In 1959 a group of psychoanalysts from the Iberian Peninsula, after various years of regular work with analysts from the Swiss Psychoanalytical Society and the Paris Psychoanalytical Society, obtained acceptance as a component Society of the International Psychoanalytical Association, under the name of Luso-Spanish Psychoanalytical Society. During the following years, various psychoanalysts from Barcelona, Pere Bofill, Pere Folch and Júlia Corominas, travelled to London to complete their training within the British Psychoanalytical Society. If, up until then, the predominating thought had been that of French psychoanalysis, basically Freudian, from then onwards the ideas of the Kleinian group of London gained preponderance.
In 1967 the analysts from Portugal constituted themselves as a group and for this reason, that same year, the Luso-Spanish Psychoanalytical Society changed its name to Spanish Psychoanalytical Society. In 1973 the analysts from Madrid initiated the process to be recognised as an independent organization, which would be accepted as an IPA component Society under the name of Madrid Psychoanalytical Association.
The majority of SEP psychoanalysts apply their psychoanalytic knowledge in other areas and fields: medicine, psychiatry, clinical psychology, education, university lecturing, social sciences and culture, etc. In these tasks, beyond the strictly psychoanalytic setting, interdisciplinary work and the exchanging of ideas and experiences are encouraged.
