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Although Ernest Jones chose Toronto as the city from which he would undertake his campaign to institutionalize psychoanalysis in North America, Montreal is the city where it got its start in Canada. In 1957 the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) officially recognized the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society (CPS). Although English and French were the society's two official languages, exchanges and teaching activities took place almost exclusively in English until 1969, when the Société Psychanalytique de Montréal (Montreal Psychoanalytic Society) was established. Only after the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society created a French section, along with other English sections, did it institute a training program in French. Mirroring the relationship between Quebec and the remainder of Canada, the Société Psychanalytique de Montréal and the English-language sections were two isolated entities that continued to question the reasons for their cohabitation.

In 1908 Ernest Jones established himself in Canada as a neuropathologist at the Toronto Lunatic Asylum. He remained there until 1913, when he returned to Europe, after having contributed to the foundation of psychoanalysis in the United States. However, no permanent organization was established in Canada as a result of his presence there, and it would take another forty years before psychoanalysis gained a foothold in the country.

After being established in Montreal, a large metropolis of psychoanalysis in Canada is the result of a paradox that is as strange as it is revelatory of the unique character of the country: an anti-Franco Spanish refugee, Miguel Prados, formed an alliance with a French-Canadian priest, the Dominican Noël Mailloux. Beginning in the spring of 1945, four interns from the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University, founded by Dr. Ewen Cameron in 1944 and affiliated with the Royal Victoria Hospital, began meeting at the home of Dr. Prados, who had obtained a position at the Neurological Institute in the early 1940s. There they discussed clinical cases and studied what they referred to as "Freudian doctrine."

In early 1946 they decided to form a group known as the Cercle Psychanalytique de Montréal (Montreal Psychoanalytic Circle). At this time Prados had only undertook a self-analysis and was not affiliated with any psychoanalytic association. In 1948 Father Mailloux, who had founded the Institute of Psychology at the University of Montreal at the same time as Cameron was founding the Allan Memorial Institute, joined the group, which grew considerably from this time on. The number of members grew to forty, with as many guests invited to meetings. From New York they invited Sándor Lorand, Edith Jacobson, Bertrand D. Lewin, Phyllis Greenacre, Rudolph Loewenstein, Rene Spitz, George Gero, Charles Fisher, and Kaufman; from Detroit, Leo Bartemeir and Richard and Editha Sterbas; from Boston, Eduard Lindeman and Edward and Grete Bibring.

Although the circle certainly helped to spread psychoanalysis, it did not promote the training of Canadian psychoanalysts. Forced to seek training at institutions in the United States, these candidates had little inclination to return to Canada. In 1948, with the help of the Lady Davis Foundation and Father Mailloux, Professor Théo Chentrier, a member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris (Paris Psychoanalytic Society), became the first psychoanalyst to immigrate to Canada. He was appointed professor at the University of Montreal and joined the Cercle Psychanalytique, of which he later became an enthusiastic and loyal director. Between 1948 and 1950 the circle was very active and held semimonthly meetings, along with weekly seminars on clinical practice and theory.

In 1950 Dr. Eric Wittkower of the British Psychoanalytic Society came to the Allan Memorial Institute. Then in 1951 Georges Zavitzianos, a member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris, immigrated to Montreal. In the autumn of that same year, Dr. Alastair MacLeod, of the British Psychoanalytic Society, was hired by the psychiatry department of McGill University. Finally, in September 1952 Dr. Bruce Ruddick, who had just completed his training at the New York Institute, returned to Montreal.

With the arrival of these four psychoanalysts, all members of organizations recognized by the IPA, members of the circle felt that it was time to seek official status. Since recognition could only be granted to members who belonged to an affiliate group, Théo Chentrier, Alastair MacLeod, Miguel Prados, Bruce Ruddick, Eric Wittkower, and Georges Zavitzianos formed a study group and applied to the IPA, hoping to be recognized at the 1951 congress. As the bylaws required a recommendation from an affiliate group, they turned to the Detroit Psychoanalytic Society, which was familiar with the circle, to obtain recognition as an independent organization and affiliate of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APA). Since the APA had recently discredited the Detroit training program, it was suggested to the study group that they contact the Boston Psychoanalytic Society, which they never did. At the end of September 1951, the group learned that during the congress in Amsterdam, its request had been referred to the office of professional standards of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Although the professional-standards committee may have supported the request, the APA's official response was that the time was not right: a member of the group was an analyst but not a physician, and the Canadians were planning to admit lay analysts.

