British Psychotherapy Foundation

The British Psychotherapy Foundation (bpf) is a United Kingdom-based psychotherapy membership, training, and clinical services organisation, and one of the UK's leading training providers and membership bodies for people working in intensive psychoanalytic psychotherapy, Jungian analysis, and child and adolescent psychotherapy. It is the successor organisation to three former long-established British psychotherapy providers and clinical training institutions which merged in April 2013. The original constituents are the British Association of Psychotherapists, BAP (1951), The Lincoln Clinic and Centre for Psychotherapy (1968) and the London Centre for Psychotherapy, LCP, (1976). The merger created a unique single professional body able to offer training across four psychotherapy disciplines: psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, Jungian analysis, and child and adolescent psychotherapy. It has approximately 800 members, comprising around 400 qualified members and 400 trainee members. It is registered as a charity in England and Wales (charity number 1150806, company number 08238969). It is a member of the British Psychoanalytic Council, through which individual members are regulated to practise. Its current associations are:

British Jungian Analytic Association (BJAA), a member society of the International Association for Analytical Psychology

Independent Psychoanalytic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Association (IPCAPA)

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association (PPA)

History

The bpf was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee on 3 October 2012, with operations commencing on 1 April 2013, on which date the activities and assets of the three founding organisations were formally transferred to the new body. The merger was described at the time as creating "a strong professional organisation, providing access to treatment for the public, comprehensive support to our members and education and training to the next generation of psychotherapists."

The collaboration between the bpf and Birkbeck, University of London predates the merger: the MSc in Psychodynamics of Human Development was established in 1996 as a joint programme between Birkbeck and the British Association of Psychotherapists.

Until it de-merged in 2019, the British Psychoanalytic Association had been a fourth constituent of the bpf, having previously been integral to the British Association of Psychotherapists.