Jacques Lacan and the IPA

The relationship between Jacques Lacan and the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) constitutes one of the most significant institutional conflicts in the history of psychoanalysis. From Lacan’s admission into IPA-affiliated psychoanalytic training in the 1930s to his removal from the IPA’s list of recognized training analysts in the early 1960s, this relationship was shaped by disputes over analytic technique, training authority, and the governance of psychoanalytic institutions.

Founded in 1910 by Sigmund Freud, the IPA served throughout the twentieth century as the principal international body responsible for the recognition of psychoanalytic societies, the regulation of training standards, and the authorization of psychoanalysts. By the postwar period, its authority extended well beyond doctrinal oversight to encompass formalized procedures governing analytic training, supervision, and institutional legitimacy.

Lacan’s trajectory within this framework is historically notable because he was neither an external critic nor a marginal dissident at the outset. He was trained, authorized, and institutionally promoted within IPA-recognized structures and held leadership positions in French psychoanalysis before becoming the focus of sustained institutional scrutiny. His eventual exclusion from training functions did not result from expulsion from psychoanalytic practice as such, but from a determination by the IPA that his clinical methods were incompatible with its training regulations.

This article presents a chronological and institutional history of Lacan’s relationship with the IPA. It reconstructs the conditions of his initial integration, the emergence of conflicts over training and technique, the negotiations surrounding French psychoanalytic organizations in the postwar period, and the formal decisions that led to his exclusion from IPA training authority. The emphasis throughout is on institutions, procedures, and governance, rather than on theoretical advocacy or retrospective justification.

2. Entry into IPA-Affiliated Psychoanalysis

2.1 Training and Early Institutional Standing

Lacan entered psychoanalysis through institutions formally affiliated with the IPA. After completing medical training in psychiatry in Paris, he undertook a training analysis in the early 1930s with Rudolph Loewenstein, an analyst whose own formation was rooted in the central European Freudian tradition and whose institutional standing within the IPA was well established.

In 1934, Lacan was admitted as a candidate member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris (SPP), the French component society of the IPA. At the time, the SPP functioned as the sole officially recognized psychoanalytic organization in France and served as the institutional gateway to IPA authorization. Membership entailed adherence to IPA training norms, including personal analysis, supervised clinical work, and participation in society governance.

During this period, Lacan was broadly regarded as an intellectually formidable figure within French psychoanalysis. He presented papers at IPA congresses and participated actively in the scientific and administrative life of the SPP. His 1936 presentation on the mirror stage at the IPA Congress in Marienbad, while not initially well received, marked his early visibility within international psychoanalysis and would later be retrospectively identified as an important moment in his theoretical development.

At this stage, Lacan’s institutional standing was not contested. He was neither subject to disciplinary action nor viewed as operating outside accepted psychoanalytic practice. His trajectory followed the standard pathway of IPA-recognized training and authorization.

2.2 Postwar Reorganization of Psychoanalysis

The Second World War disrupted psychoanalytic institutions throughout Europe, including the temporary suspension of SPP activities. In the postwar period, psychoanalysis underwent a significant institutional reorganization. The IPA’s center of influence shifted decisively toward Britain and the United States, where psychoanalysis increasingly emphasized standardized training procedures, developmental models, and what came to be known as ego psychology.

Within this new institutional landscape, the IPA expanded its regulatory scope. Training standards were articulated with greater precision, particularly with respect to the structure of training analyses, session regularity, and the supervisory authority of recognized training analysts. These developments reflected the IPA’s effort to consolidate psychoanalysis as a stable, internationally regulated profession.

Lacan reemerged after the war as a central figure in French psychoanalysis. He held leadership positions within the SPP, including serving as its president, and began delivering regular seminars that attracted a growing audience. At the same time, differences began to emerge between Lacan’s evolving clinical practices and the increasingly standardized expectations of the IPA.

3. Technique, Training, and Institutional Authority

3.1 Technique as a Regulatory Issue

Within the IPA framework, analytic technique was not treated solely as a matter of clinical discretion. By the mid-twentieth century, technique functioned as a regulatory criterion for training authorization. The IPA regarded uniformity of analytic setting—particularly session length and frequency—as essential to the comparability and evaluability of training analyses across its component societies.