Faced with this situation, the study group withdrew its request to the American association and turned to the British Psychoanalytic Society, which granted them membership after no more than a few weeks of deliberation. As a result, in March 1952 the Canadian Society of Psychoanalysts became an affiliate of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Chentrier was the president, and MacLeod the secretary. The response from the APA was immediate. They let it be known that the Marienbad Agreement of the 1936 IPA congress gave them exclusive control over all of North America. The British Psychoanalytic Society replied that since Canada was part of the British empire, it was only fair that it serve as sponsor in this case. The Americans rejected out of hand a compromise that would have involved joint sponsorship from both associations. In July 1952, after lengthy negotiations, the British Psychoanalytic Society indicated that it would not oppose an agreement with the APA if this solution would help to establish in Canada a psychoanalytic society recognized by the IPA. To facilitate negotiations with the Americans, Chentrier, who was not a physician, decided in August 1952 to give up the presidency of the Canadian Society of Psychoanalysts. MacLeod became president, and Ruddick secretary. After being dissolved on October 17, 1953, the society was replaced by the Canadian Society for Psychoanalysis. But more important, in October 1952 Prados proposed dissolving the Montreal Psychoanalytic Circle because he was convinced that the Americans confused it with the Canadian Society of Psychoanalysts, which consisted exclusively of member analysts. These concessions turned out to be pointless because the Americans never granted affiliate status to the Canadian group.

On October 17, 1953, the group was officially formed as the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. In December 1953 the group withdrew its request for membership in the APA and reaffirmed its membership in the British Psychoanalytic Society, which had never been abandoned. Because Canada is bicultural, with equal weight given to French and English, it was decided that the society would officially be bilingual. During the summer of 1953, Dr. Jean-Baptiste Boulanger, his wife Françoise, and Dr. J. P. Labrecque, all of whom were trained by the Société Psychanalytique de Paris, became members of the study group. The following year, Dr. W. Clifford M. Scott, a Canadian psychoanalyst who had become president of the British Psychoanalytic Society; Drs. Hans and Friedl Aufreiter of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society; and André Lussier, who was completing his training at the London Institute, joined the new organization. Initially incorporated in Quebec by the lieutenant-governor of the province in 1955, it became incorporated under Canadian federal law on April 3, 1967. And with the sponsorship of the British Psychoanalytic Society, it became officially recognized as a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association on July 31, 1957, during the twentieth IPA congress.

The British Psychoanalytic Society also sponsored the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis. This professional organization made its initial foray into the professional sphere in 1954 in a university setting, at the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University (directed by Dr. Ewen Cameron). With the help of Doctor Clifford Scott, agreements were concluded in mid-1954 to initiate a training program identical to that of the British Institute, with three training analysts. After thriving in Britain for a quarter century, Scott, at Cameron's request, returned to Montreal to run the program. The way was now open for training future analysts.

The first students had already begun their training in Montreal, London, Paris, or the United States. Scott helped them complete their training. The other analysts supported this decision, with the exception of Cameron, who had integrated psychoanalysis in his program at the university so it would be under his direct control. When Cameron refused to hire another training analyst, Scott and the other colleagues realized they could avoid his controlling efforts only by forming their own autonomous institute. The training committee of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society developed and introduced a teaching program in 1958. The first seminar was held on April 4, 1959. On October 1, 1960, members of the society ratified a proposal recommending the creation and incorporation of the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis, which was done on March 17, 1961, in Quebec. Jean-Baptiste Boulanger was the first director. The first training program, in 1959, had twelve teachers for thirteen students. Of the thirty-seven candidates trained from 1959 to 1967, eleven were French speakers.

Around 1968 and 1969, for cultural as well as geographic reasons, a federal model was used to create different sections within the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. A French-speaking section was created in Montreal, the Société Psychanalytique de Montréal, and an English-speaking section in Quebec, the CPS Quebec English Branch. In Ontario the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society was formed. Currently, at the start of the twenty-first century, the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society has approximately four hundred members, seven sections, and three institutes. In addition to those already mentioned, which have had an associated institute since their formation, three sections—the South Western Ontario Psychoanalytic Society (located in London), the Société Psychanalytique de Québec, and the CPS Western Canadian Branch—do not yet have an institute, while the Ottawa Psychoanalytic Society is still in the process of formation, since it does not have the requisite number of training analysts (five). Service agreements have been concluded with the CPS Quebec English Branch so that candidates of the Ottawa Psychoanalytic Society can continue to be trained locally. For the CPS Western Canadian Branch, the national executive committee recently authorized two training analysts from the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society in the United States to work with the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute to train candidates in Western Canada locally. Candidates of the Société de Québec must complete their training in Montreal, since the Quebec group has only a single training analyst. Candidates of the Western Canadian Branch in Ontario undergo training at the Toronto Institute.

