After World War I, psychoanalysis was diffused among artists and pedagogues, but the discipline was condescendingly dismissed by the leading university professors in philosophy, psychology, and psychiatry.

After hearing a speech by Ernest Jones in 1926, though, the psychologist Sigurd Næsgaard became the first Dane to undertake a serious study of Freud. In February 1933, Wilhelm Reich gave a speech in Copenhagen and the IPA was requested to allow him to come to Denmark as a training analyst; the answer, however, was negative. Instead the Danes were offered Jenö Hárnik from the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Berlin. Unfortunately he turned out to be psychically ill, and all that survives of his brief stay in Denmark are the reports of the scandal caused by his behavior. Reich was to come to Denmark anyway in May 1933, but as a political refugee. He was only granted six months' asylum, which was not extended, as he was suspected of practicing psychoanalysis without the requisite work permit.

Reich nonetheless remained in touch with a circle of disciples in Denmark during his ensuing stays in Sweden and Norway. Another influence came from Oskar Pfister, who enjoyed a certain popularity among prominent theologians and teachers. He gave a series of much-attended talks in Copenhagen in 1936.

From 1930 on, a series of more or less short-lived psychoanalytic societies were founded in Denmark, all marked by their respective founders and leaders. The most important was the group that surrounded Sigurd Næsgaard, who in the public eye was largely identified with Danish psychoanalysis. Another group was led by P. C. Petersen, who had a background in dairy production, and it represented especially the inspiration of Pfister. A third group arose around Reich's Danish pupils, led by the physicians J. H. Leunbach and T. Philipson; these were known in particular for their work in the movement for sexual reform.

The person with the greatest influence on the establishment of psychoanalysis in Denmark was Sigurd Næsgaard (1883-1956). He started as a teacher and then completed a university degree in philosophy and psychology. He had strong roots in the Danish high school movement, and considered general education, education reform, and sexual freedom his most important goals. As a psychoanalyst he was self-taught. His large authorship is characterized by a popularizing tendency and a predilection for pat and quick-witted interpretations. He is known for his analyses of a number of the important cultural figures of his time, among others the painter Asger Jorn. Some of the leading Danish IPA analysts after World War II also started their analytic careers on his couch.

The Danish-Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society that was founded at the IPA congress in 1934 had only one member with a Danish address, the Hungarian Georg Gerö, a pupil of Reich who had been educated at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Berlin. Under pressure from the IPA, Gerö broke with Reich around 1937. The only known work of his in Denmark today is his training analysis of the psychiatrist Poul Færgeman. Gerö emigrated to the United States at the beginning of World War II.

Færgeman (1912-67) left for the United States in 1946 to terminate the training analysis he had started with Gerö in Denmark. He later became a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, but returned to Denmark in 1960 and joined the Danish society. He is best known for his work with psychogenic psychoses (Færgeman, 1963). Because of his premature death he was not to have the influence on Danish psychoanalysis to which he seemed entitled.

After the war, Næsgaard and Petersen each established new societies. Both sought admission to the IPA, but since neither had had IPA-accredited training, they were unsuccessful. Instead, the initiative slid to another group. The Swedish analyst Nils Nielsen, member of the IPA, came to Denmark in 1949 with a view towards starting a number of training analyses and founding a psychoanalytic society. The Danish psychiatrists Thorkil Vanggaard and Erik Bjerg Hansen, who had received accredited psychoanalytic training in New York and Vienna, respectively, later joined Nielsen. Their Danish Psychoanalytic Society attained status as a study group under the IPA in 1953 and obtained full IPA membership in 1957. The society hosted the international IPA congresses in 1959 and 1967. The accession of members was low, as was the level of activity throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Thorkil Vanggaard (1910-1998)) was the strong leader of the Danish Psychoanalytic Society in the years following World War II. He received his psychoanalytic training in New York with Robert Bak as his training analyst. His psychoanalytic authorship is not prolific, but a fairly original theory of the phallus as a meditating symbol in connection with the transfer of authority from master to pupil merits mention (Vanggaard, 1972). He was vice president of the IPA from 1967 to 1969, but then began to move away from psychoanalysis and left the psychoanalytic society in 1984. He is known to the Danish public rather for his highly controversial position on gender roles and incest than as a psychoanalyst.

Not till 1980 was the increasing general interest in psychoanalysis reflected in the number of members. Among the Danish public, psychoanalysis has mainly been represented by psychologists, researchers and writers with no analytical training (e.g., Andkjær Olsen and Køppe, 1988).

In the 1990s the Danish Psychoanalytic Society had around 30 full members, of whom more than one third are from the southern part of Sweden, having chosen to belong to the Danish society due to the fact that Copenhagen is closer than Stockholm. There is no institute, and the society depends greatly on its collaboration with the other Scandinavian societies, who among other things have cooperated since 1978 on the publication of the Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review (in English).

Among the societies that do not belong to the IPA are the Group Analytic Institute (established with the support of the British group analysts Colin James and Malcolm Pines) and the Psychoanalytic Circle (Lacanian).

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