It was in this context that Lacan’s use of sessions of variable duration became institutionally significant. While variations in session length had existed in earlier phases of psychoanalytic practice, the postwar IPA increasingly viewed fixed session parameters as integral to training governance. Lacan’s continued use of variable-length sessions, especially in analyses involving candidates in training, drew the attention of SPP instructional committees and, eventually, of IPA oversight bodies.

The issue was framed less as a theoretical disagreement than as a question of training authority and compliance. From the IPA’s perspective, the concern was whether a training analyst could deviate from standardized procedures without undermining the regulatory mechanisms that sustained institutional legitimacy.

A focused institutional history of this controversy is provided in the subpage Variable-Length Sessions (Institutional Debate).

3.2 From Clinical Difference to Institutional Conflict

Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, the SPP attempted to address these tensions internally. Lacan was repeatedly asked to regularize aspects of his practice in accordance with prevailing norms, particularly when functioning as a training analyst. While temporary accommodations were sometimes offered, these measures did not resolve the underlying disagreement.

As a result, what began as a localized dispute over analytic technique became embedded in broader concerns about governance, supervision, and institutional authority. The question was no longer simply how analysis should be conducted, but who possessed the authority to define and enforce training standards within psychoanalysis.

These unresolved tensions contributed directly to the institutional crisis that culminated in the split of 1953 and the formation of a new psychoanalytic organization outside the SPP framework. The circumstances of that split, and its implications for IPA recognition, are addressed in the following section and expanded in Société Française de Psychanalyse.

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4. The Controversy over Variable-Length Sessions

4.1 Variable-Length Sessions as an Institutional Issue

One of the central points of conflict between Jacques Lacan and the International Psychoanalytical Association concerned his use of analytic sessions of variable duration, commonly referred to in institutional and retrospective accounts as the short session. Rather than adhering to a fixed temporal standard—typically forty-five to fifty minutes—Lacan concluded sessions at moments determined by the progression of the analysand’s speech.

From the perspective of the IPA, the issue was not primarily theoretical but regulatory. By the postwar period, the IPA regarded uniformity of session length as a cornerstone of training governance, particularly in the context of training analyses. Fixed session parameters were understood to ensure comparability across component societies, facilitate supervision, and safeguard the evaluative authority of training analysts.

Lacan’s continued use of variable-length sessions in analyses involving candidates therefore came to be viewed as a breach of institutional norms. IPA committees repeatedly cited this practice as incompatible with standardized training procedures, raising concerns about arbitrariness, unequal treatment of candidates, and the difficulty of supervising analytic work conducted under non-uniform conditions.

A focused institutional analysis of this issue is provided in Variable-Length Sessions (Institutional Debate).

4.2 From Clinical Difference to Training Authority

Lacan defended the variable-length session as consistent with Freud’s emphasis on interpretation and the unconscious, arguing that analytic time should follow the logic of speech rather than an externally imposed schedule. While this position was articulated in theoretical terms, its institutional implications were decisive. Within the IPA framework, training analysts were not autonomous practitioners but officeholders whose authority derived from compliance with collectively defined standards.

As a result, what might have remained a clinical disagreement became a matter of training authorization. The IPA’s concern was not whether variable-length sessions could be justified in principle, but whether a training analyst could depart from standardized technique without undermining the governance structures through which psychoanalysis reproduced itself institutionally.

This distinction—between the freedom of analytic practice and the regulation of training—would structure all subsequent IPA deliberations regarding Lacan.

5. The 1953 Split and the Formation of the Société Française de Psychanalyse

5.1 Breakdown within the Société Psychanalytique de Paris

By the early 1950s, tensions within the Société Psychanalytique de Paris (SPP) had intensified. These tensions reflected not only disagreements over Lacan’s practice, but broader disputes over training policy, institutional autonomy, and the SPP’s relationship to the IPA.