The CPS Quebec English Branch consists of analysts from Montreal from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds who concentrated on English language and culture when sections were created in 1969. As of 2002, it consisted of a hundred members. The training program of its institute was, until the first few years of the twenty-first century, much more academic than that of the Société de Psychanalyse de Montréal (SPM). Since 2000, the CPS Quebec English Branch has added European authors such as Piera Aulagnier, Wilfred Bion, and Jacques Lacan to the fourth-year program.

Psychoanalysis has also made progress in Toronto. In September 1954, Alan Parkin, who had just completed his training in London, England, arrived in the city. In 1956 he created the Toronto Psychoanalytic Study Circle with a core of eleven psychiatrists with an interest in psychoanalysis. He attempted to establish a psychoanalysis training program at the department of psychiatry of the University of Toronto and obtain recognition for his study group from the Ontario Psychiatric Institute. After two years of activity the circle decided to transform itself into the psychotherapy section of the Ontario Psychiatric Society by opening its doors to all members of that association. The request was ratified on January 23, 1959, and two years later, on January 20, 1961, the psychotherapy section held its first scientific congress. In his History of Psychoanalysis in Canada, Parkin comments on the prodigious growth of this section, which in January 1970 had no fewer than ninety-three members. The establishment of psychoanalysis within the context of psychiatry helped determine the medical orientation psychoanalysis assumed in Ontario. This growth continued until psychoanalytic psychologists of the Ontario Psychological Association, with the support of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, decided, at the end of the 1980s, to found their own organization, the Toronto Contemporary Society, and their own institute, the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Initially, candidates training at the new institute were not physicians; then psychiatrists began to apply to the organization, although it was not a part of the IPA. They were attracted by the diversity of approaches used in its training program and wanted to escape the incessant conflicts between Freudian and Kohutian factions that divided the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society. The Toronto Psychoanalytic Society would likely have split if there had not emerged a third group, the post-Kleinians, whose members were partisans of object-relations theory and followers of Margaret Mahler and Otto Kernberg. Their emergence prevented the complete polarization of the society. Today the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society has approximately 130 members.

After the formation of the first three sections of the society and the institute, other sections were created when at least five analysts or training analysts belonging to the same geographic or cultural community submitted a request. In 1972 the Ottawa Psychoanalytic Society was formed, followed by the Ottawa Institute in 1978. Then, also in 1978, the CPS Western Canadian Branch was founded, consisting of members scattered throughout the four western provinces. Donald Watterson, in Vancouver, was the first psychoanalyst to settle in British Colombia, yet there was little growth in psychoanalysis in the province until the end of the twentieth century. Julius Guild settled in Edmonton, Alberta, followed by Perry Segal in 1971 and Hassan Azim in 1973, but as of 1998 there was only one analyst in Calgary and two in Edmonton. Similar numbers were found in Winnipeg and Manitoba. Even though it covers an area that is roughly a third of Canada, the CPS Western Canadian Branch currently has only ten members: six in British Colombia, three in Alberta, and one in Manitoba.

The Southwestern Ontario Psychoanalytic Society is the sixth section of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. It was founded on June 5, 1982, and currently has fourteen members. Formed in 1988, the Société Psychanalytique de Québec (Quebec Psychoanalytic Society), with ten members, is the most recent of the seven sections of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. The senior member is Henri Richard, who began practicing after psychoanalytic training in Paris from 1952 to 1959. A few years later he was joined by Noël Montgrain, who had also studied at the Institut de Psychanalyse de Paris (Paris Institute for Psychoanalysis). There is currently no organization in the maritime provinces of eastern Canada. Aside from the cultural and economic centers of Montreal and Toronto, psychoanalysis throughout Canada has grown very slowly.

For years oral communication was the primary mode of transmission within the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. The first generations of analysts were more absorbed with fundamental issues and transmission than in the preparation of written texts. Although a number of practitioners—such as W. Clifford M. Scott, Georges Zavitzianos, Jean-Baptiste Boulanger, Jean-Louis Langlois, Paul Lefebvre, André Lussier, Jean Bossé, Pierre Doucet, Guy Da Silva, and Roger Dufresne—wrote important articles, they spent the majority of their time training future generations of analysts.

