The Association seeks to provide as complete an understanding of psychoanalysis and its founder, including (1) the history of the discovery of psychoanalysis,;(2) the biography of Freud, his relatives, his disciples and psychoanalysts who have succeeded; (3) the history of the psychoanalytic movement since its origin, including international developments through its major divisions or branches; (4) the place of psychoanalysis in the history of science and ideas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and (5) the relationship of psychoanalysis with the general history and the political, socio-economic and cultural conditions of the time.

Joyce McDougall’s brilliant work as a psychoanalytic clinician and educator left a lasting mark on the understanding of psychosomatic illness and perversion through her innovative application of psychoanalytic theory.

Jean-Bertrand Pontalis' work included a foundational contribution to the field of psychoanalysis in 1967 with the publication of The Language of Psychoanalysis, co-authored with Jean Laplanche. The work became an essential reference — a rigorous mapping of psychoanalytic concepts that has remained indispensable to clinicians and theorists alike.

Riccardo Steiner was born and educated in Italy before moving to England in the 1970s to do his training in psychoanalysis.