Several members of the SPP—including Françoise Dolto, Françoise Minkowska, and Daniel Lagache—expressed dissatisfaction with the society’s internal governance and its increasing alignment with IPA training norms shaped by Anglo-American psychoanalysis. Efforts to mediate between competing positions failed to resolve disagreements concerning instructional authority and clinical regulation.

In June 1953, Lacan and a group of colleagues resigned from the SPP. Because the SPP was the sole IPA-recognized psychoanalytic society in France, this resignation immediately placed them outside the IPA’s institutional framework and nullified their standing within its training system.

The internal dynamics of the SPP during this period are examined further in Société Psychanalytique de Paris (Institutional History).

5.2 Founding of the Société Française de Psychanalyse

Later in 1953, Lacan and his associates founded the Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP). The SFP was conceived as an alternative institutional framework for psychoanalytic practice and training in France, intended to preserve continuity with Freudian theory while allowing greater flexibility in clinical and instructional matters.

From an institutional standpoint, the SFP faced an immediate obstacle: IPA statutes recognized only one component society per country, and affiliation depended on uninterrupted institutional continuity. As a newly formed organization created through resignation rather than succession, the SFP lacked automatic eligibility for IPA recognition.

Despite this, the SFP sought affiliation with the IPA throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s. Its leadership emphasized willingness to engage with international oversight while maintaining certain practices—particularly Lacan’s—that it regarded as consistent with psychoanalytic principles. This dual commitment would become the central point of contention in negotiations with the IPA.

A detailed institutional history of the SFP’s formation and early activities is provided in Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP).

6. IPA Investigations and the 1963 Decision

6.1 Oversight Committees and Conditional Recognition

Between 1959 and 1963, the IPA conducted a series of formal evaluations of the SFP through appointed committees. These evaluations included site visits, interviews with members, and reviews of training arrangements. While committee reports acknowledged the intellectual prominence of French psychoanalysis, they consistently identified deficiencies in training governance, with particular emphasis on Lacan’s continued role as a training analyst.

At the 1961 IPA Congress in Edinburgh, the IPA proposed that the SFP be recognized as a supervised study group, subject to specific conditions. Central among these was the requirement that Lacan be removed from any training function. The IPA framed this requirement as a matter of institutional compliance rather than personal sanction.

As negotiations continued, these conditions were reiterated with increasing specificity. By mid-1963, the IPA made recognition of the SFP explicitly contingent on Lacan’s exclusion from the training analyst role.

6.2 Exclusion from Training Analyst Status

In November 1963, the SFP membership voted to accept the IPA’s conditions, including Lacan’s removal from the list of training analysts. This decision did not prohibit Lacan from practicing psychoanalysis or teaching independently, but it formally barred him from participating in IPA-recognized training structures.

Lacan refused to accept the limitation and resigned from the SFP. The decision marked a definitive institutional rupture. Subsequent accounts often describe this event as Lacan’s excommunication from the IPA, a term that reflects its symbolic resonance but does not correspond to any formal category within IPA statutes. The IPA issued an administrative determination concerning training authority, not a declaration of doctrinal exclusion.

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7. Aftermath and Institutional Reorganization

7.1 Post-1963 Realignment of Psychoanalytic Institutions

The decision in November 1963 to remove Jacques Lacan from all training functions within the Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP), as required by the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), did not terminate Lacan’s psychoanalytic activity. Instead, it redirected his institutional engagements and clarified the structural separation between Lacanian practice and IPA-regulated psychoanalysis.

Following Lacan’s resignation from the SFP, its membership divided along institutional lines. A portion of the former SFP members reorganized within the Association Psychanalytique de France (APF), which obtained IPA recognition and continued to operate under IPA training standards. Others aligned themselves with Lacan’s emerging institutional project, marking a durable bifurcation within French psychoanalysis.

This division reflected not only personal allegiances but divergent approaches to training governance, authorization, and institutional legitimacy. From this point forward, IPA-affiliated psychoanalysis and Lacanian psychoanalysis developed largely through parallel institutional structures.