The ephemeral character of psychoanalytic reviews bears witness to the phenomenon. The first issue of the Revue canadienne de psychanalyse, published in 1954 and sponsored by the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, was the final one until the reappearance, nearly forty years later in the spring of 1993, of the semiannual bilingual Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis/Revue canadienne de psychanalyse, edited by Eva Lester. Similarly, the Société Psychanalytique de Montréal has, since 1988, published an internal periodical three times a year, the Bulletin de la Société Psychanalytique de Montréal. Julien Bigras, however, was the first to promote written communication within the psychoanalytic community with the review Inter-prétation, of which he was the founder and editor-in-chief from 1967 to 1971. Josette Garon, Jacques Mauger, Lise Monette, and François Peraldi continued his efforts with the publication of Frayages. In the autumn of 1992, Dominique Scarfone published the first issue of Trans, a semiannual, semithematic, interdisciplinary journal. The journal played a key role in encouraging the exchange of psychoanalytic ideas and also played an important role in the Montreal psychoanalytic community by organizing annual colloquia open to the public. Despite this success, the editorial committee decided to discontinue publication in the spring of 1999 with the publication of issue ten of the journal. The year 1992 also saw the introduction of the semiannual Filigrane, financed by the publication of Santé mentale au Québec and directed at psychotherapists and professional psychoanalysts whose clinical methods were compatible with psychoanalysis.

Patrick J. Mahoney, Jean Imbeault, and Dominique Scarfone are among the first analysts to make significant contributions on an international level to a critical analysis of the psychoanalytic corpus.

In Canada, as elsewhere, the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and its various sections are not the only entities involved in psychoanalysis. Alongside them have always existed unaffiliated psychoanalysts working alone or in small groups. Among the first to practice psychoanalysis outside an institutional context was Michel Dansereau, a doctor who had trained with René Laforgue in Casablanca, Morocco, and was active during the 1950s. Much later were François Peraldi, who arrived in Montreal in 1974, and Mireille Lafortune, who was active during the late 1960s.

There also exist many organizations devoted to psychoanalysis. In 1986 François Peraldi established the Réseau des Cartels (Network of Cartels), composed of analysts interested in the work of Jacques Lacan. This network did not survive the loss of its founder, and in 2004 only a single cartel is still active. The Association des Psychanalystes du Québec (Quebec Association of Psychoanalysts), founded in 1967 and having only ten members in 2004, is Lacanian in focus. The Association des Psychothérapeutes Psychanalytique du Québec (Quebec Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists), founded in 1985 and consisting of some 150 members in different regions of Quebec, includes clinicians who make use of psychoanalytic methods. The association organizes colloquia and conferences, to which members of the Société Psychanalytique de Montréal are invited. The Groupe d'Études Psychanalytiques Interdisciplinaires (Interdisciplinary Psychoanalytic Study Group) consists of some fifteen professors from the Université de Québec at Montreal who teach psychoanalysis while practicing. The Institut Québécois de Psychothérapie (Quebec Psychotherapy Institute), which has existed since 1992, provides a two-year training program in analytic and systemic psychotherapy. Father Henri Samson, who trained in France and was a contemporary of Father Mailloux, founded the Institut de Psychothérapie de Québec in the 1960s for those who wanted training in analytic psychotherapy. The Groupe Interdisciplinaire Freudien de Recherches et d'Interventions Cliniques et Culturelles (Interdisciplinary Group for Freudian Research and Clinical and Cultural Interventions), founded by Willy Apollon and cooperating with psychiatrists from the Robert-Giffard Center, has gained a considerable reputation in analytic psychotherapy based on Lacanian principles, especially in its work with psychotic patients. The Cercle Jung de Québec (Quebec Jung Circle), founded in the 1970s by Marcel Gaumont, a Jungian analyst trained at the Jung Institute in Zurich, promotes Jungian psychoanalysis in Canada through public conferences and discussions. André Renaud, a psychoanalyst with the Société Psychanalytique de Québec, established in 1984, and ran until 1996, Étayage (Support), a training program for doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers who wanted to study analytic psychotherapy. Finally, a group of analytic psychotherapists has also been at work in British Columbia in Western Canada.

JACQUES VIGNEAULT