall be female and at least one male. Six-monthly reports on each case, approved and countersigned by the supervisor, shall be submitted to the Progress Adviser. (See the Regulations for Supervised Training Cases.)
    Applicants who are qualified members in good standing for CPD of the Association of Child Psychotherapists may request that one of the intensive cases (treated 4 or 5 times weekly) from their ACP training be counted as one of their training cases for this programme. A brief write-up of the case shall be required as part of the application, to be submitted to the Chairperson of the Training Committee.

  • Qualification paper: The qualification paper shall be a clinical presentation (with a reading time of not more than 50 minutes) of one of the training cases, normally presented to a specially convened qualification panel. It must be discussed before submission with the supervisor and approved for presentation by the Progress Adviser.

Completion of Training

  • The Progress Adviser acts as co-ordinator of the elements of training, advises the Training Committee of the student’s progress, and is responsible for recommending that the student is ready to go forward to a qualification panel. When all the other requirements of membership have been completed, the student must receive the Progress Adviser’s confirmation that the qualification paper is ready for submission to the qualification panel. For further details, see the Completion of Training section of the NIPaS Training and Membership Handbook.

If you wish to find out more, or are considering applying to the NIPaS, please contact in the first instance one of the NIPaS officers listed below:


Prof Bernard Cullen (Chair of the NIPaS Training Committee) b.cullen@qub.ac.uk