7.2 Founding of the École Freudienne de Paris

On 21 June 1964, Lacan issued the Acte de fondation establishing the École Freudienne de Paris (EFP). The new institution was conceived as an autonomous framework for psychoanalytic transmission, explicitly independent of IPA recognition and regulation.

The EFP introduced organizational mechanisms distinct from those of IPA-affiliated societies, including small working groups (cartels) and later the pass, a procedure intended to address questions of analytic formation without recourse to standardized certification. These structures were designed to respond to the institutional problems that had structured Lacan’s earlier conflicts with the IPA, particularly the relationship between analytic practice and training authorization.

For nearly two decades, the EFP functioned as a central Lacanian institution in France, serving as a site for teaching, clinical discussion, and organizational experimentation. Its history and internal structures are examined in detail in École Freudienne de Paris.

7.3 Dissolution of the EFP and Subsequent Developments

In January 1980, Lacan announced the dissolution of the EFP. He expressed concern that institutional consolidation risked reproducing forms of hierarchy and rigidity that psychoanalytic institutions ought to interrogate rather than reproduce. The dissolution marked the end of the EFP as a single organizational center but did not end Lacanian institutional activity.

After Lacan’s death in 1981, multiple Lacanian schools and associations emerged, including École de la Cause Freudienne, which sought to continue Lacan’s teaching within new institutional forms. These organizations operated independently of the IPA, further entrenching the separation between Lacanian and IPA-affiliated psychoanalysis.

8. Theoretical Issues in Institutional Context

Although the Lacan–IPA conflict was decided through institutional procedures, it was shaped by theoretical disagreements that bore directly on training governance. Chief among these was Lacan’s sustained critique of ego psychology, which had become influential within IPA-affiliated psychoanalysis in the postwar period.

Lacan argued that psychoanalysis should focus on the unconscious as structured by language rather than on the adaptive capacities of the ego. This orientation informed his views on analytic technique, training, and the position of the analyst. Within IPA institutions, however, training standards were increasingly aligned with developmental models, standardized technique, and supervisory hierarchies designed to ensure uniformity across national contexts.

The dispute over variable-length sessions functioned as a practical locus for these differences. For Lacan, analytic time was subordinated to the logic of speech and interpretation; for the IPA, standardized session duration was integral to the comparability and regulation of training analyses. These contrasting positions are explored further in Lacan vs. Ego Psychology and Variable-Length Sessions (Institutional Debate).

9. Lacan’s Later Remarks on the IPA

In the years following his institutional separation from the IPA, Lacan occasionally referred to the events of 1963 in his seminars and writings. In the opening session of The Seminar, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1964), delivered shortly after the break, he employed the term excommunication to characterize his exclusion from IPA training functions. The term was rhetorical rather than juridical, as no such category existed within IPA statutes.

Subsequent references to the IPA in Lacan’s teaching were indirect and largely framed within broader reflections on institutional authority, professionalization, and the conditions of psychoanalytic transmission. While these remarks contributed to later interpretations of the conflict, they did not alter the institutional separation established in the early 1960s.

10. Legacy and Historical Assessment

The rupture between Lacan and the IPA has had enduring consequences for the organization of psychoanalysis. Institutionally, it contributed to the pluralization of psychoanalytic schools and training models, particularly in France and Latin America. IPA-affiliated and Lacanian institutions have continued to develop along parallel lines, with distinct systems of authorization and professional recognition.

Historians of psychoanalysis generally agree that Lacan’s exclusion concerned training authority rather than psychoanalytic practice as such, and that it reflected broader tensions within postwar psychoanalysis regarding professionalization, governance, and theoretical orientation. The conflict is now understood as a defining episode in the institutional history of psychoanalysis rather than as a personal or doctrinal dispute.

The long-term effects of this separation continue to shape debates over training, legitimacy, and institutional form within psychoanalysis. These issues are explored further in Lacanian Psychoanalysis Outside the IPA.

See Also

• Jacques Lacan
• International Psychoanalytical Association
• Société Psychanalytique de Paris
• Société Française de Psychanalyse
• École Freudienne de Paris
• Variable-Length Sessions (Institutional Debate)