The Swiss Psychoanalytic Society (SGPsa), consisting of physicians and non-physicians, was created in 1919. The Swiss Medical Society for Psychoanalysis, or Schweizerische Ärztegeselleschaft für Psychoanalyse, is the result of a rift that took place within the first society in 1928.

In 1928 Emil Oberholzer and Rudolf Brun founded a medical society for psychoanalysis, which admitted only physicians as full members, non-physicians being considered as no more than "scientific collaborators or collaborators in their specialty." This new society applied to be admitted to the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) in 1929. The central committee of the IPA rejected the application in the following terms: "After careful consideration of the question the central committee feels obliged to reject this application because it deems the reasons given in justification of this new foundation to be insufficient. It deeply regrets...